English -Suggested Guidelines (Grade 1)

 

DRAFT

 

ENGLISH (Grade 1) - Suggested Guidelines

 

Competency  A: Oral Communication Skills

Standard 1: Students will be able to develop competence in listening and spoken language in order to communicate effectively across a variety of contexts and to a range of audiences.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Recognise sounds, words or phrases in English; show awareness of the listener through non-verbal communication (e.g., through maintaining eye contact with the speaker and nodding in response); Listen to others and respond appropriately and ask questions for clarity.

Knowledge:

 Students will:

 Ask questions for clarity while speaking in small sentences and phrases and on matters of immediate interest using various mediums e.g. role play, simple conversations, interviews , etc.

 

Recognise the appropriate manner to express feelings and ideas using appropriate words when speaking/conversing on matters of immediate interest in basic English using simple words

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  1. Demonstrate an awareness of listener through non-verbal communication, e.g.,
  1. look at the person speaking and maintain eye contact
  2. maintain appropriate posture and facial expression
  3. Listen and view for the entire duration of a listening text (e.g., listening to the reading of a ‘Read Aloud’ story, instructions , etc.).

2.  Engage in imaginative play, enacting simple characters or situations

 

3. Demonstrate their ability to interact/converse audibly by naming things and asking simple questions with class fellows, teachers and other adults.

Assessments

 

Formative Assessments

  1. Passport activity is an excellent start to sharing personal information and then talking about it. Provide a passport size booklet or fold a paper to create a simple passport. Ask students to paste their picture and Fill in the blanks by writing name, father’s name etc. Encourage them to share this information with the whole class. Ask questions about each other. Tell them to talk about peers, where do they live?
  1. Play games using rhymes. Play “I Spy” (a game where you find something by looking at it and the other person has to guess what it is) and ask your student  to spy an object that starts with a given sound (e.g., “I spy something that begins with ch.”)
  2. Break up the sounds or syllables in words and ask your student to put them together. For example, say, “C plus -are. What word is that?” (care). “M plus -ilk. What word is that?” (milk).
  3. Practice taking sounds away from words. For example, ask your student, “What word would be left if you take the buh (B) sound away from bat?” (at)
  4. Draw simple pictures on the black board. Have your student identify what's in the picture, and then break that word into its individual sounds. For example dog is d-o-g, three sounds (phonemes).Three sounds?,The student can raise his three fingers to show that the dog has three sounds
  5. “Read and Highlight” – students read the words in the worksheet or on a board , circle all of the blends, and write a sentence using a couple of the words ,for instance, highlight "sh" in Shelf, "ch" in chant.

 

Summative Assessments

Point to various items in classroom and encourage students to talk about them. Ask them to use simple sentences or phrases to share this information.

Record conversations between two students and notice how each one responds to the other

-Have students do a fun role play

Learning Activities

Activity 1

The students  listen to an audio with different types of sounds. Here the teacher can expose students to sounds belonging to different categories (animal sounds, nature sounds, vehicle/airplane sounds, baby crying, dogs barking, wind etc.). This could be a pair share activity where the teacher will play each sound and allow the students to discuss with their partner what sound is being played and allow them to share with the class. The teacher will give them the right answer after they have had the chance to discuss and share their answers. The teacher will reiterate the rule of discussion e,g. listening to others and taking turns while speaking for this pair exercise.

Activity 2

Each student is asked to come up to the front of the class and introduce him/herself. Students are given about three days to prepare at home. The teacher gives a format for the introduction. It could be as follows.

 

Hello, good morning.

My name is …………

I live in ………….

I have ………….. and ……….. (brother, sister)

My hobbies are …………….

Thank you very much

The whole class gives an applause after each student finishes his introduction. Shy students should be given ample encouragement and support by the teacher. Since these are young children, the teacher could give a reward (e.g. a sweet or chocolate) after a student finishes his/her introduction.

