English

Year Level Description

In Prep we teach a balanced program that focusses on developing student 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, strengthen and develop these as needed.

Through the teaching of reading and writing, students develop an awareness of the purpose, formation and conventions of print. Students are introduced to correct letter formation and appropriate pencil grip. They compose and record a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including pictorial representations, short statements, performances, recounts and poetry. When forming words they are taught to draw on their knowledge of the alphabet and its relationship to sounds, conventional letters, groups of letters, and some punctuation to communicate a message.

Students are taught to read short, predictable texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, drawing on their developing knowledge of concepts about print, sound and letters, and high frequency words. They identify the letters of the English alphabet and use the sounds represented by most letters. They listen for rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words. 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.

In formal and informal situations, students become aware of the way they use language and the way in which it is used to communicate, negotiate, speculate, hypothesise and reflect. They learn to adjust their speaking and listening to suit the purpose, situation and audience. Students are encouraged to speak to make themselves clear and to be active listeners.

Achievement Standard

Reading

• Reads year level texts independently.
• Reads level appropriate high frequency words.
• Demonstrates reading strategies such as picture cues, sound letter cues, and contextual cues.
• Uses predicting and questioning strategies to make sense of a text.
• Retells the events in a text in sequence.
• Makes an inference about a character's feelings.
• Answers literal questions about the text they have read.

Speaking and Listening

• Asks and answers simple questions.
• Contributes relevant ideas during discussions.
• Listens to brief spoken texts that deal with familiar ideas and information.
• Produces brief spoken texts that deal with familiar ideas and information.
• Speaks at an appropriate volume and pace for listeners' needs.

Writing

• Usually uses full stops and capital letters for their name and beginnings of sentences.
• Writes simple sentences that express ideas or experiences.
• Attempts to use descriptive or specific vocabulary.
• Names and records all upper and lower case letters of the alphabet.
• Represents some sounds in words using common corresponding letters of the alphabet.
• Identifies initial, medial and final phonemes within written words.
• Spells level appropriate high frequency words.
• With teacher assistance, begins to edit for meaning, spelling of high frequency words, capital letters and full stops.
• Forms many lower and upper case letters accurately with correct starting points.