Foundation Year
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 three 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 develop and strengthen these as needed.
In the Foundation year, 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 and view spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is to entertain, as well as some texts designed to inform. These include traditional oral texts, picture books, various types of stories, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, multimodal texts and dramatic performances. They participate in shared reading, viewing and storytelling using a range of literary texts, and recognise the entertaining nature of literature.
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 Foundation students as beginner readers include decodable and predictable texts that range from caption books to books with one or more sentences per page. These texts involve straightforward sequences of events and everyday happenings with recognisable, realistic or imaginary characters. Informative texts present a small amount of new content about familiar topics of interest; a small range of language features, including simple and compound sentences; mostly familiar vocabulary, known, high-frequency words and single-syllable words that can be decoded phonically, and illustrations that strongly support the printed text.
Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including pictorial representations, short statements, performances, recounts and poetry.
(source: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)
Achievement Standard
Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)
By the end of the Foundation year, students use predicting and questioning strategies to make meaning from texts. They recall one or two events from texts with familiar topics. They understand that there are different types of texts and that these can have similar characteristics. They identify connections between texts and their personal experience.
They read short, decodable and predictable texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, drawing on their developing knowledge of concepts of print, sounds and letters and decoding and self-monitoring strategies. They recognise the letters of the English alphabet, in upper and lower case and know and use the most common sounds represented by most letters. They read high-frequency words and blend sounds orally to read consonant-vowel-consonant words. They use appropriate interaction skills to listen and respond to others in a familiar environment. They listen for rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words.
Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)
Students understand that their texts can reflect their own experiences. They identify and describe likes and dislikes about familiar texts, objects, characters and events.
In informal group and whole class settings, students communicate clearly. They retell events and experiences with peers and known adults. They identify and use rhyme, and orally blend and segment sounds in words. When writing, students use familiar words and phrases and images to convey ideas. Their writing shows evidence of letter and sound knowledge, beginning writing behaviours and experimentation with capital letters and full stops. They correctly form known upper- and lower-case letters.
(source: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)
- Plus Plan
Word Family Worksheet Pack - CVC Words
Consolidate your students' understanding of onset and rime with this set of 20 worksheets.
- Free Plan
Weekend Recount Worksheet
A worksheet for younger students to use when writing a weekend recount.
- Plus Plan
Alphabet Handwriting Sheets - Including Non-Examples
Handwriting sheets with opportunities for students to trace, identify and write the letters of the alphabet.
- Free Plan
Initial Sound Peg Cards (Version 1)
An initial sound and fine motor activity for the early years classroom.
- Plus Plan
CVC Word Building Activity
Practise building CVC words with this 25 slide interactive activity.
- Plus Plan
Colour Me Carefully Worksheets
A set of four colouring pages to be used as speaking and listening activities.
- Plus Plan
Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets - CVCC/CCVC Words
Use this worksheet pack to give students practice at segmenting words into phonemes.
- 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
A Fistful of Flavours Alliteration Activity
Make alliteration fun with a printable worksheet that challenges students to create flavours of ice cream.
- Plus Plan
Alphabet Handwriting Sheet - 1 Page
Handwriting sheets with the alphabet and some words for students to trace.
- Plus Plan
Jack and the Beanstalk Retelling Activity Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of sequencing cards for Jack and the Beanstalk.
- Plus Plan
Decodable Text Worksheets – Single Graphemes (Set 2)
A set of 10 decodable text worksheets for early readers.
- Free Plan
Aiming For Inference Posters
Six mini posters showing different scenarios that can be used when encouraging students to use inference.
- Plus Plan
Make a Sentence – Worksheets
A set of worksheets where students un-jumble words to create a sentence.
- Plus Plan
Read, Find and Colour – CVC Words
Consolidate your students' decoding skills with this set of search and find worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Story Elements Poster Set
Display these cute sloth-themed story elements posters when learning about narrative texts.
- Plus Plan
Calming Pastel Themed Editable Desk Name Plates
Create calming student name plates with these Calming Pastel inspired customisable desk name plates.
- Plus Plan
Digraph Handwriting - Worksheets
24 digraph worksheets that focus on handwriting and vocabulary activities.
- Plus Plan
SATPIN Matching Activity - Frog and Lily Pads
A SATPIN matching activity using lilly pads.
- Plus Plan
Handwriting Posters - Dirt, Grass and Sky Background With Arrows
Handwriting posters using a dirt, grass and sky background with arrows.
- Plus Plan
CVC/CCVC/CVCC Word Flashcards
A comprehensive set of flashcards for CVC, CCVC, and CVCC words.
- Free Plan
Decodable Text to Picture Match-Up
Four sets of decodable sentences with matching pictures.
- Plus Plan
Spelling CVCC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CVCC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Hot Air Balloon-Themed Editable Desk Name Plate
Help your students feel at home on the first day of a new school year with these customisable desk name plates to match your classroom theme.
- Plus Plan
Which Word? CVC Decoding Worksheets
A set of 5 worksheets for students to practise segmenting and blending common CVC words.
- Plus Plan
School Font Tracing Alphabet with Arrows
Full page upper and lower case alphabet letters with arrows for tracing.
- 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
Phonological Awareness Diagnostic Tool
Basic diagnostic tool to test your students' phonological awareness.
- Plus Plan
True or False? Active Listening Exercises
Improve listening skills in the classroom with an engaging True or False Active Listening Activity.
- Plus Plan
Book Worm Themed - Book Report Template and Poster
A fun book worm themed poster with 3 book report templates to use when responding to literature.
- Plus Plan
Synonym Poster Pack - Emotions Chart Display
Blend social-emotional learning and vocabulary building activities with a set of 15 emotional synonyms anchor charts.
- Plus Plan
Spelling CCVC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CCVC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.