Activity 3

Follow the Sound

In this activity, students sit in a circle with the teacher. The teacher begins making a sound from their body (e.g. a clap, snap, stamp). Each student in the circle will replicate the sound until it comes back to the teacher. Ask the following discussion questions:

  • Did the sound remain the same throughout the circle?
  • If it changed, what changed? Did it become slower, faster, quieter, louder etc.

Activity 4

Simon Says!

Play ‘Simon says’ using instructions such as:

Simon says stand up, Simon says turn around, Simon says point to the door.

The class follow instructions to perform certain actions, but only if the instruction is prefaced with Simon says, for example:

Simon says stand up,

Simon says turn around,

Simon says point to the door.

At random, say an instruction without ‘Simon says’ (e.g. Touch your head). The children who move are out – they must only do the action that ‘Simon says’.

The winner is the last child in the game. Alternatively, you may want to set a time period in which to play the game.

 

 

 

 

CompetencyA: Oral Communication Skills

Standard 1:Develop competence in listening and spoken language in order to communicate effectively across a variety of contexts and to a range of audiences.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Participate in small group discussions; Begin to use language to give simple instructions and descriptions; attempt to express feelings and ideas using appropriate words when speaking on matters of immediate interest; listen to others and respond appropriately.

Knowledge:

 Students will:

To ask questions for clarity while speaking in small sentences and phrases and on matters of immediate interest using various mediums e.g. role play, simple conversations, interviews , etc.

 

The appropriate manner to express feelings and ideas using appropriate words when speaking/conversing on matters of immediate interest in basic English using simple words

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  1. Begin to recognise ‘stress’ and ‘intonation’ patterns as used in statements and questions.
  2. Begin to participate in small group discussions using simple words and respond to questions asked by others.
  3.  Begin to converse in basic language using simple words and phrases with a group to share an experience

Assessments

 

Formative Assessments

Performing simple greeting exchanges e.g. Hello my name’s Amna. Her name is Shazia or Hello, my name is Umer. His name is Ali.

Make finger puppets and think of an English name for the puppet. Write the first letter of the name on the puppet

 

Summative Assessments

Point to various items in classroom and encourage students to talk about them. Ask them to use simple sentences or phrases to share this information.

Record conversations between two students and notice how each one responds to the other

-Have students do a fun role play

Learning Activities

A range of beginner’s activities can be used at this stage. These help engage students in speaking for a range and on matters of immediate interest.

Practise counting up and down from 1–10, using different finger gestures; learning a numbers song [1-10] e.g. Ten Little Numbers; listen and circle the colour numbers they hear e.g. red, brown, blue etc.

 

Students write the numbers [jumbled] in sequence on a ladder and say the numbers; arrange number cards [number and dots] to make as many rows of ten as they can

 

Asking and answering questions in a circle about various familiar characters  

[ Superheroes/Puppets/Classroom Characters]

 

Answering questions in name quiz. Show students in teams pictures of famous people and asked their names

 

Writing first letter of people’s names in a continuation of the name quiz

 

Acting out short greeting exchanges, pretending to be famous people from the quiz

Focusing on greeting language

 

Listening to and performing with gestures a simple ‘Hello’ Song and recognise names of classroom objects.

 

A few more activities…

One way to encourage all students to speak is to divide them into pairs A and B, C and D. Give each pair a specified amount of time to discuss their ideas. Then ask them to form new pairs (A and D, B and C) and share the ideas they previously talked about with their new partner. Give a specified amount of time for A/B to share the ideas with D/C, then for D/C to share with A/D. Students return to their original pairs and report back the new ideas. At the end, discuss as a class how students’ ideas were similar and how they were different. 

 

 

 

 

Competency B: Reading and Critical Thinking Skills

Standard 1:

Use knowledge, skills, and strategies related to word identification/decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension to construct

meaning from informational and literary texts, while maintaining a positive disposition towards reading.

