Pascal and Bertram, 2013). In England, this ongoing focus is embedded in the recent Department for Education report Unlocking Talent. Fulfilling Potential (DFE, 2017) which sets out a series of key-life-stage ambitions, starting with the early years, to "improve social mobility through education" (6).A significant aspect of government policy to ameliorate the impact of poverty is a focus on early language and literacy. This includes an often-stated commitment to phonics teaching, and a strong focus on children's spoken language (OFSTED, 2017;DFE, 2017; NCTL, 2013). Indeed, the report cited above (DFE, 2017) has as its "first key life-stage ambition" (8) an explicit aim to "close the word gap in the early years" (8). It aims to support this by ensuring that disadvantaged children have a rich early language environment and attend highquality early years provision. Raising the quality of provision in disadvantaged areas, it argues, will be achieved by spreading best practice and creating partnerships for change with children parents and families, the local authority, health and early years professionals, and expert organisations such as the "EEF [Education Endowment Foundation] and the EIF [Early Intervention Foundation]" (15). The role of the expert organisations is one of finding out "what works" (9) in supporting parents' and practitioners' knowledge and skills in this area. Good levels of funding are available for research and implementation of these initiatives. For example, the EEF (2019) currently has three large-scale early years interventions to test what works in developing parents' and early years practitioners' interaction skills to support children's language acquisition and development. The EIF has