View KLA Structure for all Levels

As students work towards achievement at level 1, the focus is on establishing the foundations for English learning in the context of the school. Students enter school with an enthusiasm for learning and a range of experiences and skills with texts used at home and in the community when speaking, listening, reading and writing. Teachers draw on and extend these experiences and skills to allow students to explore and develop a vocabulary to talk about how they and others can use spoken and written English within the classroom.

In formal and informal situations, students become aware of the way they use language and the way in which it is used to communicate, negotiate, speculate, hypothesise and reflect in the classroom and at school. They learn to adjust their speaking and listening to suit the purpose, situation and audience, to make themselves clear and to understand others.

Students gain new understanding and experiences through exposure to a wide range of print and non-print texts in the classroom. In the early years, however, the focus of reading is on printed texts. Students relate their own experiences to the ideas, events and information in texts when sharing and responding to print, non-print and electronic texts. Students are taught to read simple, predictable texts that have familiar content and predominantly oral language patterns. They begin to understand that illustrations help the reader to interpret texts and that print maintains a constant message. They are able to match written and spoken words when reading simple texts. They learn to select their own reading material from a small range of familiar texts.

Through the teaching of reading and writing, students develop an awareness of the purpose, formation and conventions of print. Students are introduced to correct letter formation and appropriate pencil grip. They compose and record simple texts about personally significant topics for their own purposes and audiences. When forming words they are taught to draw on their knowledge of the alphabet and its relationship to the sound system, conventional letters, groups of letters and some simple punctuation to communicate a message.