Ireland · NCCA Curriculum Specifications
2nd Year The Power of Words: Exploring Literacy and Expression
This course develops Year 2 students as confident communicators through immersion in diverse texts and creative expression. Students refine their decoding skills while building deep comprehension and expressive writing abilities across multiple genres.
01Storytellers and World Builders
Students explore the structure of narrative texts and develop their ability to create compelling characters and settings.
Students will analyze how authors use character actions and dialogue to reveal personality traits and motivations.
Students will investigate the reasons behind character choices and their impact on the story's progression.
Students will examine how authors use sensory language to create vivid and immersive story settings.
Students will practice writing their own descriptive settings, focusing on incorporating sensory details.
Students will identify the key events that constitute the beginning, middle, and end of a narrative.
Students will practice sequencing story events and identifying cause-and-effect relationships within a plot.
Students will identify the central message or main idea of a story.
02Information Seekers
Focusing on non-fiction texts to help students extract facts and understand how information is organized.
Students will learn to use headings and subheadings to quickly find specific information in non-fiction texts.
Students will interpret information presented in captions, diagrams, and other visual text features.
Students will practice identifying statements as either verifiable facts or personal opinions.
Students will determine the author's primary purpose for writing a non-fiction text (e.g., to inform, to persuade).
Students will learn to categorize and organize facts into logical sections for an informative report.
Students will draft paragraphs for an information report, focusing on clear topic sentences and supporting details.
03The Rhythm of Language
Exploring poetry and wordplay to develop phonological awareness and an appreciation for creative expression.
Students will identify pairs of rhyming words in simple poems and nursery rhymes.
Students will practice creating their own alliterative phrases and sentences to enhance language play.
Students will identify and use similes to create vivid comparisons in their writing.
Students will use a variety of descriptive words (adjectives and adverbs) to make their writing more interesting.
Students will practice reading poems aloud with appropriate volume, pace, and intonation.
Students will explore how gestures and facial expressions can convey meaning and emotion during poetry performance.
Students will identify and use onomatopoeia to add sound effects and vividness to their writing.
04Persuasive Voices
Investigating how language is used to influence others and learning to construct logical arguments.
Students will recognise advertisements and understand that their purpose is to make people want to buy something.
Students will practice creating short persuasive messages for a specific audience and purpose.
Students will learn to clearly state their opinion and support it with at least one relevant reason.
Students will use 'and' and 'but' to join simple sentences and connect ideas in their writing.
Students will practice speaking clearly and audibly when sharing ideas, telling stories, and asking questions.
Students will practice active listening techniques, such as making eye contact and asking clarifying questions.
05The Mechanics of Writing
Refining grammar, punctuation, and spelling to ensure clarity and precision in written communication.
Students will correctly use full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks at the end of sentences.
Students will learn to use commas correctly when listing items in a sentence.
Students will practice combining two simple sentences into one more complex sentence using conjunctions.
Students will learn to add descriptive adjectives and adverbs to make their sentences more detailed and interesting.
Students will apply phonetic rules to spell unfamiliar words, focusing on common sound-letter correspondences.
Students will develop strategies for remembering the spelling of common 'tricky' words that don't follow phonetic rules.
Students will identify nouns and verbs in sentences and understand their basic functions.
06The Reading-Writing Connection
Synthesizing skills to respond to literature and create original works inspired by mentor texts.
Students will make personal connections between stories and their own experiences, feelings, and knowledge.
Students will identify similarities and differences between different stories or texts they have read.
Students will identify and discuss parts of stories that they find funny and explain why.
Students will write their own short stories or poems, using ideas and characters inspired by books they have read.
Students will revise their drafts to add more specific details and ensure their ideas are clearly communicated.
Students will proofread their writing for common errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.