ABSTRACT
Language and literacy are cultivated through ongoing storytelling and quality interaction with the practitioners who support and develop children’s ideas and inquiry, creative thinking and collaboration with others. Communication and language are vital skills for children to succeed not only in their early years but into adolescence and their adult lives, and the foundations start from birth. Everything practitioners do with children provides opportunities to develop their communication skills; however, those experiences that provide a sensory element are fantastic for building vocabulary and building confidence along the way. They are also accessible to all children, regardless of their communicative ability or educational need, as they are open-ended, process-based opportunities. Malleable materials are materials that children can shape themselves by pulling, stretching, pushing, rolling, squeezing, poking or pinching. Play dough or clay is great for this. Sharing stories together often sparks the imagination.
