Pre-primary English Syllabus
Pre-primary
Year level description
In the early childhood phase of schooling, learning, development and wellbeing are connected and learning builds on the Early Years Learning Framework and each child’s funds of knowledge. A holistic curriculum that integrates knowledge, understandings, skills, values and attitudes across learning areas connects learning to children’s lives and their natural curiosity about their world.
English provides opportunities for children to learn through an orchestrated blend of play, deliberate and intentional teaching, and spontaneous experiences and actions.
In Pre-primary, children act with intentionality and agency to develop an understanding that English is the shared language of the learning environment, used to interact and communicate with known audiences for different purposes and to meet their personal needs and interests. English provides children with opportunities to develop their control and understanding of the symbolic representations associated with written language. They draw on their funds of knowledge to make connections to the English curriculum and explore concepts through a range of modes of communication, including music, dance, movement, storytelling, visual arts, and drama.
Critical literacy is integral to the English curriculum. It is developed when children actively question, analyse and evaluate the texts they engage with. Children begin to learn about the structure and purpose of texts.
Children engage with a range of texts for enjoyment and learning. They listen to, read and view spoken, written and multimodal texts that include traditional oral tales; imaginative and informative picture books; various types of print, oral and digital stories; rhyming verse, poetry, songs and chants; film and animations; dramatic performances; presentations; conversations and discussions; non-fiction texts; and websites and other digital media. In Pre-primary, children develop their reading in a text-rich environment through engagement with a range of texts, including:
- literature that reflects and expands their world, and supports learning in English and across the curriculum
- texts that support children as meaning makers and enables them to share feelings and thoughts about texts
- texts for beginning readers that systematically introduce words with a limited number of phoneme–grapheme correspondences and add phoneme–grapheme correspondences as proficiency develops
- texts that support developing readers, including authentic literary texts that involve straightforward sequences of events and everyday happenings, some less familiar content, a small range of language features, including simple and compound sentences, high-frequency words, and other words that can be decoded using developing phonic knowledge
- authentic, informative texts that reflect their interests and curiosities.
Children create short imaginative and informative texts that may include some words, images and/or gestures to create texts that may include retells or adaptations of stories, messages, short recounts, thoughts and opinions, and dramatic performances for a known purpose and audience. Children make choices about texts according to their interests and curiosities.
Pre-primary
Achievement standard
By the end of the year:
Speaking and Listening
Children actively listen to texts, interact with others and create short spoken texts, including retelling stories. They share thoughts and opinions, likes and dislikes, and retell events or key ideas with peers and adults. They listen for and use language features, including vocabulary and phrases from learning experiences and texts. They listen for and identify rhymes, sound patterns and sounds (phonemes) in words. They orally blend and segment phonemes in single-syllable words. They transfer information learned across multiple contexts to demonstrate features of speaking and listening; for example, using topic‑specific vocabulary during activities and play.
Reading and Viewing
Children listen to, read, view and comprehend a range of texts. They actively construct meaning by making personal connections to characters, events and settings. They make predictions, respond to and pose questions when discussing texts and identify some differences between imaginative and informative texts. They engage with texts for personal reasons, including for enjoyment and to demonstrate reading behaviours. They identify some language features of familiar texts, such as typical beginnings, endings or characters. They name the letters of the English alphabet and know and use the most common sounds (phonemes) represented by these letters (graphs) and manipulate sounds in single-syllable words. They associate most common sounds with letters to read words, including consonant–vowel–consonant words and some high-frequency words to make meaning.
Writing and Creating
Children retell stories, report information and state their thoughts, feelings and key ideas about real or imagined events. Children create short written and multimodal texts using words and images where appropriate and understand that their texts can reflect their own experiences. They begin to transfer and use words and phrases that have been taught or explored in texts. Their writing shows evidence of beginning writing behaviours, such as directionality. They experiment with capital letters and full stops. They use letter and sound knowledge to spell most consonant–vowel–consonant words.
