Inspired by: Children's Games - Curriculum Objectives

In the context of the Year 1 curriculum, children are encouraged to develop their literacy skills through a variety of engaging activities. They are taught to apply their phonetic knowledge to decode words, quickly associating the correct sounds with graphemes for over 40 phonemes, including alternative sounds. Pupils practice reading unfamiliar words by blending sounds and learn to recognize common exception words, understanding the unusual correspondences between spelling and sound. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of reading aloud with accuracy, focusing on books that match their phonic knowledge, and encourages re-reading to enhance fluency and confidence.

Additionally, students are motivated to develop a love for reading and an understanding of literature by listening to and discussing a wide range of poems, stories, and non-fiction beyond their independent reading level. They are urged to connect the stories they hear to their own experiences and to become familiar with key stories and traditional tales, retelling them and recognizing predictable phrases. Pupils also learn to appreciate rhymes and poems, with some memorized by heart. The curriculum supports pupils in understanding the content they read and listen to by drawing on prior knowledge, checking comprehension, discussing the significance of titles and events, making inferences, and predicting outcomes. Writing skills are fostered through composing sentences, sequencing narratives, and discussing and reading aloud their work. Handwriting instruction includes forming letters and digits correctly and understanding letter families. The module on 'Children's Games' by Pieter Bruegel offers opportunities for comprehension through discussion, inferring, predicting, expressing opinions, and engaging with playground rhymes, as well as composition tasks like writing labels, captions, and recounting experiences with games.