Presented and produced by Seán Delaney

Theme tune by David Vesey

On this week's programme I continue my conversation on teaching literacy in the early years with Dr. Tara Concannon-Gibney from Dublin City University. The occasion was to mark the publication by Routledge of Tara's book Teaching Essential Literacy Skills in the Early Years Classroom: A Guide for Students and Teachers. Among the topics we discuss on this week's programme are:

Her definition of literacy
Digital texts and literacy
Why some children struggle with reading
How parents can help their child to read
How a parent should react to a child reading when the child comes to a word that is not known
Advice for choosing a book for a child
The benefits of repetitive reading of texts
Poetry and literacy skills
How she became interested in the area of literacy
How she went about writing the book

In the course of our interview Tara mentioned texts by the following writers: Mem Fox, Georgia Heard, Lucy Calkins, Oliver Jeffers, Hervé Tullet, and Julia Donaldson.

Programme 354, Tara Concannon-Gibney on Early Years Literacy 2 (20-2-19)