Chatta - positive impact in speaking, writing and learning
From an article by Chatta
Children’s use of spoken language at the age of 5 is the single greatest indicator of progress in reading and writing. Around a third of children at age 5 are behind expected levels of attainment in spoken language. As an increasingly technology dependent society, people are communicating more but actually talking less.
Chatta has been designed to increase the quality and quantity of parent/child interaction and it leads to more opportunities for sharing stories and family conversation. Almost 50% of young parents prefer to communicate through social media than through talking.
Children learn to speak through interactions, shared stories, books and songs. Experiences link to modelled language from adults. Chatta makes this effortless in two ways. The first is through stories and learning activities shared with families by schools. The second is through providing parents with the Chatta software and regular activity ideas to enjoy with their children at home.
Whilst Chatta is very effective in the early years classroom, the powerful whole-class teaching approach helps students of all ages quickly gain skill and confidence is speaking articulately and at length in any subject area. Chatta gives children and young people the confidence to speak to any audience with sustained impact on writing, vocabulary and long-term memory.
Chatta uses technology to promote interaction and conversation and challenges the damaging impact of digital distraction in a high-impact way which schools and families embrace.
Chatta is a teaching approach which links images with language. It was developed following extensive work in hundreds of schools and with thousands of teachers and pupils. Chatta is used by teachers as a whole-class teaching resource with pupils aged 3 to 18, and also by teaching assistants as an intervention resource. Parents are central to Chatta and as well as being able to support learning with the Chatta resources they also use the Chatta app to make Chatta stories at home.
Chatta combines software, professional development and classroom resources and the unique, simple and powerful approach leads to impact in:
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Early Years Communication, Language and Literacy.
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Speaking skills, oracy and Writing for pupils of all ages.
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Removing barriers to learning for pupils with additional needs, including autism and dyslexia.
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Teaching English as an additional language.
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Closing gaps in attainment for disadvantaged pupils.
What has been the impact?
June 2019 data from a 2 year project in Hull has seen the percentage of children achieving or exceeding age-related expectations in speaking increase from 49% to 69% across a postcode district. 83% of the 542 children in this area achieved or exceeded age-related expectations in speaking. This is significantly above the national average.
A year long study of the impact of Chatta undertaken by Dr Victoria Carr of the Ignite Teaching School Alliance, Cheshire. The outcome of this small scale study found that children accessing Chatta made approximately 40% greater progress in both speaking and understanding than children in a control group, without Chatta.
In addition to a growing portfolio of impact data schools report ‘phenomenal’ and ‘unprecedented’ impact on both speaking and writing (especially with the number of children exceeding expectations and writing at greater depth) and many parents describe Chatta as ‘powerful’ and ‘life-changing.’
Chatta is one of the selected 100 innovations for the HundrED 2020 Global Collection.
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From an article by Chatta, 18/11/2020