What to Expect in Year 1

Parents often ask us what to expect in Year 1. It’s very important to be well informed, so that you can support your child with school work. This is the first in our series of Year 1 posts, which follows on from our Nursery and Reception series.  Yesterday’s post gave ten ways to support your Year 1 child in reading and writing.  Today we will look at Year 1 literacy expectations.

Year 1 is the first year of Key Stage 1.  Children continue to learn through playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically.  There is an increased amount of ‘carpet time’, when the teacher introduces and teaches a topic, and ‘table time’, when the children develop and practise new concepts.  Tables are sometimes divided into ability groups, which are flexible and may change throughout the year.

Literacy is far wider than just reading and writing.  In its broadest meaning, literacy is how we make sense of the world.  In Year 1, literacy is divided into several categories:

Speaking

Your child will learn to tell stories in an audible voice; recount stories they have previously heard; interpret a text by reading aloud and experiment with new words.

Listening and responding

Year 1 children will learn to listen with sustained concentration; listen to and follow instructions; listen to a variety of texts and express a view about how the information is presented.

Group discussion and interaction

Children will listen to others and take turns to speak; ask and answer questions and explain their views in a small group setting.

Drama

Your child will practise improvisation and role-play; act out their own and well-known stories; discuss why they like a performance.

Role play and drama is an important part of literacy in Year 1.

Reading

During Year 1, your child will be exposed to a range of fiction, poetry and non-fiction texts.  Your child’s teacher will read aloud to them daily.  Your child’s reading will be listened to weekly.

Your child will be expected to gradually develop automatic recognition of more and more high frequency words (ask Paul or Christine at Better Tuition for a list of these); phonetically read and spell two and three-syllable words; begin to recognise and use digraphs; recognise that some letters, such as ‘c’, can make two different sounds (‘cat’ or ‘ceiling’).

S/he will be taught to identify the main events and characters in stories, find specific information in texts and make predictions that show understanding of ideas, events and characters.  S/he will develop an understanding of the structure of texts (e.g. beginning, middle, end).

Children will be encouraged to select books for personal reading.

Writing

In Year 1 children are encouraged to invent spellings using their knowledge of phonics.  They learn to form lower-case letters correctly and begin to leave a space between words.  They write diaries, stories and non-fiction texts.  They also learn to use a computer keyboard.  They learn to use capital letters and full stops and present their written work in simple sentences.

Year 1 children may invent spellings based on their knowledge of phonics.

Your child will choose what to write about, plan their writing and create short, simple texts on paper combining words with images.

Word Structure and Spelling

Your child will learn to spell new words using phonics; move from spelling simple CVC words such as ‘dog’ to words including adjacent consonants, e.g.‘hard’ and common digraphs, e.g. ‘this’; become increasingly aware that sounds such as /ae/ can be spelt with ‘ai’, ‘ay’ or ‘a-e’.

The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

All Year 1 children take the Phonics Screening check.  This is a simple reading exercise which is designed to check their understanding of phonics.  You can read more about the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check here and download a practice paper here.

Help with Literacy for Year 1 Children

If you are concerned about your child’s progress, the first person to speak to is their teacher. If you would like more information about what to expect in Year 1, your first port of call should be school. You may also like to try our 10 Ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Reading and Writing.  However if you do feel that your child would benefit from some extra support in the form of tuition, please get in touch with Paul Syrett or Christine McLaughlin at Better Tuition to book your FREE assessment.