The Mol an Óige platform for the young learner of Irish, targets phonological awareness and early literacy development, areas of particular difficulty for learners. Firstly, the phonological distinctions of Irish, very different from English, are trained through an immersive environment, where characters bring minimal pairs to life, with songs and stories to aid consolidation, and with quizzes to establish whether the contrasts are acquired. Secondly, the sound contrasts are related to their orthographic representations, and games provide training on the allowed combinations of orthographic letters. TTS is used initially in games involving encoding and decoding of syllables, words and phrases, and eventually to accompany the composition and reading of longer texts.. For the future, the provision of children’s TTS and ASR systems is a priority. The central importance of linguistic and pedagogical expertise highlights the need for an interdisciplinary approach to development.