Key Stage 1 – English

Key Stage 1 > English

Key Stage 1 English: Teaching for every child

Children are taught:

• speaking and listening: they think about what they say, choose the right words, listen to others before they speak, talk with others and share ideas. They take different roles in drama, tell stories, read aloud, and describe events and experiences
• reading: they focus on words and sentences and how they fit into whole
• texts. Children work out the meaning of what they read and say why they like it or why they don’t. They read stories, plays, poems, information texts in print and on computer screens, and use dictionaries and encyclopaedias
• writing: they compose stories, poems, notes, lists, captions, records, messages and instructions. They learn how to use punctuation to show the meaning of sentences, practise clear handwriting, and discover that thinking about patterns of letters and sounds helps them to spell words correctly.

The literacy hour

Nearly all schools use the National Literacy Strategy: Framework for teaching. This gives detailed aims for teaching reading and writing. These are taught during a daily literacy hour for all pupils.

Key Stage 1 English: Targets for every child

Around age 7, most children are able to:

Speaking and listening

• listen carefully
• show they have thought about listeners by including details to interest them
• speak clearly
• tell stories, and repeat rhymes and poems
• learn new words and use them in conversation
• change how they talk to different people, in a range of situations.

Reading

• give their views about events or ideas in what they read
• read aloud and understand stories and information books
• use more than one way to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Writing

• write stories with a beginning, a middle and an end
• use writing for different purposes, such as lists or instructions
• use interesting vocabulary that suits the subject
• choose words and details to interest the reader
• write in sentences, using capital letters at the beginning and full stops at the end
• spell familiar words correctly
• use spelling patterns to write unfamiliar words
• shape letters correctly and write neatly and clearly.

See our range of English Games.

This information is supplied by Parents Centre and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.