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
Phoneme Spotter Story – 'ar' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the 'ar' sound.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'e' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'e' sound.
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How To Make Pancakes – Procedural Writing Activity
Get your students writing a procedure for their favourite breakfast foods with this example procedure text and writing scaffold.
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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.
- Plus Plan
Writing A Recount Poster
Display this poster in your room as a visual reminder of the structure of a recount.
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Spelling CVCC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CVCC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Long E Words - Word Search
Explore words containing some of the most common ‘long e’ graphemes with this set of differentiated word searches.
- Free Plan
Vocabulary Building Template – Verbs
Expand verb vocabulary with this open-ended task.
- Plus Plan
Digraph Handwriting - Worksheets
24 digraph worksheets that focus on handwriting and vocabulary activities.
- Plus Plan
Decodable Text Worksheets – Single Graphemes (Set 2)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
- Plus Plan
Little Red Riding Hood – Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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Making Inferences Worksheet Pack
Guide your students to read between the lines with this making inferences worksheet pack.
- Free Plan
Character or Not? Cut and Paste Worksheet
Explore the difference between characters and non-characters with this cut-and-paste worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'o' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'o' sound.
- Plus Plan
Personal Recounts Worksheet - My Wonderful Weekend
A simple text and worksheet to use when exploring personal recounts.
- 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
Procedural Writing Checklists
Use these procedural writing checklists when teaching your students how to editing their procedure texts.
- Free Plan
Narrative Writing Checklist (Intermediate Version)
A checklist for students to use when proofreading and editing their narrative writing.
- Plus Plan
Exploring Procedural Writing Teaching Slides
Teach your students how to write a procedure using this detailed slideshow targeted at lower primary school students.
- Free Plan
Procedural Writing Activity - How to Make a Sundae
Inspire students to generate procedural writing texts with a fun, summer-themed end-of-year writing assignment and craft.
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Handwriting Sheets - Theme Pages 1
Ten themed handwriting sheets with your choice of fonts.
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Level 5 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 5 decodable readers.
- Free Plan
OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore words containing ‘ow’ and ‘ou’ with this set of differentiated word searches.
- 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.
- Plus Plan
"Simon Says" Instruction Cards
A set of 24 instruction cards to use when playing "Simon Says".
- Plus Plan
Writing A Procedure Poster
Display this poster in your room as a visual reminder of the structure of a procedural text.
- Plus Plan
Spelling CCVC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CCVC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theatre Script - Hare and Tortoise
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Readers' Theatre Script - Hansel and Gretel
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
- Plus Plan
Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives – Sorting Task
Help students learn the difference between nouns, verbs, and adjectives with this cut-and-paste sorting worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Adverb Worksheet Pack
Assign your students this fun worksheet pack to reinforce their understanding of adverbs (you can even create an adverbs workbook!).