Student Learning Outcome:

Know the name of the  most common sound associated with every letter in the English alphabet; Know and apply grade-level word analysis skills to:

  1. Recognise one’s own name and familiar common signs and labels
  2. Read common high-frequency words by sight

 

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

  • Learn to use  phonological awareness  to read decodable words and to attempt to sound out familiar and some elements of unfamiliar words.
  • Learn to gradually develop  word recognition skills, accuracy, fluency and positive reading.
  • Read with guidance from simple books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to

 

1. Use phonic knowledge to read decodable words and to attempt to sound out some elements of unfamiliar words e.g. blending to read, and segment to spell

  1. upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet
  2. match sounds to their corresponding letters/letter patterns
    and punctuation cues to aid reading
  3. identify separate sounds (phonemes) within words, which may be represented by more than one letter, e.g. ‘th’, ‘ch’, ‘sh’

2. Use prior knowledge and pre-reading strategies to predict a story by looking at the picture and title of the text (preview title/headings/visuals; ask self, “What is it about? What do I know about this? What do I want to know?”

 

3. Begin to read with guidance from simple books

Assessments

 

Formative Assessments: 

Continuous blending exercises, read aloud sessions, making words with consonant blends etc

 

Summative Assessments:  

Class tests, end of unit assessments etc.

Learning Activities: 

 

Activity 1

Encourage the habit of sharing books with students. Encourage them to interact with the content, for example, joining in with repetitive text.

  • Ensure learners have access to a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts to encourage reading for pleasure and with greater independence. Provide opportunities for independent reading across the year.
  • Share simple large print books with pictures. When reading, point out and discuss:
  • new high frequency words
  • phonically regular words which learners can decode
  • how the words relate to the picture
  • spelling patterns in rhyming words

Introduce:

  • CCVC and CVCC words
  • CVC words with long vowel phonemes that learners can decode
  • words with common endings-s, -ed and -ing.

 

CCVC = consonant–consonant–vowel–consonant (e.g. frog)

CVCC = consonant–vowel–consonant–consonant (e.g. sand)

CVC = consonant–vowel–consonant (e.g. feet, where the double e sounds as a single long vowel phoneme ‘ee’)

 

  • As students read aloud, either individually or in guided reading groups, encourage them to use all the available information to identify words and make sense of what they read, and to develop their speaking and listening skills by, for example:
  • speaking clearly and pausing at full stops
  • using the pictures to help them to identify less familiar words
  • summarising what has happened on a page before moving to the next page
  • making predictions about what will happen next
  • saying one thing that happened in the story at the beginning/middle/end.

Activity 2

For this activity we need little plastic letters and  a spare box or paper bag. Initially we can place three plastic letters that can be used to make an easy-to-sound-out word (pat or cat, for example) inside the bag.

 

Suggest your student pull out one letter at a time. Ask them what sound each letter makes. For struggling students , you can place the letters together to spell a word and sound it out for them. Then let them copy you.

 

You can ask children to try to make a word on their own. If they make tap instead of pat that’s fine, of course! With more advanced readers, also consider adding more letters to make longer words.

 

Activity 3

Ask your students to make punctuation mark characters in the Art class and colour them ( question mark puppet, exclamation mark puppet. etc.) Cut them out and glue them to the ends of ice cream  sticks.These cute punctuation mark stick puppets can be used in fun punctuation mark activities that will help your child learn.

Write sentences on your dry erase board and leave out the punctuation marks.  Have your children  use the stick puppets to fill in the missing punctuation.

 

Activity 4

Used a shared reading to check that each child understands book concepts such as line, title, cover, back, front and some expressions referring to texts (e.g. this page, the next page, turn over).

 

Check that children can retell parts of a story in English and point to the relevant part of the text.

 

 Identify and differentiate between by choosing the front and back of the book.

  • Identify the book's title.
  • Point out where to begin reading and which way the sentence goes.
  • Point out one word from the first and last sentence.
  • Find the last word in the story.
  • Point out a single letter anywhere in the book.
  • Identify an uppercase letter and a lowercase letter.
  • Show a period, a comma, a question mark, and an exclamation mark in the book
  • Predict the main plot / theme of the story. 

 

Activity 5

Students are shown a book title and asked to predict (by selecting pictures or writing words) what the book will be about.

