Suggestions and General Approach
Oral Language
The encouragement of concise self-expression in speech
through the form of discussion, poetry, and the narration of stories and
experiences. Methods such as "forging links" and "orbiting the
story" will provide a varied approach to the process of oral language
development. As the children approach their final year in primary school, it is
necessary to assess the extent to which the aims of the curriculum have been
realised, and whether or not the children are articulate and confident in their
use of English. The importance of oral language cannot be over-stressed because
to expect the children to write fluently in English without allowing them the
facility to express themselves orally is to lose sight entirely of the purpose
of language. Discussion enables both child and teacher to integrate and
accordingly every opportunity should be availed of to enable the pupils to
develop their powers of expression.
- News: Local, national and international. Some attempt
at analysis without inflicting too many of our own biases.
- Project Work: Discussion of approaches to projects,
aims of projects, people to be interviewed. Reporting on project to fellow
pupils.
- Television Programmes: Introduction to media education
- critical evaluation of programmes.
- Art: Description of work done, critical evaluation of
pieces of art which are reproduced in texts.
- Cloze Procedure: Analysis of various stories,
discussion on reasons for choosing certain words
- Moral Judgements - stealing
- Houses/homes
- Animals/hunting
- Machinery V Humans
- Extremities - bigger than peers, smaller than peers
- Rich/poor
- Animal instincts/habits
- Advertisements - bias in media
- Clubs
- Children missing
- Natural disasters
- Disabilities
- Different tribes
- Thieves
- Fire safety
- Savings
- Journeys
- Explorations
Reading
The main goal of the reading programme is to teach the
children how to read, but the ultimate objective is to foster an enjoyment of
reading. The two main aims are subsumed under the headings of reading to learn
and learning to read.
Core Reading Books:
- White Fire and Other Stories
- Short Story Anthology 2
Other Reading Material
- Red Hugh
- Benny and Omar
- A Farming Home
- A Winter of Spies
- Benny and Babe
- No Peace for Amelia
- Lockie and Dadge
- Wildflower Girl
Suggestions and General Approach
- Oral reading - necessary for those who are weak in
reading ability. Oral reading for all pupils is unnecessary, though it can
occasionally be undertaken to help elimination of poor enunciation, lack of
expression, repetition and ignorance of punctuation.
- Silent reading - reading for pleasure. Importance of
school library.
- Functional reading -through this, the child should
improve his ability to comprehend and absorb. Regular work on the following
are essential :
- Finding the answers to specific questions
- Skimming reading material to locate information
- Reading to find essential points
- Drawing conclusions
- Form filling (driving licence, t-v licence)
- Reading time tables
- Reading league tables
- Written instructions
- Map information
- Letters
- Statistics
- Telephone messages
- Money language (writing of cheques).
- Reading research : Ability to use reference books to
the full through the use of tables of contents, indices and chapter
headings. Note taking of relevant material; ability to select, abbreviate
and transcribe useful material and phrases.
- Using a dictionary
- Using an encyclopaedia
- Using a library - Dewey System
- Newspapers, pamphlets, brochures
Language Structure, Grammar and Punctuation
Revision of the following topics
- Gender of nouns
- Plurals - regular and irregular
- Between and among
- Subject, Predicate and object
- Use of apostrophe
- Tenses - past, present and future
- Neither/nor; either/or
- Adjectives and adverbs
- Collective nouns
- Adverbs
- Full stops
- Capital letters
- Exclamation mark
- Inverted commas
- Question mark
- Pronoun
- Abbreviations
- Contractions
Writing
- Basic skills such as the use of capital letters, commas,
full stops, question and exclamation marks, inverted commas and apostrophes.
- Paragraphing
- The structuring of sentences. The aim is to develop
sentence structure by proper use of conjunctions.
- Structuring of essays. Introduction, middle and
conclusion. Study texts to see how they are structured - when paragraphs occur,
and how conclusions are presented.
- Proper use of adjectives and adverbs.
- Letter writing.
- Project work.
- Word Processing : Production of a class magazine
Topics
- A Brave Deed that I witnessed
- The Fox and the Chickens
- The Traffic Jam
- The Morning after I became a Giant
- Our School - a letter to a pen pal
- A Surprise Birthday Party
- One evening after dark I was sitting alone in the
kitchen....
- My Gang
- Two children have been reported missing...
- An Old Man tells his Story
- Crossing the
- Residents Abandon Seaside
Town
- Weather Warning!!
- Be safe, be seen.
Other Topics
Based on reading, flights of fancy, listening to music,
television programmes, integrated with history, e.g., being at Clontarf when
O'Connell's meeting was cancelled; a messenger in the G.P.O. during the 1916
Rebellion; on board Wolfe Tone's ship, Being on the Titanic in 1913, etc. This
section of the programme will be very strongly based on the children's own
environment - a trip to the Round Tower, a trip to St Colmcille's
Well, a walk to the Estuary, Dublin Airport etc.
Poetry
- Give the children the opportunity to hear, recite and
write poetry. Explanation of ideas, showing why poet opted for one word instead
of another.
- Simple analysis of poems will be undertaken to heighten
the children's awareness. The poems will be examined under three main headings:
- What is the poet saying?
- How does he say it? [Language used, suitability etc]
- Does he succeed?
Phonics and Spellings
See separate spelling programme
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