The New Zealand Curriculum · Phase 1

Year 1 English Worksheets

For the first year at school (Year 1), the topics English covers in the New Zealand Curriculum, with the skills we have worksheets for, each described in our own words.

408 worksheets

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Trace the Letter A Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter B Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter C Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter D Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter E Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter F Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter G Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter H Years 1–2 · English ★

What students learn in Year 1 English

New Zealand Year 1 English has 3 topics: Talking and listening in class; Phonics, reading and understanding; and Handwriting, spelling and writing. Our worksheets cover 33 skills in 2 of them. The most are in Phonics, reading and understanding, with 26 skills, such as reading and spelling sight words, reading and spelling CVC words and word ladders: changing letters to make new words. There are also skills in Handwriting, spelling and writing (16 skills). We have no worksheets yet for Talking and listening in class. Each skill below says in plain words what your child works on, with links to its worksheets.

Phonics, reading and understanding

english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/01-3f52bd english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/02-9125e6 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/03-7e239d english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/04-060ea2 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/05-07d4eb english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/06-184455 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/07-b1797f english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/08-38d8d0

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english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.practices/01-ae44e3 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/01-221f41 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/03-0f04bb english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.knowledge/04-3c1cef english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.phonemic-awareness-and-phonics-knowledge.practices/01-d94f47 english/first-six-months..third-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/01-6188d0 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.practices/01-a16731 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/01-12c440 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/02-f06bf5 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/03-2573ae english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.practices/01-1a8729 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/01-609766 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/02-1b3b1a english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/03-5ef5cf english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/04-4088f2 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.knowledge/05-e7ef40 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.practices/01-700f4b english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.practices/02-f514c5 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.decoding.practices/01-237191 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.knowledge/01-180b89 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.knowledge/02-4c956a english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.practices/01-8ccbee english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.knowledge/01-b513c0 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.knowledge/02-ec2526 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.practices/01-648a88 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.conventions-of-print.knowledge/02-aea815 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.fluency.knowledge/01-552760 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.word-recognition.fluency.knowledge/02-bafd68 english/first-year/reading.word-recognition.fluency.practices/02-2842e5 english/first-year/reading.comprehension.vocabulary.knowledge/01-1415fc english/first-year/reading.comprehension.vocabulary.practices/01-0202e6 english/first-year/reading.comprehension.sentence-structure.knowledge/01-4a270a english/first-year/reading.comprehension.sentence-structure.knowledge/02-0915af english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.comprehension.text-form-structure-style-and-features.knowledge/01-7c57c4 english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.comprehension.text-form-structure-style-and-features.knowledge/02-03f6eb english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.comprehension.text-form-structure-style-and-features.knowledge/03-44eefe english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.comprehension.text-form-structure-style-and-features.knowledge/04-87664c english/first-six-months..first-year/reading.comprehension.text-form-structure-style-and-features.practices/01-119c57 english/first-year/reading.comprehension.comprehension-strategies.knowledge/02-95762c english/first-year/reading.comprehension.comprehension-strategies.practices/02-fa84fd english/first-year/reading.comprehension.comprehension-strategies.practices/03-ad67b9 english/first-year/reading.comprehension.comprehension-strategies.practices/04-d4ea3d english/first-year/reading.critical-analysis.interpretations-and-connections.knowledge/01-40a965 english/first-year/reading.critical-analysis.interpretations-and-connections.knowledge/02-d88f4c

