There are three elements in the Primary Language Curriculum for English – Oral Language, Reading and Writing. Read on to find some tips for each area of your child’s development.

Oral Language

Parents can do much to nurture oral language development in their children through creative and focused quality time spent with them. Here are some simple ideas:

Talk to your child.

Finding time to do this is not necessary if you remember to talk to your child whenever you are together.

  • Talk about the day’s events, a book the child has read, or the traffic signs you both see along the way whenever you are in a car together
  • Ask your child to point out specific foods or household items. Describe the characteristics of a fruit (red, crunchy) and let the child identify it (apple)
  • Involve your child in writing shopping lists, planning trips and helping you at home (win, win!)
  • Playing board games is not only great for family bonding time but it really encourages language development – Monopoly, Risk, Hedbanz and Uno are just some examples
  • For younger children, nursery rhymes are excellent for early language skills.

Reading

Our children use phonics to help them learn to read. Each year, the Junior Infants parents are invited to a presentation from their son’s teacher to help them understand how children learn phonics and how they can be supported at home.

Here are the 4 basic skills of phonics:

  • Learning the letter sounds:

Children are taught 42 letter sounds, a mix of alphabet sounds (1 sound – 1 letter) and digraphs (1 sound – 2 letters) such as sh, th, ai and ue.  Using a multi-sensory approach, each letter sound is introduced with fun actions, stories and songs.

We teach the letter sounds in 7 groups of 6 letters at a pace of 2 sounds a week. Children can start reading after the first group of letters have been taught.

  • Blending:

Children are taught how to blend the sounds together to read and write new words. Children should be exposed to blending being modelled by their teacher after the first set of sounds has been taught (s, a, t, i, p, n). They should begin attempting to blend soon after this.

  • Identifying the sounds in words( segmenting):

Listening for the sounds in words gives children the best start for improving spelling.

  •  Tricky Words:

Tricky words have irregular spellings and children learn these separately. Tricky words are introduced after the children have become familiar with blending regular words.

Writing

3rd to 6th Classes use Spellings for Me. Spellings for Me is an online programme that delivers personalised spelling support for each pupil. Through their individual profiles, pupils complete customised tests, monitor their progress, and access tailored printable resources for additional practice.

In school, these classes use iPads to access the programme and they also use a workbook to help develop spelling strategies which are taught discretely in the classroom.

Handwriting

How your child sits and how he holds his pencil are fundamental to helping improve his handwriting. Correct letter formation is also important. You will find all of this information here:

https://data.cjfallon.ie/resources/gwtf-handwriting/index.html#!/

Don’t forget to read about why we are a cursive writing school and also check out our star writers each month!