World Book Day 2023
World Book Day 2022
We celebrated World Book Day on Thursday, March 3rd. There were an array of costumes and characters on display. Second to Sixth class also participated in a Zoom call from author and illustrator Caitriona Sweeney.
Literacy Week 2020Children from junior infants to 2nd visited the library. The librarian read a story to them and played language games with them.
The children also dressed up as their favourite book character.
Poet, Pete Mullineaux, visited all the children in our school and facilitated them in creating some beautiful pieces of work.
World Book Day 7th March 2019 |
Literacy Links
Looking for a fun website to help your child with english (phonics and reading)? Try starfall or teach your monster to read for Junior and Senior Infants.
Building Bridges for Understanding
Building Bridges of Understanding
Building Bridges of Understanding is a whole school approach to the teaching of reading. Its primary focus is the teaching of comprehension, with the ultimate aim of enabling children to become self- regulated strategic readers.
This programme is currently implemented from Junior Infants right through to Sixth Class. Eight individual strategies are modelled through a think aloud process using high quality fiction and non-fiction picture books. (Click here complete list of these books. Perhaps some are lying on shelves unused in your home? We would happily accept donations of all of these!)
The eight key strategies are:
How can you help your child?
Allow time for reading every day at home.
Ask your child about the strategies above.
Encourage the use of these strategies when reading.
Questions & Examples
Some questions on Predicting may include: I think this story is about……; I predict that ……….will happen next; From what I know, I don’t think………;
Some questions on Visualising may include: When I read this I can see…….; I can see a picture in my head, it looks like this………; I can see, hear, smell……;
Some questions on Connecting (connecting to real life experiences) may include: That reminds me of a time when…….; That reminds me of another book; That reminds me of somebody who….;
Some examples of Questioning may include: I wonder if……; Who/what /where/when/why/how....;
Some examples of Inferring (like Predicting but needs to be backed up with a reason) are: Using these clues I can infer that…….; It could meant that…….;
An example of Clarifications (making sense of words/phrases in the story) is: When I get stuck on a word I can……; Further strategies may be: Where have I seen that word before?; I will use a dictionary;
Some examples of Determining Importance (picking out the V.I.P.’s or very important points I need to know about the story) are: This is mostly about…; The important details were…….;
When a reader comes across a word that they cannot understand (we call this a clunk), then they need to ‘declunk’ it. The children learn techniques for decoding these words through the declunking strategy, breaking the words down into prefixes, suffixes, using contextual clues, etc.
Some examples of Synthesising (using prior knowledge to form opinions i.e. reading between the lines) may include: This was mostly about……; The important details were……;
Building Bridges of Understanding is a whole school approach to the teaching of reading. Its primary focus is the teaching of comprehension, with the ultimate aim of enabling children to become self- regulated strategic readers.
This programme is currently implemented from Junior Infants right through to Sixth Class. Eight individual strategies are modelled through a think aloud process using high quality fiction and non-fiction picture books. (Click here complete list of these books. Perhaps some are lying on shelves unused in your home? We would happily accept donations of all of these!)
The eight key strategies are:
- Prediction,
- Visualisation,
- Making Connections,
- Questioning,
- Clarifying,
- Determining Importance,
- Declunking,
- Inferring and Synthesising.
How can you help your child?
Allow time for reading every day at home.
Ask your child about the strategies above.
Encourage the use of these strategies when reading.
Questions & Examples
Some questions on Predicting may include: I think this story is about……; I predict that ……….will happen next; From what I know, I don’t think………;
Some questions on Visualising may include: When I read this I can see…….; I can see a picture in my head, it looks like this………; I can see, hear, smell……;
Some questions on Connecting (connecting to real life experiences) may include: That reminds me of a time when…….; That reminds me of another book; That reminds me of somebody who….;
Some examples of Questioning may include: I wonder if……; Who/what /where/when/why/how....;
Some examples of Inferring (like Predicting but needs to be backed up with a reason) are: Using these clues I can infer that…….; It could meant that…….;
An example of Clarifications (making sense of words/phrases in the story) is: When I get stuck on a word I can……; Further strategies may be: Where have I seen that word before?; I will use a dictionary;
Some examples of Determining Importance (picking out the V.I.P.’s or very important points I need to know about the story) are: This is mostly about…; The important details were…….;
When a reader comes across a word that they cannot understand (we call this a clunk), then they need to ‘declunk’ it. The children learn techniques for decoding these words through the declunking strategy, breaking the words down into prefixes, suffixes, using contextual clues, etc.
Some examples of Synthesising (using prior knowledge to form opinions i.e. reading between the lines) may include: This was mostly about……; The important details were……;