Pre-primary
Content descriptions
Language for interacting with others
Explore how language is used differently at home, in school and in communities depending on the relationships between people
WAPELAI1
For example:
- interacting with adults and peers in a range of situations, such as play, role-play and partner, group and whole class activities to experiment with language
- using the home languages of the diverse cultures represented to explore how languages build social and personal connection, such as greetings and songs
Explore different ways of using language to express opinions, likes and dislikes
WAPELAI2
For example:
- participating in informal discussions during the day about their interests and curiosities
- using connecting words, such as when and but, when exploring the language of opinion
- experimenting with comparative language, such as good, better, best
Text structure, organisation and features
Understand that texts can take many forms, such as signs, books and digital texts
WAPELAT1
For example:
- exploring different text forms and engaging with their features, such as commenting on the purpose of a sign or discussing a photograph in an informative book
- exploring how different texts affect an audience, and can prompt emotional reactions, such as picture books can be shared for enjoyment
Digital literacy
Recognise that some language in written texts is unlike everyday spoken language
WAPELAT2
For example:
- knowing words and phrases like Once upon a time, said the boy and the end that are commonly used in stories but are not typically used in everyday language
- identifying some subject‑specific language in informative texts
- exploring repetition and rhyme in texts
Explore conventions of print and screen, including how books and simple digital texts are usually organised
WAPELAT3
For example:
- identifying English text direction of left to right and top to bottom
- developing print awareness by exploring the ways words and images are placed in texts
- using navigation features to read a digital text, such as using the scroll bar to continue viewing a text on a website
Language for expressing and developing ideas
Recognise that sentences are key units for expressing ideas
WAPELALA1
For example:
- exploring how oral sentences express meaning, such as in questions or statements
- exploring how sentences in written texts contain a full idea and make sense
- responding to who, when, what and where questions to add information to sentences when needed
Recognise that sentences are made up of groups of words that work together in particular ways to make meaning
WAPELALA2
For example:
- communicating the ideas represented in sentences, such as identifying that the sentence The cat ate its dinner is about a cat that ate
Explore the contribution of images and words to meaning in stories and informative texts
WAPELALA3
For example:
- interacting with images in picture books, short films and other multimodal texts and discussing what they are communicating to the reader or why they were included
Recognise and develop awareness of vocabulary used in familiar contexts related to everyday experiences, personal interests and topics taught at school
WAPELALA4
Identify punctuation as a feature of written text different from letters; recognise that capital letters are used for names, and that capital letters also signal the beginning of sentences while punctuation marks signal the end
WAPELALA5
For example:
- sorting letters into upper- and lower-case
- identifying full stops, question marks and exclamation marks in texts and experimenting with their use when writing
Phonic and word knowledge
Recognise and generate rhyming words, alliteration patterns, syllables and sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (phonological awareness)
WAPELAP1
For example:
- listening for, identifying and generating rhyming pairs, such as funny/money
- using alliteration, such as happy Harry, to explore phonemes
Segment sentences into individual words and orally blend and segment single-syllable spoken words; isolate, blend and manipulate phonemes in single-syllable words (phonological awareness)
WAPELAP2
For example:
- clapping and counting the words in sentences
- segmenting and blending words orally, such as mat, ship, with, truck
- identifying, deleting or substituting beginning, medial and final sounds in single-syllable words, such as hot – pot, hot – hit, hot – hop
Recognise and name all upper- and lower‑case letters (graphs) and know the most common sound that each letter represents
WAPELAP3
For example:
- exploring phoneme–grapheme correspondences discovered in meaningful contexts, such as shared reading or in environmental print
- identifying and recalling phoneme–grapheme correspondences, such as
- common initial sounds (phonemes)
- common consonant digraphs, such as <sh>, <ch>, <th> (voiced/unvoiced)
- common phoneme–grapheme correspondences, such as when <s> makes the [z] sound in the final position in words such as is, was, his
- short vowel sounds
[a] hat,
[e] pet,
[i] tip,
[o] hot,
[u] tub
presented early in the sequence to combine with consonants
Write consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) words by representing sounds with the appropriate letters, and blend sounds associated with letters when reading CVC words
WAPELAP4
