English: Age 5–6 (Year 1)
In their English lessons in Year 1, your child will learn the spelling, grammar and punctuation rules they need to write clearly. They will start to write their own simple stories and non-fiction texts and learn how to hold a pencil. They will be introduced to a wide range of texts that will develop their vocabulary.
How to help at home
There are lots of simple things you can do at home to support your child’s English skills:
1. Practising phonics with your child as much as possible – all your child’s English skills are underpinned by their reading skills. Make sure you pronounce the sounds correctly.
2. Read to your child as often as you can, or listen to books read aloud. This will increase their vocabulary and comprehension skills, particularly if you talk about the book. Get your child to follow a story you are reading with their eyes – this will help them to absorb grammar, punctuation and spelling rules without realising it.
Take a look at our free eBook library .
3. Practise spellings. Play games with your child to help them learn their weekly spelling words. You could play hangman, make up silly sentences for your child to write, ‘hide’ the spelling words in a string of letters, play pairs using two word cards for each word, or make a set of bingo cards for the words.
See our Twelve tips for weekly spellings page for more ideas.
4. Create writing opportunities , such as writing notes or lists. Tell stories together and draw some of them with captions. Make mini-books with pictures and labels on a topic (for example superheroes) that your child loves. Support your child to tell simple stories out loud.
For more ideas on writing stories, look at our Creative writing page.
5. Use interesting vocabulary when talking to your child. Try to use precise nouns and descriptive adjectives .
6. Encourage your child to talk as much as possible. Gently correct their grammar as they talk.
7. Make time for handwriting practise – create lots of opportunity to get those good habits in place – including forming letters and holding the pencil.
What your child will learn
Follow the links below to find out more about how English is taught in Year 1:
Grammar & punctuation in Year 1 (age 5–6)
In year 1, your child will learn to:.
- Leave spaces between words
- Put words together to make sentences
- Join words and clauses using and
- Use capital letters, full stops , question marks , and exclamation marks
- Use capital letters for names and use I properly
- Turn words into plurals using -s or -es
- Adding suffixes to verbs without changing the root word , for example helping , helped , helper
- Using the prefix un- to change the meaning of verbs and adjectives , for example unkind and unclear
- Putting sentences together to write short stories or anecdotes
Practise activities:
- Punctuation
Grammar books for age 5-6:
- Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Age 5–6
Oxford First Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Dictionary
My Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Kit
Spelling in Year 1 (age 5–6)
In year 1, your child will learn:.
- to spell simple words that can be spelled using the phonics they have learnt so far
- to spell the days of the week
- how to spell words with simple prefixes and suffixes like un- and -ing
- how to spell compound words , for example, football , playground
- the names of the letters of the alphabet
- to spell the Year 1 common exception words (see our list of Common exception words for Year 1 )
Books to develop spelling skills:
Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary
Spelling practise activities:
- Phonics: Which spelling?
Phonics: Which spelling? (Super challenge)
At Home with Spelling 1 (age 5–7)
Writing in Year 1 (age 5–6)
- to write simple sentences
- to say a sentence out loud before writing it down
- to put sentences into the right order to tell a short story
- to re-read what they have written to check that it makes sense
- to talk about their writing with their teacher or classmates
- to read their writing out loud to their teacher or the class.
More information and writing activity ideas for Year 1
Handwriting in Year 1 (age 5–6)
- sit correctly and use the right pencil grip
- form lowercase letters in the correct way: starting in the right place, moving the pencil in the correct direction and finishing in the right place
- form capital letters in the correct way
- forming the digits 0–9
- understand which letters are formed in similar ways
- leave a space between words.
Handwriting practise activities:
- Tripod grip for left-handers
- Tripod grip for right-handers
- Practise tramlines
- Words to practise in Year 1
- At home with Handwriting 1
- At Home with Handwriting 2
- Handwriting: Capital Letters
- Handwriting Monsters
Handwriting acitivity books:
- Handwriting Ages 5-6
- My Reading and Writing Kit: More sounds and blending
- My Reading and Writing Kit: Becoming a reader
- Starting to Write Letters Age 4-5
For more information on skills taught throughout Primary School, check out our phonics and vocabulary pages.