• Reading and spelling sight words. Read the most common words at a glance, including ones that do not sound out the way they are spelled, such as said and the, and spell them correctly. Worksheets: Pre-Primer Sight Words Worksheets (set) · Primer Sight Words Worksheets (set) · Year 2 Sight Words Worksheets (set).
• Reading and spelling CVC words. Sound out and spell short words made of a consonant, a short vowel and a consonant, such as cat, hen, pig, dog and sun, and see how changing one letter makes a new word. Worksheets: Missing Vowel CVC Worksheets (set).
• Word ladders: changing letters to make new words. Make a new word by changing, adding or taking away one letter, and read and spell each word on the way, from short vowel words to longer words with blends, digraphs and vowel teams. Worksheets: Blends and Digraphs Word Ladder Worksheets (set).
• Hearing the first sound in a word. Say a word and hear the sound it starts with, then match that sound to its letter: ball and bed start with b, sun and sock with s. Worksheets: Beginning Sounds Worksheets A–Z (set) · Beginning Sounds Cut and Paste Worksheets (set) · Match the Beginning Sounds Worksheets (set) · Write the First Letter: Consonants · Write the First Letter: Short Vowels.
• Consonant digraphs: sh, ch, th, wh, ck and ng. Read and spell words where two letters make one sound: sh in ship, ch in chin, th in thin, wh in whip, ck at the end of duck and ng at the end of ring. Worksheets: Consonant Digraphs (set).
• Consonant blends at the start and end of words. Read and spell words that start or end with two consonants whose sounds both stay, such as st in stop, fl in flag, and nd in hand. Worksheets: Consonant Blends (set).
• Long vowels with silent e (a_e, i_e, o_e, u_e). Hear long and short vowels, and read and spell words where a final e makes the vowel say its name: cap and cape, kit and kite, hop and hope, cub and cube. Worksheets: Silent e (set).
• Vowel teams: ai, ay, ee, ea, oa, ow and igh. Read and spell words where two or three letters make one long vowel sound: rain and day, feet and seat, boat and snow, and light. Worksheets: Vowel Teams (set).
• One- and two-syllable words. Count the syllables in a word by its vowel sounds, split two-syllable words such as rabbit and napkin into parts, and read each part. Worksheets: Syllables (set).
• Syllables in spoken words. Clap and count the syllables in a spoken word, such as ap-ple and but-ter-fly, blend syllables into a word, and split a word into its syllables. Worksheets: Clap and Count: 1 or 2 Syllables · Clap and Count: 1, 2 or 3 Syllables · Syllable Play: Take Away and Blend (Year 1).
• Ending sounds. Hear and name the last sound in a spoken word, such as the t in cat, and find pictures that end with the same sound. Worksheets: Ending Sounds: t, n and r · Ending Sounds: l, x and t · Ending Sounds: k, n and l.
• Reading words with endings: -s, -es, -ed, -ing, -er, -est and plurals. Find the base word in a word with an ending (hopping is hop + ing), hear the three sounds of -ed, and read regular and irregular plurals. Worksheets: Words with Endings (set) · What Do -s, -ed and -ing Mean?.
• One spelling, more than one sound: ow, ea, oo, c, g, y and ough. Know that some spellings stand for more than one sound (ow in snow and cow, ea in bead and bread, c in cat and city), try each sound, and choose the one that makes a real word. Worksheets: One Spelling, Two Sounds (set).
• Silent letters: kn, wr, gn and mb. Read words with silent letters, such as knife, write, gnat and lamb, and find the letter that makes no sound. Worksheets: Silent Letters (set).
• Concepts of print: words, spaces and sentences. Know how print works: read words from left to right and top to bottom, see that spaces separate words, tell a letter from a word and a word from a sentence, and find the first word, the capital letter and the end mark of a sentence. Worksheets: Letter, Word or Sentence? · Words, Pictures, and Symbols (Years 1 and 2) · What Is a Sentence? (Year 1) · How We Read a Page (Year 1).
• Text features: headings, captions, bold words, glossaries, diagrams and tables. Use a text's title, headings, captions, bold words, glossary, diagrams and tables to predict what it is about and to find facts, and explain why the author put each one there. Worksheets: How a Seed Grows: Year 1 Author and Illustrator · A Chick Grows Up: Year 1 Author and Illustrator · A Kitten Grows: Year 1 Author and Illustrator.
• Reasons that support a point. Read a short informational text that makes a point, find the point and the reasons the author gives for it, tell a reason from a sentence that is only about the topic, and explain how a reason supports the point. Worksheets: Wear a Hat in the Sun: Year 1 Point and Reasons · Our Class Should Plant a Garden: Year 1 Point and Reasons · Read With a Friend: Year 1 Point and Reasons.
• Author's purpose and point of view. Tell why an author wrote a text (to persuade, to inform, to entertain) and what the author thinks, who a text is written for, which form of writing fits a purpose and an audience, and name the narrator's point of view (first, second or third person, limited or all-knowing) and how it shapes what the reader learns. Worksheets: At Willow Pond: Year 1 Author’s Purpose · Taking a Book Home: Year 1 Author’s Purpose · Purpose for Reading (Year 1) · Fact or Opinion? (Year 1).
• Context clues. Work out what a new word means from the words and sentences around it: a definition, an example, a word with the same or opposite meaning, or a cause and effect. Worksheets: Owls Hunt at Night: Year 1 Context Clues · A Duck’s Feet: Year 1 Context Clues.
• Story words, parts, and narrators. Read a short story, poem, or play closely: work out new words, find feeling and sense words, repeated lines, and rhymes, tell literal from nonliteral phrases, name the parts (poem, chapter, scene), and tell who is telling the story and how each character, and the reader, sees it. Worksheets: A Story and a Poem About Kites: Year 1 Story or Poem.
• Prefixes and suffixes. Use prefixes such as un-, re-, dis- and pre- and suffixes such as -ful, -less, -ness and -ly to work out what a word means and to build new words. Worksheets: Word Parts: -s, -ed, -ing, re-, and un-.
• Reading fluency. Read an on-level story or poem aloud with accuracy, a steady pace, and expression, a little better on each of three readings, understand what was read, and reread to fix a word that does not make sense. Worksheets: I Can See: Year 1 Read-Aloud Passage · Bear’s Red Hat: Year 1 Read-Aloud Passage · We Go to the Farm: Year 1 Read-Aloud Passage · Snow Day: Year 1 Read-Aloud Passage · Does It Make Sense? Fixing a Word That Does Not Fit.
• Reading comprehension, Year 1. Listen to a short story or a short text about real things read aloud, then find the problem and how it ends, the most important details, or the steps in order, and point to where the text says so. Worksheets: The Lost Red Ball: Year 1 Read-Aloud Story · Hen Makes Soup: Year 1 Read-Aloud Story · The Rainy Picnic: Year 1 Read-Aloud Story · The Tall Tower: Year 1 Read-Aloud Story · Bees and Honey: Year 1 Read-Aloud Facts · All About Snow: Year 1 Read-Aloud Facts and 2 more.
• Sorting and connecting ideas with diagrams and charts. Use a diagram or chart to sort and connect ideas: compare things, map the parts of a story, put events in order, link causes to effects, and plan writing before starting it. Worksheets: Reading Strategies That Helped Me: The Lost Mitten · Connecting a Story to Me (Year 1).
• Phonemic awareness: blending and segmenting sounds. Blend an onset and a rime (c + at) or single sounds (s-u-n) into a word, and break a spoken word into its sounds and count them. Worksheets: Vowels and Consonants (Year 1).
• Verbs: tense, irregular verbs and agreement. Find action, helping and linking verbs, write verbs in the past, present and future, use irregular past forms such as sat and told, and make the verb agree with its subject, even when a phrase comes between them. Worksheets: Word Endings s and ed (Year 1).