 

Activity 6

Another nice and relaxing way to break up the day is to shake up your lesson plan and take a class reading break! This activity is useful on days when kids don’t seem to be engaged in the lessons and need something a little different to reset and get back into the learning mood.

Like the acronym  DEAR  says, just drop everything and read. Math books closed, reading books open. You can also do this as a read-aloud/read-along, where you read to the kids and they follow along in the text.

 

 

 

 

Competency B: Reading and Critical Thinking Skills

Standard 2:

Use a variety of reading strategies appropriate to the reading purpose, meaning and type of text to comprehend and analyse a range of literary (prose, poetry and drama) and informational texts (expository, persuasive, procedural, and functional texts).

Student Learning Outcome:

Know the name of the  most common sound associated with every letter in the English alphabet; Know and apply grade-level word analysis skills to:

  1. Identify common terms relating to books (e.g. title page, author, illustrator, front/back cover, table of contents)
  2. Recognise the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g. first word, capitalisation, ending punctuation.

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

  • Understand the importance and how texts and books used for different purposes look different, e.g. use of photographs, diagrams

 

  • Identify different parts of a book, e.g., title page, contents, front and back cover , etc.
  •  Identify the difference between a poem and a story
  • understand the meaning of simple sentences.

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to

 

  1. Read title, labels, lists and captions to find information
  2. Begin to read and follow simple instructions, e.g. in a recipe
  3. Begin to read with guidance from simple books
  4. Anticipate what happens next in a story
  5. Talk about events in a story and make simple inferences about characters and events to show understanding
  6. Recognise main elements of a story, e.g. beginning, middle and end
  7. Develop an understanding of the difference between a poem and a story and the meaning of simple sentences

Assessments

 

Formative Assessments: 

Daily class exercises using pre-reading strategies should be used. Provide students with simple picture books. Ask them to read common words with the help of pictures. Ask them questions related to different parts of story whether its the beginning, middle or ending part of the story.

 

 

 

  Summative Assessments:  

 

Read aloud sessions, end of unit assessments, end of term assessments etc.

Learning Activities: 

 

Activity:

Share the large print and books, posters and class read-aloud books with learners.

 

While reading different kinds of instruction books, talk about:

  • the purpose of the books;
  • the layout and features of instruction texts, e.g. the aim stated at the beginning, a what you need list, instructions numbered in sequence;
  • the similarities and differences between instruction books and storybooks (introduce the words fiction and non-fiction)
  • the kind of things instruction books tell you about.

 

Reading Instructions:

 

Encourage students to talk about their own experiences of following instructions.

When students have had experience of reading instructions, give them opportunities of giving instructions orally. For example:

  • ask students to give the rest of the class clear instructions for regular classroom routines

 

When students are reading aloud or writing, encourage them to:

  • pause at the end of sentences / full stops
  • identify/write in sentences (remind them that a sentence is not necessarily one line of text)
  • identify/use the features of sentences (capital letters and full stops)
  • Identify/use capital letters for I and names.
  •  

 

Reading is the most effective way to develop language skills. Encourage students to read as extensively as possible. Tell them to read newspaper headlines, title covers of books, go through picture dictionaries etc. Ask questions and encourage discussions on the read books. Display book charts in class. This helps develop a sense of competition and inculcate the habit of reading.

 

 

Competency C: Vocabulary and Grammar

Standard 1: Use vocabulary accurately and appropriately as well as understand how speakers/writers put words together and use vocabulary to communicate meaning in familiar and unfamiliar settings.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate understanding of word relationships  (through pictures, real objects, and text) to:

  • Sort words into categories to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent and select the odd word out from the group of words; Identify and act  simple words that show feelings and emotions; articulate and identify simple rhyming words in text

 

  • Identify days of the week and month; name the months of the year; take dictation of familiar words studied in class and keep a record of words (e.g., word wall)

Knowledge:

 Students will:

Learn, extend and use their word knowledge to:

Generate rhyming strings;  write days of the week and month; names of the year; simple words that show feelings and emotions.

