Noisy homes 'hit nursery learning'

YOUNG children are entering nursery school unable to speak and listen properly because of continuous noise and poor conversation at home, according to education experts.

Televisions permanently switched on, noisy brothers and sisters and raised voices are increasingly hampering children's language skills, they say.

The study, on how the best schools teach children to read, says some schools report spending days or weeks educating parents and improving children's social skills.

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In some cases, children arrive at nursery still in nappies and with dummies in their mouths.

An Ofsted report published today today says: "The majority of the schools visited that had nursery classes commented that, increasingly, children joined unprepared for learning and with poor listening and speaking skills.

"Lack of preparation extended to children arriving who had not been toilet-trained and children with dummies in their mouths.

The study adds: "The schools attributed weak listening skills not only to poor conversation in the home but, very often, also to continuous background noise, such as constant television, the noise of siblings and raised voices, which are bound to dull sensitivity to the nuances of sounds."

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