Use knowledge of letters and sounds to spell words
WAPELAP5
For example:
- using knowledge of letter names when spelling words, such as mi (my) and hape (happy)
- using knowledge of sounds to spell words, such as yung (young) and workt (walked)
Read and write some high‑frequency words and other familiar words
WAPELAP6
For example:
- reading and writing familiar words, such as names or environmental words
- reading and writing frequently occurring words, such as a, and, for, he, in, is, it, of, that, the, to, was, you
Explore how words are units of meaning and can be made of more than one meaningful part
WAPELAP7
For example:
- recognising when an <s> is added to a base word, such as ball, it makes a plural
- exploring how <ed> indicates past tense when added to a word, such as talk, talked
- recognising that an antonym of a word can be made by adding a prefix, such as <un> unhappy
Literature and contexts
Share ideas about stories, poems and images in literature, reflecting on experiences that are similar or different to their own by engaging with texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, wide-ranging Australian and world authors and illustrators
WAPELICO1
For example:
- listening to a literary text, such as a poem set in the Australian bush, and talking about connections to their own experiences
- re-enacting scenarios of a favourite story, poem or experience in a role-play environment
Engaging with and responding to literature
Respond to stories and share feelings and thoughts about their settings, events and characters
WAPELIEN1
For example:
- sharing thoughts and ideas about a story, such as orally discussing favourite storybook characters or by drawing pictures of a favourite event
Examining literature
Recognise different types of literary texts and identify features, including setting, events, characters, and beginnings and endings
WAPELIEX1
For example:
- identifying and discussing features common to specific literary texts, such as real and imaginary characters who may be found in stories about the Australian bush, events that typically occur in fiction stories, such as fairytales, or typical beginnings and endings in fables or cultural stories
Explore and replicate the rhythms and sound patterns of literary texts, such as stories, poems, chants, rhymes and songs
WAPELIEX2
Creating literature
Retell and adapt literary texts through play and performance
WAPELICR1
For example:
- retelling or performing a story, changing the characters, setting or order of events
- participating in role-play to retell and adapt favourite texts
Texts in context
Identify some familiar texts, such as stories and informative texts, and their purposes
WAPELYT1
For example:
- recognising how a non-fiction text contains information about the real world
- identifying some texts in the environment and recognising their purpose, such as using a poster that explains how to wash your hands
Interacting with others
Interact in informal and structured situations by listening while others speak, including turn-taking and using features of voice, including volume levels
WAPELYI1
Analysing, interpreting and evaluating
Identify some differences between imaginative and informative texts
WAPELYA1
For example:
- recognising features that are imaginative in fiction texts and real-world information in informative texts, such as talking animals in stories compared to an animal encyclopedia
- discussing language typical to a specific text type, such as Once upon a time in fairytales
Read decodable and authentic texts using developing phonic and word knowledge, and monitor meaning using context and emerging grammatical knowledge
WAPELYA2
For example:
- using decoding knowledge to read regular VC and CVC words in phonic (decodable) readers
- identifying some high-frequency words and other known words during shared and independent reading
- developing strategies, such as pausing or asking for help, when needing to clarify a sound or word
- beginning to use punctuation when reading, such as pausing at a full stop
Explore comprehension strategies, such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to understand and discuss texts listened to, viewed or read
WAPELYA3
For example:
- previewing a text by looking at the images to activate prior knowledge
- asking questions to clarify understanding of a text listened to or viewed
- participating in ‘think alouds’
- summarising a story by recalling some key events in an oral story or film
- visualising a character or setting when listening to a story or poem
- making a connection to a setting in a text to predict what events may occur there
Creating texts
Create written and multimodal texts for a range of purposes, including:
- giving a message
- expressing an opinion
- sending a greeting
- recounting an experience
WAPELYC1
Create and deliver short spoken texts to report ideas and events (real or imagined) to peers, using features, such as appropriate voice modulation
WAPELYC2
Form most lower- and upper-case letters using learnt letter formations and correct starting points and directionality
WAPELYC3
Explore the use of digital tools to create or add to a visual or spoken text
WAPELYC4
For example:
- using a camera or digital device to take a photo for a specific purpose
- recording a spoken story or personal experience of choice onto a tablet