Powerful Picturebooks in the Junior Primary Classroom with Clara Maria Fiorentini

Part 1: Powerful Picturebooks in the Junior Primary Classroom (Monday 16th November)

Discover how high-quality children’s picturebooks can become the foundation for rich, engaging literacy learning in the junior primary classroom.

This practical webinar explores a selection of core picturebooks alongside thoughtfully connected nonfiction and poetry.

Participants will see how these texts can be woven together to support meaningful planning, curriculum integration and purposeful learning experiences that develop young children’s reading, writing, oral language and imagination.

Bio: 
Dr Clara Maria Fiorentini is a lecturer in Initial Teacher Education and Course Leader for the Master’s in Early Childhood Education at Marino Institute of Education, Dublin. She specialises in literacy, children’s literature and early childhood education.

A former primary school teacher with eleven years’ classroom experience, Clara is deeply committed to inclusive and culturally responsive literacy education. She completed her PhD at Trinity College Dublin, where she examined literacy provision in Irish preschools through a bioecological lens.

Clara is an Executive Committee member and Director of the Literacy Association of Ireland, having served as its President in 2024. Her research interests include early literacy development, playful pedagogy, reading aloud and the use of children’s literature to create meaningful, inclusive and engaging language and literacy experiences for all children. She is also a co-founder of the Centre for Children’s Literature and Pedagogy, Ireland (CCLPI).