- Age 5–6 (Year 1)
- Age 6–7 (Year 2)
- Age 7–8 (Year 3)
- Age 8–9 (Year 4)
- Age 9–10 (Year 5)
- Age 10–11 (Year 6)
- Year 1 (age 5–6)
- Year 2 (age 6–7)
- Year 3 (age 7–8)
- Year 4 (age 8–9)
- Year 5 (age 9–10)
- Year 6 (age 10–11)
- Grammar glossary
- Grammar books
Classroom Stars
Year 1 English worksheets
Year 1 | Adding ‘s’ and ‘es’ to Words Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Adding ‘un’ to Words Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Compound Words Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | The Sounds ‘ai, oi, ay and oy’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Word Endings in ‘er’ and ‘est’ Worksheets
Year 1 | Word Endings in ‘ve’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Word Endings – ‘ing’, ‘ed’ and ‘er’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | The ‘oo’ Sound – Long and Short Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Syllables Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Days of the Week Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Common Words Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Words with ‘ch’ or ‘tch’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Words with ‘k’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Words Ending in ‘ff’, ‘ll’, ‘ss’, ‘zz’ and ‘ck’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Words with ‘nk’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Words with ‘ph’ and ‘wh’ Spelling Worksheets
Year 1 | Capital Letters and Full Stops Worksheets
Year 1 | Capital Letters for the Letter ‘I’ Worksheets
Year 1 | Capital Letters for Names Worksheets
Year 1 | Exclamation Marks Worksheets
Year 1 | Full Stops Worksheets
Year 1 | Punctuation Challenge Worksheets
Year 1 | Question Marks Worksheets
Year 1 | Separating Words with Spaces Worksheets
Year 1 | Adding the Suffixes ‘er’ and ‘est’ Worksheets
Year 1 | Adding the Suffix ‘ing’ to Verbs Worksheets
Year 1 | Adding the Suffix ‘ed’ to Verbs Worksheets
Year 1 | Adding the Prefix ‘un’ to Adjectives Worksheets
Year 1 | Adding the Prefix ‘un’ to Verbs Worksheets
Year 1 | Adjectives Worksheets
Are you a Year 1 teacher searching for fantastic Year 1 English worksheets tailored to your classroom needs? Look no further! Our worksheets and activities are thoughtfully designed for Year 1 (age 5-6), aligning perfectly with the primary national curriculum framework for Key Stage 1. We’ve got you covered with all the essential areas of primary English, including writing composition, reading comprehension, handwriting, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, punctuation and phonics.
Our Year 1 primary English worksheets are not only educational but also a lot of fun, ensuring your pupils remain engaged and make progress toward their learning goals.
Don’t forget to explore our wide range of Year 1 primary resources .
Additionally, you might want to take a peek at our Year 2 English worksheets – you may discover something interesting there, too!
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Year 1 English
Find out about the topics your child will learn in their Year 1 English lessons and discover Year 1 English worksheets that will help your support learning at home in all the core areas, such as writing sentences using correct punctuation , forming letters correctly and simple spelling .
You’ll also find lots of information and resources to help your child prepare for the Year 1 Phonics Check that takes place in the Summer term of Year 1.
Join TheSchoolRun today...
Year 1 phonics screening check.
The Phonics screening check is used to test children's reading and phonics skills and what they've learnt in their first two years at school. Find out what you need to know about the Phonics screening check and get an idea of what your child will be asked to do in the June test by looking through the Phonics Screening Check official past papers . Then check out all the Phonics Screening practice checks we have created.
Year 1 English Booster pack
Reading, writing and spelling practice for KS1 children means wordsearches, matching games, writing missing posters and more! Our Year 1 English booster pack covers all the main literacy topics your child will learn in the first year of KS1. Just one worksheet a day will offer a fun revision session to help them with their handwriting, phonics and punctuation – and why not let your child organise a little party to make the 'writing for purpose' activity even more exciting?
Year 1 English Learning Journey
The Year 1 English Learning Journey programme contains 40 worksheets that roughly match the order that your child is being taught topics at school during the year. Work through them in order to be sure your child keeps up with all the core areas of learning they need to have mastered by the end of Year 1 or, if you are a subscriber, we'll send you an email every Wednesday with recommendations for a worksheet to complete that week. There are also 24 fun worksheets that we'll send you during the school holidays!
Year 1 English Progress checks
Want to know if your child's Year 1 learning is on track? Get your child to work through the Year 1 English Progress Check and you'll be instantly be able to see where there are gaps in their knowledge.
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