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to…

1. Classify words into different categories from a range of texts to:

 

  1. Identify simple action words and naming words from pictures and immediate surrounding (e.g. animals, fruits, vegetable, parts of body, objects in the classroom and at home)
  2. colours, shapes, numbers (cardinal and ordinal), days of the week, months of the year, feeling words

2. Recognise and speak simple grade-level words that show feelings and emotions (e.g. sad, happy, angry).

3. Articulate and use simple rhyming words in writing (e.g -nd, nk, nt, mp).

4. Learn to arrange words alphabetically based on the first letter (ABC order apple, bag, cat).

5. Learn to join words with prefixes, and recognize and locate some compound words from various text sources.

Assessments

 

Formative Assessments

Word wall, vocabulary competition, daily spelling log etc. These activities help in developing vocabulary.

 

Summative Assessments

Class test, quiz, words in their writings etc.

Learning Activities

 

  • Have regular vocabulary building sessions in class, teach and reinforce phonics techniques for reading decodable words and for sounding out parts of words which cannot be fully sounded out. This could include:
  • blending individual letter sounds
  • identifying and blending sounds which are represented by more than one letter, e.g. th
  • using knowledge of sounds to read one syllable words with short vowels, e.g. mat
  • blending to read words with final and initial adjacent consonants, e.g. stop, bend, stand
  • Blending to generate rhyming strings e.g., -at, -it,-un, -ut words.

 

  • Put students into small groups. Give each group the same set of cards each showing a letter of the alphabet (the set can include all letters or a specific group of letters). Give learners a specified amount of time to make as many words using the cards as possible, and to record them. Ask one group to read out their words while the other groups cross off the matching words in their own lists. Then ask the remaining groups if they have listed any other words. The group with the most words is the winner. 

As the year progresses, replace single letters with sounds (phonemes) that are represented by more than one letter, including long vowel phonemes

 

  • Introduce 25–30 high frequency words each term. Students write these in a notebook and learn them.
  • Teach and reinforce the recognition and spelling of high frequency words in regular sessions. This could include:
  • pointing out high frequency words when reading
  • pointing out common word endings such as -s, -ed, -ing 
  • using them in writing activities and oral sentence construction
  • Reinforce them in handwriting activities.

 

 

 

 

 

Competency C: Vocabulary and Grammar

Standard 2: Understand and use punctuation, syntax, grammatical functions, rules and applications for developing accuracy and meaning in their spoken and written communication.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Recognise and use naming words from the environment and classify them into different categories such as a person, place animal or thing; change the number and gender (masculine/feminine)of simple naming words by adding or removing “s” (singular/plural);

Recognise and use substitution words; (e.g., I, we, you, he, she, it, they); and questioning words: what, who, where, when, why)

Apply capitalisation to the initial letter of the first word of a sentence and to the initial letters of names of people and dates.

Knowledge:

 Students will:

Learn to use naming correctly, classifying them into different categories I.e. Singular/Plural, masculine/feminine.

Identify  rules of punctuation i.e. capitalisation and full stop in sentences

Learn the correct usage of preposition in sentences

Form sentences using correct tense.

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  1. Identify and differentiate between 'a' or 'an' articles (e.g. a book, an apple) and that plural nouns do not take the articles a or an.
  2. Recognise common action words and learn to use them in sentences with a noun.
  3. Identify and use some describing words showing quality, size and colour, soft, big, yellow
  4. Recognise and use simple words that tell the position i.e. in, on, under, behind, next
  5. Recognise simple present verbs to show habitual actions e.g. He walks daily.
  6. Recognise past simple for completed actions/events in writing and speaking e.g. She eats an apple in the morning.
  7. Recognition of simple  future tense will/shall/in sentences.
  8. Respond to simple wh- questions in simple words and phrases

Assessments

 

Formative Assessments

Word wall, vocabulary competition, daily spelling log etc. These activities help in developing vocabulary.

 

 

Summative Assessments

Class test, quiz, words in their writings etc.

