Making it REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy)
Making it REAL is an award-winning early literacy programme that supports practitioners to work closely with families to strengthen children’s early reading and writing development.
The programme is based on research from the University of Sheffield by Professors Cathy Nutbrown and Peter Hannon, and is built around the ORIM framework:
Opportunities – providing chances for children to engage with literacy
Recognition – valuing children’s literacy efforts
Interaction – sharing literacy experiences together
Model – showing children how literacy is used in everyday life
Our practitioners use this approach through home visits and literacy-focused activities and experiences, helping parents build confidence and create a rich home learning environment.
Making it REAL has been developed through national funding and partnerships with local authorities across England. We were fortunate to receive funding from Essex County Council, giving us the opportunity to take part in a research project exploring the impact of Making it REAL events alongside our WellComm speech and language toolkit, which was generously donated to our setting. This combined approach has supported us in strengthening early identification of additional needs and deepening our work with families and wider support services.
This fantastic programme strengthens the link between home and early years settings, helping children get the best possible start in literacy.
“My child was completely engaged and immersed in the literacy home visit this morning. Kelli-Ann and Abbie brought a range of thoughtful resources, including large drawing paper, cars, pens, paints, and books, to support the session. Knowing that my child loves cars, they intentionally built the mark-making activity around his interests, which really captured his attention. We drew a racetrack with lines down the middle, which then developed organically to include pit stops (with rhyming names), volcanoes, rainbows, hailstones, sunshine, and rain. Through conversation, imagination, and encouragement, the practitioners helped extend his ideas, with the large sheet of paper gradually filling as the narrative grew. As parents, it was extremely helpful to observe this process. We could clearly see how talking through ideas and using imagination supported my child’s literacy development and sustained his engagement.
While we do mark-making activities at home such as colouring and drawing, this session showed us how we could better extend and build on his ideas in a more open-ended and creative way. We also recognised the importance of the mark-making process itself.
We especially enjoyed being able to observe my child engaged in a prolonged interaction with Abbie and Kelli-Ann. They have a close yet well‑boundaried relationship with him, and it was really lovely to see this in action. ”