Grade 1
Grade 1 English Tutoring
Live online Grade 1 English in groups of four: phonics, blending CVC words, tricky words on sight, capital letters and full stops, and writing a first sentence.
The short answer
Grade 1 English is where letters become sounds and sounds become words. The year covers phonics, blending and segmenting, tricky words read on sight, capital letters and full stops, writing simple sentences, joining ideas with 'and', plurals, rhymes, handwriting, and early speaking and listening.
What we cover in Grade 1 English
- Phonics: letter sounds, blending and segmenting CVC words
- Reading simple stories with repetition and rhyme
- Common exception ('tricky') words read on sight
- Capital letters and full stops
- Writing simple sentences
- Joining words and clauses with 'and'
- Plural nouns ending in -s and -es
- Traditional rhymes and simple rhyming poems
- Speaking and listening: talking about yourself and answering questions
- Handwriting: forming letters correctly
By the end of the year
- Blend letter sounds to read unfamiliar single-syllable words and read a simple story aloud with growing confidence.
- Write a simple sentence that begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, using a capital for 'I' and for names.
- Listen to a short story or instruction and respond appropriately, answering simple questions about it.
Where students get stuck
- Knowing letter names but not letter sounds, which stalls blending — 'see-ay-tee' never turns into 'cat'.
- Capital letters and full stops disappearing as soon as the sentence grows past a few words.
Sounds, not names
A child who has learned the alphabet as ay, bee, see cannot blend. Reading c-a-t as 'see-ay-tee' produces nothing, and the child concludes that reading is a memory game they are losing.
This is the most common well-meant mistake made at home, and it is easy to undo. Say the sound the letter makes rather than its name — 'c' as in cough, not 'see' — and blending starts working almost immediately.
Capital letters that vanish halfway
Most Grade 1 children can punctuate a four-word sentence on request. The same child writing three sentences about their weekend forgets every capital and full stop, because holding the idea takes all the attention there is.
That is developmental rather than lazy. We keep the writing short enough that punctuation still fits inside the child's attention, then lengthen it — which works better than asking for more and correcting the result in red.
Reading aloud in a group of four
A group of four means every child reads aloud in every session and is heard by an adult who can hear which sound was guessed. In a class of thirty, a struggling reader can go a week without being individually heard.
It also matters that being stuck is normal in a small group. A six-year-old who will admit they cannot read a word is a child who can be taught it; one who has learned to hide is much harder to help later.
- Session length
- 45 minSession length
- Maximum students in a group
- 4Maximum students in a group
- Sessions a week
- 3–4Sessions a week
Common questions
What should a Grade 1 child be able to read and write?
By the end of the year: blending letter sounds to read unfamiliar single-syllable words, reading a simple story aloud, recognising common tricky words on sight, and writing a sentence with a capital letter and a full stop.
Should I teach the alphabet song at home?
It is useful for alphabetical order and unhelpful for reading. Letter names do not blend into words, so a child who only knows names will stall at the first unfamiliar word. Teach the sounds alongside it and blending follows.
How much reading at home helps at this age?
Ten minutes a day, most days, beats an hour at the weekend. Frequency is what builds fluency at six, and it works better if the child reads a little and is read to a little in the same sitting.
Sources
- Cambridge Primary English curriculum — Cambridge Assessment International Education
- Cambridge Primary English Curriculum Framework 0058 — Cambridge Assessment International Education
- National curriculum in England: English programmes of study — Department for Education
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