Year 1 English
Discover what your child will learn in Year 1 English
During their first year of primary school, students begin to build fundamental literacy skills that will serve as a foundation for learning in all areas. This includes mastering the essentials of spelling, punctuation, and grammar. At this stage, children transition from mainly spoken communication to expressing their thoughts in writing.
As they grasp these language basics, Year 1 pupils also grow more confident in their ability to read and comprehend straightforward texts. These early reading and writing skills are crucial, as they support learning across the entire curriculum.
Reading
In Year 1, the ability to read is developed through phonics instruction, learning sight words, and practising reading comprehension strategies.
Phonics is where children learn the relationship between letters and sounds. In doing so, they connect their verbal language with printed words. This is the first step in enabling a child to read. Phonics is also a crucial part of Year 1 spelling.
Sight words then come into play. These are common ("high-frequency") words that children should recognise on sight, without needing to sound them out. Knowing these words speeds up the reading process which allows children to focus on understanding the meaning of a sentence.
As children become more confident with their reading skills, they will begin to explore reading strategies to help them understand the meaning of a larger piece of text.
Spelling
In Year 1, your child will learn the basics of spelling. Spelling instruction focuses on understanding phonics patterns and building word recognition skills.
Children begin by learning to identify and use short vowels and consonant digraphs, such as “sh,” “ch,” and “th.” These foundational phonics concepts are essential for helping young learners understand how words are constructed. As your child progresses, they’ll learn about adding suffixes like "-ed" or "-ing" to base words, which helps them grasp changes in meaning or tense.
Recognising different vowel sounds and how they are represented in writing also becomes important at this stage.
Grammar
Grammar is another important area of focus in Year 1. At this stage, your child will be introduced to the basic parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Learning to identify and correctly use parts of speech is essential for constructing clear and meaningful sentences. First graders are encouraged to understand the role each word plays in a sentence and how they work together to form sentences.
Children in first grade will also experiment with simple sentence structures, combining nouns, verbs, and adjectives to form complete ideas.
Punctuation
Year 1 is also when children are introduced to punctuation. Your child will learn about the use of punctuation marks: periods, question marks, and exclamation points.
Understanding how to use punctuation correctly helps first graders structure their writing and communicate their ideas more effectively. Over time, they will begin to recognise how punctuation guides a reader through a text, creating natural pauses and indicating the tone of a sentence.
Writing
As part of the process of learning to spell words and use them to construct simple sentences with the basics of grammar and punctuation, your child is inherently learning to write.
Once simple sentences are grasped, young learners will start to learn about different styles of writing, usually starting with short stories and poems ("narrative writing") as these are often familiar to them from verbal media (television, parents/guardians reading stories to them).
As their English skills evolve, they will learn about opinion writing and writing to inform.
How Night Zookeeper can help
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Our program includes games for nouns, punctuation challenges, interactive lessons, and creative writing prompts. Kids receive personalised feedback from qualified tutors and can interact safely with other young writers in our moderated environment.
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