Key Stage 1: English

Key Stage 1 (KS1) English in the UK covers Year 1 and Year 2 (ages 5-7) and aims to build a strong foundation in language and literacy. The curriculum focuses on developing fluent and confident readers and writers, and fostering a love of literature. Here's a summary of what's expected:

1. Spoken Language:

  • Listening and Responding: Children should listen attentively and respond appropriately to adults and peers.

  • Asking Questions: They should ask relevant questions to deepen their understanding.

  • Vocabulary Building: They are expected to use strategies to build their vocabulary.

  • Articulating Ideas: Children should be able to articulate and justify their answers, arguments, and opinions.

  • Narrative and Explanation: They should give well-structured descriptions, explanations, and narratives for different purposes, including expressing feelings.

  • Collaborative Conversation: Children should actively participate in conversations, stay on topic, and initiate/respond to comments.

  • Exploring Ideas: They should use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining, and exploring ideas.

2. Reading:

  • Phonics (Word Reading):

    • Sound-Letter Correspondence: A significant focus is placed on phonics. Children learn to recognise the sounds each individual letter and combinations of letters (graphemes) make (40+ phonemes).

    • Blending and Decoding: They should be able to blend sounds together to form words (decoding) and recognise familiar words quickly and accurately.

    • Phonics Screening Check: In Year 1, children undergo a statutory Phonics Screening Check to assess their decoding skills, including reading "alien words" (non-words) to ensure they understand phonics rules. (See Phonics Screening for more information).

    • Fluent Reading: By the end of KS1, children are expected to read most age-appropriate words accurately and fluently enough to focus on comprehension rather than just decoding.

  • Comprehension:

    • Understanding Texts: Children should understand both books they can read independently and those read to them.

    • Discussing Texts: They should listen to and discuss a wide range of stories, poems, and non-fiction.

    • Making Inferences and Predictions: They are encouraged to make links between the text and their own experiences, discuss word meanings, make inferences, and predict what might happen next.

    • Retelling Stories: Becoming familiar with key stories and traditional tales, and retelling them, is important.

3. Writing:

  • Transcription (Spelling and Handwriting):

    • Spelling: Children learn to spell words containing taught phonemes, common exception words (words that don't follow typical phonics rules), and days of the week. They also learn to apply simple spelling rules (e.g., adding -s or -es for plurals) and simple prefixes (e.g., 'un-').

    • Handwriting: They should be able to form capital and lowercase letters correctly, hold a pencil comfortably, and begin to use clear spacing between words.

  • Composition:

    • Sentence Construction: Children learn to say out loud what they are going to write, compose sentences orally before writing them, and sequence sentences to form short narratives.

    • Punctuation: They are taught to use basic punctuation, including capital letters at the start of sentences and for proper nouns (names, places, days of the week, and 'I'), full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks.

    • Purposeful Writing: They are encouraged to write for different purposes, such as narratives (personal experiences, real or fictional events), poetry, and simple non-fiction.

    • Planning and Revising: While at a basic level, children begin to think about planning their writing and re-reading to check it makes sense.

  • Vocabulary and Grammar:

    • Basic Grammar: Children are introduced to basic grammatical concepts such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and how they function in simple sentences.

    • Joining Clauses: They learn to join clauses using simple conjunctions like 'and'.

    • Vocabulary Expansion: Through reading and discussion, they expand their vocabulary.

Overall, the Key Stage 1 English curriculum lays the essential groundwork for literacy, ensuring children can decode words, understand what they read, and communicate their ideas effectively in writing and speech.