Sight Word: a Years 1–2 · English ★ Sight Word: away Years 1–2 · English ★ Sight Word: big Years 1–2 · English ★ Sight Word: blue Years 1–2 · English ★

Handwriting, spelling and writing

english/first-six-months..third-year/writing.transcription-skills.handwriting.knowledge/01-7c7208 english/first-six-months..third-year/writing.transcription-skills.handwriting.knowledge/02-a0a1e4 english/first-year/writing.transcription-skills.handwriting.practices/01-5c31fd english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/02-b01812 english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/03-b79fe3 english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/04-fa849c english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/05-9afa1c english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/06-5ef5cf

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english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/07-778500 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/01-c60f89 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/02-2fdc35 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/03-879aa2 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/04-87e31f english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/05-20d213 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/06-5b97b0 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/07-9d3074 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/08-fb7a5c english/first-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.practices/02-9cc964 english/first-six-months..third-year/writing.transcription-skills.spelling.knowledge/01-be9dbf english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.composition.audience-purpose-and-language-choice.knowledge/02-982e85 english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.composition.audience-purpose-and-language-choice.knowledge/02-55d168 english/first-year/writing.composition.audience-purpose-and-language-choice.practices/01-b9547c english/first-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.knowledge/01.1-fc89a9 english/first-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.knowledge/01.2-13f076 english/first-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.knowledge/02-49640f english/first-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.practices/02-3f0ec9 english/first-year..second-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.knowledge/01-a621b0 english/first-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.practices/01-326d2d english/first-six-months..second-year/writing.composition.sentence-structures-grammar-and-punctuation.knowledge/01-41f3e0 english/first-year/writing.composition.writing-to-entertain.knowledge/01-b3b3a4 english/first-year/writing.composition.writing-to-entertain.practices/01-f60220 english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.composition.writing-to-inform.knowledge/03-13de8c english/first-year/writing.composition.writing-to-inform.practices/01-9ce2b8 english/first-six-months..first-year/writing.composition.writing-to-persuade.knowledge/01-369bed english/first-year/writing.composition.writing-to-persuade.practices/01-0c81f0 english/first-year/writing.writing-processes.revising-and-editing.practices/02-dff4cf

