English

Spoken Language

  • listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
  • ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
  • use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary
  • articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
  • give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
  • maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
  • use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas
  • speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English
  • participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play/improvisations and debates
  • gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)
  • consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others
  • select and use appropriate registers for effective communication

Text types

Poetry using similes

Reference books

Textbooks

Dictionaries

Myths and legends

Folk tales

Non-fiction texts with contents and index pages

Plays

Poetry (free verse, narrative poetry)

Letters

Diary

Instructions

Significant authors and poets

Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation

  • understand the grammatical difference between plural and possessive –s
  • use Standard English forms for verb inflections instead of local spoken forms, e.g. we were instead of we was, or I did instead of I done
  • expand noun phrases by adding modifying adjectives, nouns and preposition phrases (e.g. the teacher expanded to: the strict maths teacher with curly hair)
  • use fronted adverbials, e.g. Later that day, I heard the bad news.
  • use paragraphs to organise ideas around a theme
  • choose appropriate pronoun or noun within and across sentences to aid cohesion and avoid repetition
  • use inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech, e.g. a comma after the reporting clause; end punctuation within inverted commas: The conductor shouted, “Sit down!”
  • use apostrophes to mark plural possession, e.g. the girl’s name, the girls’ names
  • use commas after fronted adverbials

 

  • Terminology: determiner, pronoun, possessive pronoun, adverbial

Spelling

  • spell words with endings sounding like –sion, -cian, -tion, -ssion
  • add prefixes ‘in-‘, ‘il-‘, ‘im-‘ and ‘ir-‘
  • add prefixes ‘anti-’ and ‘inter-‘sub’ ‘auto’, ‘super’
  • suffix ‘ation’
  • add suffixes ‘-ous’
  • use possessive apostrophe with plurals
  • spell homophones & near-homophones
  • words spelt with ‘sc’
  • write from memory simple sentences dictated by teacher, including words  and punctuation taught so far.
  • Use first 2 or 3 letters of a word to check its spelling in a dictionary
  • See annotated version of appendix 1 for year 4

Handwriting

  • use the diagonal and horizontal strokes that are needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined
  • increase the legibility, consistency and quality of their handwriting (for example, by ensuring that the downstrokes of letters are parallel and equidistant; that lines of writing are spaced sufficiently so that the ascenders and descenders of letters do not touch)

Word Reading

  • apply their growing knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes (etymology and morphology), both to read aloud and to understand the meaning of new words they meet
  • read further exception words, noting the unusual correspondences between spelling and sound, and where these occur in the word

 

Reading Comprehension

  • Develop positive attitudes to reading, and an understanding of what they read.
  • Listen to and discuss a wide range of fiction, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books or textbooks
  • read books that are structured in different ways and read for a range of purposes
  • use dictionaries to check the meaning of words that they have read
  • increase their familiarity with a wide range of books, including fairy stories, myths and legends, and retelling some of these orally
  • identify themes and conventions in a wide range of books
  • prepare poems and play scripts to read aloud and to perform, showing understanding through intonation, tone, volume and action
  • discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination
  • recognise some different forms of poetry

 

In books read independently:

  • check that the text makes sense to them, discussing their understanding and explaining the meaning of words in context
  • ask questions to improve their understanding of a text
  • draw inferences such as inferring characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justify inferences with evidence
  • predict what might happen from details stated and implied
  • identify main ideas drawn from more than 1 paragraph and summarise these
  • identify how language, structure, and presentation contribute to meaning
  • retrieve and record information from non-fiction
  • participate in discussion about both books that are read to them and those they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say

 

Writing: Composition, Cohesion and Effect

  • Write in a range of genres/forms, taking account of different audiences and purposes.

Planning

  • compose and rehearse sentences orally, varying sentence structures
  • rehearse dialogue
  • discuss and record ideas
  • identify key features in similar texts (structure, vocabulary and grammar)

 

Drafting and writing

Narrative

  • create settings, characters and plot
  • sequence events clearly to show how one event leads to another using appropriate grammatical structures and vocabulary
  • use paragraphs shift to indicate a change in setting, character, time (rather than simply reflecting stages in planning)
  • use Standard English forms for verb inflections instead of local spoken forms, e.g. we were instead of we was, or I did instead of I done
  • include descriptive detail and make writing more vivid using specific nouns, adjectives, expanded noun phrases and figurative language (similes, metaphors)
  • describe characters in such a way to provoke a particular feeling in the reader, e.g. sympathy or dislike
  • develop mood and atmosphere using a range of vocabulary and dialogue between characters
  • include details expressed in ways that engage the reader
  • use techniques to get the reader on side (address them to engage or influence)
  • imitate authorial techniques gathered from the reading of narrative texts

 

Poetry

  • write poems imitating poetic structures studied
  • include details expressed in ways that engage the reader

 

Non-narrative

  • use simple organisational devices in non-narrative material, e.g. sub-headings
  • organise or categorise information based on notes from several sources
  • use paragraphs to organise ideas around a theme
  • imitate authorial techniques gathered from reading
  • use techniques to get the reader on side (address them to engage or persuade)

 

Proof-reading, editing and evaluating

  • proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors
  • evaluate and edit by proposing changes to grammar and vocabulary to improve consistency, including the accurate use of pronouns in sentences
  • evaluate and edit by assessing the effectiveness of their own and other’s writing and suggesting improvements

 

  • Presenting
  • read aloud own writing, to a group or the whole class, using appropriate intonation and controlling the volume so that the meaning is clear