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Foundation level

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English

English Level Description

In the Foundation level, students communicate with peers, teachers, known adults, and students from other classes.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read and view spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is to entertain, as well as some texts designed to inform. These include traditional oral texts, picture books, various types of...

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English Content Descriptions

Reading and Viewing

Language
Text structure and organisation
  1. Understand that texts can take many forms, and that imaginative and informative texts have different purposes (VCELA141)
  2. Understand concepts about print and screen, including how books, film and simple digital texts work, and know some features of print, including directionality (VCELA142)
Expressing and developing ideas
  1. Recognise that sentences are key units for expressing ideas (VCELA143)
  2. Recognise that texts are made up of words and groups of words that make meaning (VCELA144)
  3. Explore the different contribution of words and images to meaning in stories and informative texts (VCELA145)
Phonics and word knowledge
  1. Recognise all upper- and lower-case letters and the most common sound that each letter represents (VCELA146)
  2. Blend sounds associated with letters when reading consonant-vowel-consonant words (VCELA147)
Literature
Literature and context
  1. Recognise that texts are created by authors who tell stories and share experiences that may be similar or different to students’ own experiences (VCELT148)
Examining literature
  1. Recognise some different types of literary texts and identify some characteristic features of literary texts (VCELT149)
  2. Identify some features of texts including events and characters and retell events from a text (VCELT150)
Literacy
Texts in context
  1. Identify some familiar texts and the contexts in which they are used (VCELY151)
Interpreting, analysing, evaluating
  1. Read texts with familiar structures and features, practising phrasing and fluency, and monitor meaning using concepts about print and emerging phonic, semantic, contextual and grammatical knowledge (VCELY152)
  2. Use comprehension strategies to understand and discuss texts listened to, viewed or read independently (VCELY153)
  3. Identify some differences between imaginative and informative texts (VCELY154)

Writing

Language
Text structure and organisation
  1. Understand that some language in written texts is unlike everyday spoken language (VCELA155)
  2. Understand that punctuation is a feature of written text different from letters and recognise how capital letters are used for names, and that capital letters and full stops signal the beginning and end of sentences (VCELA156)
Phonics and word knowledge
  1. Understand that spoken sounds and words can be written and know how to write some high-frequency words and other familiar words including their name (VCELA157)
  2. Know how to use onset and rime to spell words where sounds map more directly onto letters (VCELA158)
Literature
Creating literature
  1. Retell familiar literary texts through performance, use of illustrations and images (VCELT159)
Literacy
Creating texts
  1. Create short texts to explore, record and report ideas and events using familiar words and beginning writing knowledge (VCELY160)
  2. Participate in shared editing of students’ own texts for meaning, spelling, capital letters and full stops (VCELY161)
  3. Understand that sounds in English are represented by upper- and lower-case letters that can be written using learned letter formation patterns for each case (VCELY162)
  4. Construct texts using software including word processing programs (VCELY163)

Speaking and Listening

Language
Language variation and change
  1. Understand that English is one of many languages spoken in Australia and that different languages may be spoken by family, classmates and community (VCELA164)
Language for interaction
  1. Explore how language is used differently at home and school depending on the relationships between people (VCELA165)
  2. Understand that language can be used to explore ways of expressing needs, likes and dislikes (VCELA166)
Expressing and developing ideas
  1. Understand the use of vocabulary in familiar contexts related to everyday experiences, personal interests and topics taught at school (VCELA167)
Phonics and word knowledge
  1. Identify rhyming words, alliteration patterns, syllables and some sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (VCELA168)
  2. Blend and segment onset and rime in single syllable spoken words and isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words (first consonant sound, last consonant sound, middle vowel sound) (VCELA169)
Literature
Responding to literature
  1. Respond to texts, identifying favourite stories, authors and illustrators (VCELT170)
  2. Share feelings and thoughts about the events and characters in texts (VCELT171)
Examining literature
  1. Replicate the rhythms and sound patterns in stories, rhymes, songs and poems from a range of cultures (VCELT172)
Creating literature
  1. Modify familiar texts (VCELT173)
Literacy
Interacting with others
  1. Listen to and respond orally to texts and to the communication of others in informal and structured classroom situations using interaction skills, including listening, while others speak (VCELY174)
  2. Deliver short oral presentations to peers, using appropriate voice levels, articulation, body language, gestures and eye contact (VCELY175)

English Achievement Standard

Reading and Viewing

By the end of the Foundation level, students use questioning and monitoring strategies to make meaning from texts. They recall one or two events from texts with familiar topics. They understand that there are different types of texts and that these can have similar characteristics. They identify connections between texts and their personal experience. They read short predictable texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, drawing on their developing knowledge of concepts about print, and sound and letters. They identify all the letters of the English alphabet in both upper- and lower-case, and know and can use the sounds represented by most letters.

Writing

When writing, students use familiar words and phrases and images to convey ideas. Their writing shows evidence of letter and sound knowledge, beginning writing behaviours and experimentation with capital letters and full stops. They correctly form all upper- and lower-case letters.

Speaking and Listening

Students listen to and use appropriate interaction skills to respond to others in a familiar environment. They can identify rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words. Students understand that their texts can reflect their own experiences. They identify and describe likes and dislikes about familiar texts, objects, characters and events. In informal group and whole-class settings, students communicate clearly. They retell events and experiences with peers and known adults. They identify and use rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words.

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