Learning Activities

 

  • Have regular vocabulary building sessions in class, teach and reinforce phonics techniques for reading decodable words and for sounding out parts of words which cannot be fully sounded out. This could include:
  • blending individual letter sounds
  • identifying and blending sounds which are represented by more than one letter, e.g. th
  • using knowledge of sounds to read one syllable words with short vowels, e.g. mat
  • blending to read words with final and initial adjacent consonants, e.g. stop, bend, stand
  • Blending to generate rhyming strings e.g., -at, -it,-un, -ut words.

 

  • Put students into small groups. Give each group the same set of cards each showing a letter of the alphabet (the set can include all letters or a specific group of letters). Give learners a specified amount of time to make as many words using the cards as possible, and to record them. Ask one group to read out their words while the other groups cross off the matching words in their own lists. Then ask the remaining groups if they have listed any other words. The group with the most words is the winner. 

As the year progresses, replace single letters with sounds (phonemes) that are represented by more than one letter, including long vowel phonemes

 

  • Introduce 25–30 high frequency words each term. Students write these in a notebook and learn them.
  • Teach and reinforce the recognition and spelling of high frequency words in regular sessions. This could include:
  • pointing out high frequency words when reading
  • pointing out common word endings such as -s, -ed, -ing 
  • using them in writing activities and oral sentence construction
  • Reinforce them in handwriting activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Competency D: Writing Skills

Standard 1: Write English legibly, fluently and with correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, for a variety of purposes. Apply skills and strategies for idea generation, selection, development, organization and revision for a variety of writing purposes and text types.

Student Learning Outcomes:  Develop a comfortable and efficient pencil grip and learn to form letter correctly; )Practice handwriting patterns and writing letters both capital and small with correct formation 

Practice writing letters and words from left to right with regular spaces between letters and words

Knowledge:

      Students will …

  • Develop writing readiness by tracing and writing letters, words and sentences legibly, consistently and with correct formation and spelling, on three/four-lined paper.
  • Generate ideas on a topic to project implicit and explicit meanings, and to use the storytelling technique to convey ideas or factual writing style.
  • Write a simple and short opening sentence which highlights the topic sentence

 

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to….

 

  1. Learn to write letters and words at an appropriate speed and develop an understanding that a capital letter is for the start of a sentence.
  2. Use phonetic knowledge and rhyme to attempt to write and spell simple words (e.g. bat, cat, is, was etc).
  3. Begin to learn the common spelling of long vowel phonemes, e.g. ‘ee’, ‘ai’, ‘oo’
  4. begin to learn to, spell and write familiar common words accurately, drawing on sight vocabulary
  5. Spell and write accurately using knowledge of phonic elements, words with:
  1. initial short vowel sounds
  2. Long vowel sounds
  3. word families with vowel-consonant pattern
  4. consonant digraphs in initial position
  5. double consonants

6.    begin to write short sentences with basic personal information, information,    

       etc.

7.   Select a suitable concluding sentence for an informative or a narrative or  

      sharing their personal information.

Assessments 

 

Formative Assessment:

Students will be asked to write a small introduction about themselves, using correct formation of words and usage of parts of speech, like nouns and pronouns. (4 to 5 sentences)

 

  • Observation of work during the lesson. Focus on how the child grips a pencil, the direction of movement, formation of letters.
  • Check for Understandings

Sample: The teacher may ask a child to show her in the air how the letter ‘b’ is written. The teacher may write a letter incorrectly on the board and ask the children if it is correct, and what might be wrong with it.

 

Summative Assessments:

Class Test on words, word puzzles, end of unit assessments etc.

Learning Activities:

Activity 1:

  • Teach and reinforce handwriting in regular sessions when ‘families’ of similar-shaped letters. The key to each of the letter families should be their starting strokes. Commonly used letter families are:
  • f, i, j , l, t, u, y
  • b, h, k, m, n, p, r
  • a, c, d, e, g, o, q, s
  • v, w, x, z
  •  

The placement of the letters f and k will depend on the style of handwriting chosen.

 

  • Check that all taught letters are correctly formed in all writing. Learners often find it difficult to transfer letter formation to their regular writing, but bad habits learned now are harder to eradicate later on.

