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)
- Plus Plan
Before, During and After Reading Non-Fiction - Question Prompts
Question prompts and a worksheet to use when asking questions before, during and after reading.
- Plus Plan
Long A Words - Word Search
Explore words containing some of the most common ‘long a’ graphemes with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Procedure Worksheet – How to Make a Paper Aeroplane
A comprehension worksheet for a magazine procedure article about making a paper aeroplane.
- Free Plan
Colour by Parts of Speech - Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs - Frog
Consolidate your parts of speech lesson by colouring nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs on the frog.
- Plus Plan
Successful Sentences – Sentence Construction Cards
Word cards for constructing complex sentences.
- Free Plan
Readers' Theatre Script - Grandpa's Birthday Surprise
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Build a Sentence Card Game
A fun and engaging card game that focuses on building simple sentences that include a subject, verb and object.
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Making Inferences – Birthday Activity
Teach your students how to make inferences with this birthday invitation activity.
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Adverb List Posters
Display this poster set (including a list of adverbs) in your classroom to encourage your students to explore and use adverbs in their writing!
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CVC/CCVC/CVCC Word Flashcards
A comprehensive set of flashcards for CVC, CCVC, and CVCC words.
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Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets - CVCC/CCVC Words
Use this worksheet pack to give students practice at segmenting words into phonemes.
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Digraph Handwriting - Worksheets
24 digraph worksheets that focus on handwriting and vocabulary activities.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – 'ar' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the 'ar' sound.
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Make a Sentence – Worksheets
A set of worksheets where students un-jumble words to create a sentence.
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Narrative Setting Prompts Posters
A set of 2 posters giving ideas for the setting of a narrative.
- Plus Plan
Personal Recount Sequencing Activity - Police Car Ride
A worksheet to use in the classroom when learning the sequence of a personal recount.
- Plus Plan
Before, During and After Reading Fiction - Question Prompts
Question prompts and a worksheet to use when asking questions before, during and after reading.
- Plus Plan
Little Red Riding Hood – Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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The Gingerbread Man - Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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Capital Letter and Full Stop Scavenger Hunt Worksheet
A reading passage and 2 engaging worksheets that explore the importance of capital letters and full stops.
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5 Procedural Writing Prompts
Use this set of 5 procedural writing prompts to assess your students’ procedural writing skills.
- Free Plan
Finding the Main Idea - Graphic Organiser Templates
A worksheet to use when teaching students how to find the main idea of a text.
- Plus Plan
Level 5 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 5 decodable readers.
- Plus Plan
Long I Words - Word Search
Explore words containing some of the most common ‘long i’ graphemes with this set of differentiated word searches.
- Free Plan
Capitalise It! Task Cards
Reinforce capitalisation of proper nouns, the pronoun ‘I’ and the beginning of sentences with this set of task cards.
- Plus Plan
Colour by Parts of Speech - Nouns, Verbs & Adjectives - Whale
Review parts of speech by colouring nouns, verbs and adjectives on the whale.
- Free Plan
Simple Sentence Dominoes (Version 1)
A set of 30 dominoes to assist younger students with building simple sentences.
- Plus Plan
Simple Persuasive Texts - Writing Scaffold
A simple scaffolding worksheet to use when writing persuasive texts.
- Plus Plan
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.
- Free Plan
Inference vs Prediction Poster
A poster outlining the similarities and differences between inference and prediction.
- Plus Plan
Character Traits Posters
Remind your students about the difference between external and internal character traits with this set of three classroom posters.
- Plus Plan
Story Elements Poster Set
Display these cute sloth-themed story elements posters when learning about narrative texts.