INL - Junior & Senior Infants Literacy

Module 1: Play & Oral Language 1

• Organise, compile & roll out the 15-week 'read at home' initiative
• Plan and organise for children’s play as a support to language
• Provide opportunities for children to talk about his/her play across themes, to be heard and, in turn, to be the listener
• Plan and develop concepts, dispositions and skills in relation to key language outcomes during playtime & routines
• Grow oral language through socio-dramatic play and language interactions and experiences that are both challenging and supportive
• Describe the Aistear framework in detail
• Engage pupils in purposeful, meaningful, playful oral language games and learning activities
• Incorporate inclusive/differentiated approaches and effective methodologies

Module 2: Oral Language 2

• Purposefully develop children’s speaking and listening skills through a systematic oral language lesson approach, delivering PLC learning outcomes
• Implement the ‘interactive read-aloud’ and ‘shared reading’ approaches
• Support pupils to talk, respond and apply critical thinking as they listen to / read, discuss, share and dialogue about books
• Create opportunities for children to share thoughts and opinions on texts in a range of genres across curriculum
• Foster pupil motivation to learn through implementing a structured story approach to oral language skills development, through whole-class discussion of the story that has been read
• Assess pupils oral language skills & decide the  next steps in learning

Module 3: Reading

• Assemble and practice a range of pre-reading skills development activities
• Compile and teach the 42-letter sound code of phoneme/grapheme correspondences
• Develop children’s blending skills for reading
• Teach word identification and word reading strategies
• Use routines and strategies for teaching the many irregular tricky words that appear in texts to be read
• Utilise the shared reading and guided reading approach to reading skills development
• Teach and extend children’s vocabulary by taking a systematic rich story and poetry lesson approach
• Explicitly teach a range of comprehension strategies to support children’s response to text read
• Assess reading skills development/progression & plan next steps

Module 4: Writing

• Assemble, teach and practice various pre-writing and early handwriting patterns and cursive writing skills development activities
• Utilise a modelled and shared writing approach to early texts
• Implement the successful think/draw/talk/write approach to children’s writing
• Provide students with rich motivating content and topics to freely write and share almost daily
• Take a structured lesson writing process approach to create texts independently or collaboratively
• Create texts with the typical structure and language features associated with various genres
• Assess writing skills development and plan the next steps.

Module 5: Poems & Rhymes

• Develop and implement a public speaking skills-building programme in infants
• Create a rich classroom environment that truly supports literacy and language learning
• Implement a strong phonological awareness programme
• Utilise digital technologies and tools to support the achievement of language learning outcomes
• Implement the 10 evidence-based practices and productive pedagogical approaches to language teaching and learning
• Consider the opportunities pupils have to reflect on their progress as learners and to develop a sense of ownership of and responsibility for their language learning.