 

Once learners can form all letters correctly, introduce some basic joins. At first, only join up pairs of letters which will help students as they learn to spell words independently (e.g. y-ou, M-um, c-at, s-a-nd).

 

 

 

       Competency D: Writing Skills

Standard 2: Apply skills and strategies for idea generation, selection, development, organization and revision for a variety of writing purposes and text types.

Student Learning Outcomes:  Develop a comfortable and efficient pencil grip and learn to form letter correctly; )Practice handwriting patterns and writing letters both capital and small with correct formation 

Practice writing letters and words from left to right with regular spaces between letters and words

Knowledge:

      Students will …

  • Develop writing readiness by tracing and writing letters, words and sentences legibly, consistently and with correct formation and spelling, on three/four-lined paper.
  • Generate ideas on a topic to project implicit and explicit meanings, and to use the storytelling technique to convey ideas or factual writing style.
  • Write a simple and short opening sentence which highlights the topic sentence

 

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to….

 

  1. Learn to write letters and words at an appropriate speed and develop an understanding that a capital letter is for the start of a sentence.
  2. Use phonetic knowledge and rhyme to attempt to write and spell simple words (e.g. bat, cat, is, was etc).
  3. Begin to learn the common spelling of long vowel phonemes, e.g. ‘ee’, ‘ai’, ‘oo’
  4. begin to learn to, spell and write familiar common words accurately, drawing on sight vocabulary
  5. Spell and write accurately using knowledge of phonic elements, words with:
  1. initial short vowel sounds
  2. Long vowel sounds
  3. word families with vowel-consonant pattern
  4. consonant digraphs in initial position
  5. double consonants

6.begin to write short sentences with basic personal information, information, etc 

7. Select a suitable concluding sentence for an informative or a narrative or sharing their personal information.

Assessments 

 

  Formative Assessment:

Daily class exercises, worksheets, spelling log

 

 

Summative Assessments:

Class Test on words, word puzzles, end of unit assessments etc.

Learning Activities:

Activity 1:

  • Teach and reinforce handwriting in regular sessions when ‘families’ of similar-shaped letters. The key to each of the letter families should be their starting strokes. Commonly used letter families are:
  • f, i, j , l, t, u, y
  • b, h, k, m, n, p, r
  • a, c, d, e, g, o, q, s
  • v, w, x, z

The placement of the letters f and k will depend on the style of handwriting chosen.

 

  • Check that all taught letters are correctly formed in all writing. Learners often find it difficult to transfer letter formation to their regular writing, but bad habits learned now are harder to eradicate later on.

 

Activity 2: (The following activity can be used both in Reading & Writing))

Once students form all letters correctly, introduce some basic joins. At first, only join up pairs of letters which will help students as they learn to spell words independently (e.g. y-ou, M-um, c-at, s-a-nd).

Every lesson should include some phonics games and activities, for example: 

  • ask learners to say phonemes in ways that reflects a mood (e.g. bossy, scary)
  • play rhyming bingo by drawing out of a bag an object/picture and asking learners to call out if it rhymes with any of the three pictures they each have.

 

Use regular opportunities to reinforce segmenting and blending. Say the word, the phonemes, and the word. Learners repeat the sequence. Repeat with another word. For example, say, ‘Cat, c-a-t, cat. Hat, h-a-t, hat. Fat, f-a-t, fat.’ 

 

Use card/wooden cut-out letters so that learners have both an aural and a visual input for these sounds. This activity combines segmenting a word for spelling and blending the phonemes for reading. Include ‘sh’, ‘th’ and ‘ch’ in these activities. Although each sound is represented by two letters, they are still one phoneme, so a word like shop is a single-syllable word

 

 

Use card/wooden cut-out letters to make simple, single-syllable words.

  • Ask learners to explore what happens when the first letter is replaced by another. Can they predict what will happen if the first letter is replaced by a different sound? 
  • Ask learners to make as many words as they can.
  • Read all the words aloud. Talk about the fact that they rhyme and share spelling patterns.
  • Repeat with different vowel–consonant (VC) combinations.