Year 1
The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.
In Year 1, students communicate with peers, teachers, known adults and students from other classes.
Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret spoken, written and multimodal texts designed to entertain and inform. These encompass traditional oral texts including Aboriginal stories, picture books, various types of stories, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, dramatic performances and texts used by students as models for constructing their own texts.
The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia. Literary texts that support and extend Year 1 students as independent readers involve straightforward sequences of events and everyday happenings with recognisably realistic or imaginary characters. Informative texts present a small amount of new content about familiar topics of interest and topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. These include decodable and predictable texts which present a small range of language features, including simple and compound sentences, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a small number of high-frequency words and words that need to be decoded phonically, as well as illustrations and diagrams that support the printed text.
Students create a variety of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including recounts, procedures, performances, literary retellings and poetry.
(source: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)
Achievement Standard
Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)
By the end of Year 1, students understand the different purposes of texts. They make connections to personal experience when explaining characters and main events in short texts. They identify that texts serve different purposes and that this affects how they are organised. They describe characters, settings and events in different types of literature.
Students read aloud, with developing fluency. They read short texts with some unfamiliar vocabulary, simple and compound sentences and supportive images. When reading, they use knowledge of the relationship between sounds and letters, high-frequency words, sentence boundary punctuation and directionality to make meaning. They recall key ideas and recognise literal and implied meaning in texts. They listen to others when taking part in conversations, using appropriate language features and interaction skills.
Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)
Students understand how characters in texts are developed and give reasons for personal preferences. They create texts that show understanding of the connection between writing, speech and images.
They create short texts for a small range of purposes. They interact in pair, group and class discussions, taking turns when responding. They make short presentations on familiar topics. When writing, students provide details about ideas or events, and details about the participants in those events. They accurately spell high-frequency words and words with regular spelling patterns. They use capital letters and full stops and form all upper- and lower-case letters correctly.
(source: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)
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Narrative Sentence Starter Cards
Thirty sentence starter cards for narratives.
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Editing Passage Task Cards - Year 1
A set of 20 editing passage task cards with answers.
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Simple Informative Texts - Writing Scaffold
A simple scaffolding worksheet to use when writing informative texts.
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Writing A Procedure Poster
Display this poster in your room as a visual reminder of the structure of a procedural text.
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Story Elements Poster Set
Display these cute sloth-themed story elements posters when learning about narrative texts.
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Level 3 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 3 decodable readers
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Narrative Elements Graphic Organisers – Portrait
Encourage your students to write and draw about various story elements with this set of differentiated graphic organisers.
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Readers' Theatre Script - What's My Pet?
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
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Readers' Theatre Script - Three Billy Goats Gruff
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
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Personal Recounts Worksheet - My Wonderful Weekend
A simple text and worksheet to use when exploring personal recounts.
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Narrative Prompts Posters
A set of 20 posters to display as narrative story prompts for students.
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Level 4 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 4 decodable readers.
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Sequence a Procedure Text – Cut and Paste Worksheets
Use these procedural writing examples to teach your students about sequencing instructions in a logical order.
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Fascinating Facts About Animals Worksheet
Build reading comprehension skills and learn about amazing animals with a printable year 1 reading comprehension worksheet pack.
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Compare and Contrast - Venn Diagram Template
A template to use when teaching students how to compare and contrast.
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The Three Little Pigs – Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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Alphabet Handwriting Sheets - Individual
Handwriting sheets for each letter of the alphabet.
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True or False? Active Listening Exercises
Improve listening skills in the classroom with an engaging True or False Active Listening Activity.
- Free Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story - Long 'a' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'a' sound.
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Readers' Theatre Script - Three Little Pigs
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
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A to Z Handwriting Sheets with Upper and Lower Case Letters and Examples
A set of 26 A to Z handwriting sheets with upper and lower case letters and examples.
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Everyday Grammar Sentence Structure Warm Ups - Lower Years Interactive PowerPoint
An engaging 44 slide interactive PowerPoint to use in the lower years classroom when learning about grammar and sentence structure.
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Decodable Sound Button Flashcards – Set 1
A set of over 100 decodable sound button flashcards.
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Fiction vs Non-Fiction Posters
Teach students the difference between fiction and non-fiction with this set of two classroom posters perfect for early years classrooms.
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Simple Procedure Texts Writing Scaffold
A one page scaffolding sheet to assist younger students in writing a simple procedure text.
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Exploring and Building Narrative Characters PowerPoint
A 14 slide editable PowerPoint template to use when teaching younger students about how to build a character for a narrative text.
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Dolch Sight Words List – Complete Set
Practise word recognition with our set of 8 Dolch Sight Word Lists.
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Year 1 Magazine - What's Buzzing? (Issue 1)
A beautifully designed, 24-page reading magazine specifically written for Year 1 students.
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Digraph Handwriting - Worksheets
24 digraph worksheets that focus on handwriting and vocabulary activities.
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Speaking and Listening Activities Task Cards
A set of 13 cards with instructions for speaking and listening activities.
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Fiction vs Non-Fiction Teaching Slides
Teach your students the difference between fiction and non-fiction books with this age-appropriate teaching presentation for early years literacy lessons.
- Free Plan
Vocabulary Building Template – Verbs
Expand verb vocabulary with this open-ended task.