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
Successful Sentences – Sentence Construction Cards
Word cards for constructing complex sentences.
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5 Procedural Writing Prompts
Use this set of 5 procedural writing prompts to assess your students’ procedural writing skills.
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Character Profile Template
Explore the personality, appearance, feelings and actions of a character from a narrative with this simple template.
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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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Making Inferences – Birthday Activity
Teach your students how to make inferences with this birthday invitation activity.
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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.
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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.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – 'ar' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the 'ar' sound.
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Phoneme Spotter Story – Long 'o' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'o' sound.
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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.
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Simple Persuasive Texts - Writing Scaffold
A simple scaffolding worksheet to use when writing persuasive texts.
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Handwriting Sheets - Theme Pages 1
Ten themed handwriting sheets with your choice of fonts.
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Handwriting Posters - Dirt, Grass and Sky Background With Arrows
Handwriting posters using a dirt, grass and sky background with arrows.
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Procedural Writing Posters
Display this set of 5 procedural writing posters in your classroom during your procedural writing unit.
- Free Plan
Making Inferences With Pictures Worksheet
Guide your students to use pictures to make inferences with this reading worksheet.
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Jack and the Beanstalk Retelling Activity Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of sequencing cards for Jack and the Beanstalk.
- Free Plan
OW and OU Words - Word Search
Explore words containing ‘ow’ and ‘ou’ with this set of differentiated word searches.
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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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Decodable Sound Button Flashcards – Set 1
A set of over 100 decodable sound button flashcards.
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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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Make a Sentence – Worksheets
A set of worksheets where students un-jumble words to create a sentence.
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Developing Characters Poster Pack - Show, Don't Tell Feelings
A set of 16 posters about developing and describing characters when writing stories.
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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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Procedure Text Topic Cards
Use these ideas for procedure writing with your students to help them hone their procedural writing skills.
- Free Plan
Narrative Writing Checklist (Intermediate Version)
A checklist for students to use when proofreading and editing their narrative writing.
- Plus Plan
Adjectives and Adverbs Worksheets (Silly Stories)
Have fun with your students creating silly stories together while teaching and learning about parts of speech (adverbs and adjectives)!
- Free Plan
Character or Not? Cut and Paste Worksheet
Explore the difference between characters and non-characters with this cut-and-paste worksheet.
- Free Plan
Weekend Recount Worksheet
A worksheet for younger students to use when writing a weekend recount.
- 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
The Gingerbread Man - Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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Grammar Worksheet Pack – Lower Primary
A 13 page worksheet pack to consolidate the learning of different grammar concepts in the early years.
- Plus Plan
Level 4 Decodable Readers - Worksheet Pack
A set of one-pager worksheet versions of the texts from our Level 4 decodable readers.