• Forming uppercase and lowercase letters. Print every uppercase and lowercase letter with the right strokes, in the right order and direction, sitting on the line. Worksheets: Letter Tracing Worksheets A–Z (set).
• Reading and spelling sight words. Read the most common words at a glance, including ones that do not sound out the way they are spelled, such as said and the, and spell them correctly. Worksheets: Pre-Primer Sight Words Worksheets (set) · Primer Sight Words Worksheets (set).
• Reading and spelling CVC words. Sound out and spell short words made of a consonant, a short vowel and a consonant, such as cat, hen, pig, dog and sun, and see how changing one letter makes a new word. Worksheets: Short Vowel CVC Words Worksheets (set) · Missing Vowel CVC Worksheets (set).
• Spelling, Year 2. Spell short-vowel words, words with blends and digraphs such as sh, ch and th, silent-e words, common vowel teams, and words ending in -s, -ed and -ing. Worksheets: Year 2 Spelling (set).
• Verbs: tense, irregular verbs and agreement. Find action, helping and linking verbs, write verbs in the past, present and future, use irregular past forms such as sat and told, and make the verb agree with its subject, even when a phrase comes between them. Worksheets: Past Tense Verbs with ed · Circle the Action Word · Who or What, and What They Do.
• Writing, Year 1. Draw and write about a picture, trace and copy short sentences, and finish sentence frames, starting with a capital letter and ending with a full stop. Worksheets: Writing Journal Pages (set) · Sentence Writing Worksheets (set) · Narrative Writing Worksheets (set) · Informative Writing Worksheets (set) · Editing Checklists (set) · Narrative Writing Prompts (set) and 1 more.
• Writing, Year 2. Write sentences with spaces between words, give an opinion with a reason, tell events in order with first, next, then and last, and write a short friendly letter. Worksheets: Writing Journal Pages (set) · Sentence Writing Worksheets (set) · Opinion Writing Worksheets (set) · How-To Writing Worksheets (set) · Narrative Writing Worksheets (set) · Informative Writing Worksheets (set) and 4 more.
• Capital letters. Use a capital letter to start a sentence, for I, for names of people and places, days, months and holidays, for the important words in a title, for proper adjectives such as Canadian, and for languages and the names of historical periods, events and documents, and for the main words in the names of groups and companies, acronyms, titles and initials, and short forms of days, months and streets. Worksheets: Capital Letters.
• Sentences: types, fragments, run-ons, compound and complex. Tell statements, questions, commands and exclamations apart, find and fix fragments and run-ons, and join ideas into compound and complex sentences with words such as and, but, because and when. Worksheets: Rearrange the Words.
• Ending sounds. Hear and name the last sound in a spoken word, such as the t in cat, and find pictures that end with the same sound. Worksheets: Ending Sounds: t, n and r · Ending Sounds: l, x and t · Ending Sounds: k, n and l.
• Phonemic awareness: blending and segmenting sounds. Blend an onset and a rime (c + at) or single sounds (s-u-n) into a word, and break a spoken word into its sounds and count them. Worksheets: How Many Sounds? 2 or 3.
• Figurative language: similes, metaphors and idioms. Tell what a simile, a metaphor, an idiom or personification means, tell figurative words from literal ones, and say why a writer chose them. Worksheets: Onomatopoeia: Sound Words.
• Hearing the first sound in a word. Say a word and hear the sound it starts with, then match that sound to its letter: ball and bed start with b, sun and sock with s. Worksheets: Write the First Letter: Consonants · Write the First Letter: Short Vowels.
• Author's purpose and point of view. Tell why an author wrote a text (to persuade, to inform, to entertain) and what the author thinks, who a text is written for, which form of writing fits a purpose and an audience, and name the narrator's point of view (first, second or third person, limited or all-knowing) and how it shapes what the reader learns. Worksheets: At Willow Pond: Year 1 Author’s Purpose · Taking a Book Home: Year 1 Author’s Purpose · Purpose for Reading (Year 1).
• Syllables in spoken words. Clap and count the syllables in a spoken word, such as ap-ple and but-ter-fly, blend syllables into a word, and split a word into its syllables. Worksheets: Syllable Play: Take Away and Blend (Year 1).
• Concepts of print: words, spaces and sentences. Know how print works: read words from left to right and top to bottom, see that spaces separate words, tell a letter from a word and a word from a sentence, and find the first word, the capital letter and the end mark of a sentence. Worksheets: What Is a Sentence? (Year 1).

Trace the Letter A Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter B Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter C Years 1–2 · English ★ Trace the Letter D Years 1–2 · English ★

No worksheets yet for Talking and listening in class.

Topic names and descriptions are written by Stepsies in our own words. For the full text of the New Zealand Curriculum, read the official English document. Curriculum names are used only to describe the topics a worksheet covers. Stepsies is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by any ministry, agency or school board. Check the official curriculum documents for what is required.