Teachers’ Perspectives of the Socio-Dramatic area of Aistear in Supporting the Development of Literacy Skills in the Infant Classroom

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to examine teachers’ perspectives of children’s literacy skills within the socio-dramatic area of Aistear in the infant classrooms. Despite the changes to the modern world, with everything becoming easily more accessible and available at the touch of a button, research has indicated that traditional literacy skills are fundamental for participation within a twenty-first century society. Despite Ireland’s impressive placing in recent PISA and PIRLS ratings, statistics have demonstrated that Ireland still needs to experience some change as 45% of young people in Ireland today are experiencing low levels of literacy skills (Central Statistics Office, 2013). In recent years, the primary school teaching community has increasingly become more appreciative of the value that playful learning methodologies has on children’s learning and development, most notably with the recent introduction of the Aistear (2009) Curriculum Framework into the infant classes of primary schools and a further review of the Primary School Curriculum to introduce a new Primary Language Curriculum in 2019. This study that was carried out was a qualitative study, in the form of semi-structured interviews with mainstream infant teachers in a non-DEIS school. The purpose of this study was to get an in-depth insight into teachers’ perspectives on the impact that socio-dramatic play has on infant children’s literacy skills. This study found that although the cohort of teachers that were involved in this study believed that socio-dramatic play has a role in developing literacy skills of infant children, they nevertheless felt that they were ill equipped with training, funding, time, space and resources to implement meaningful socio-dramatic play opportunities. Many iii teachers claim that a lack of continuous professional development when Aistear was first introduced into the infant classrooms is their source of uncertainty when implementing learning opportunities, such as literacy skills, within the socio-dramatic play area. Thus, highlighting the vital need for additional training and continuous professional development in the area of Aistear and playful learning methodologies, in order to tackle the issue at hand. Future studies and research could delve into what specific supports can be put in place to support teachers in implementing playful literacy learning opportunities within the socio-dramatic area.