The Sheffield REAL project: Raising Early Achievement in Literacy

Family Literacy Events

Events in June 2012 [pdf]

What is the REAL project?

The Sheffield REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) Project began in 1995 and was the largest preschool literacy intervention study in the UK. Central to the REAL project programme was the ORIM (Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction, Model) Framework. It is designed to think about ways in which families can help children’s early literacy development.

This website provides:

Information about the ORIM framework.
Examples of using ORIM with families.
Things which those who work with families can do to help parents of young children promote their early literacy development in home and community contexts.

It includes original materials from the project developed in 1997 and work carried out since.

What is the ORIM framework?

The ORIM framework is based around parents providing four things for their children: Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction and Models of literacy (Parents’ roles in children’s literacy development). It also focuses attention on four key strands of literacy: environmental print, books, early writing and aspects of oral language (ORIM: A framework for practice).

Finding Resources

Use the links at the top of the page or the grid below to find resources.


	Print	Books	Writing	Oral language
Opportunities	Providing opportunities for environmental print	Providing opportunities for using books	Providing oppo8rtunities for writing	Providing opportunities for using oral language
Recognition	Showing recognition of environmental print	Showing recognition of use of books	Showing recognition of writing development	Showing recognition of use of oral language
Interaction	Sharing interaction around environmental print	Sharing interaction around books	Sharing interaction around writing	Sharing interaction around oral language
Model	Providing a model of using environmental print	Providing a model of using books	Providing a model of using writing	Providing a model of using oral language

Copyright

We hope users of this website find the material useful. It is freely available for not-for-profit use by individuals and early years settings. Copyright remains with The University of Sheffield and individual authors. If you wish to use the material for other purposes please contact us: c.e.nutbrown@sheffield.ac.uk

Acknowledgements

Many of the materials on this site were developed in the REAL project funded jointly by the University of Sheffield, the Sheffield Local Authority and the Nuffield Foundation.

Photos and many ideas for current practice have been supplied by the National Children’s Bureau as part of ongoing development work ‘Making it REAL’ in partnership with the University of Sheffield School of Education, funded by the Big Lottery, and by practitioners on the project ‘A Framework for Early Literacy Development with Parents: Opportunities, Recognition, Interaction and Models’, funded by the ESRC.

The website was funded by the University of Sheffield HEIF4 Knowledge Transfer funding.

Webdesign: Paul Jinks

Content management: Cathy Nutbrown and Julia Bishop