Speaking, listening, reading and writing in English at key stage one are all vital skills, which will provide a solid foundation for learners as they progress through their school life. There are many excellent free resources out there which can help you enrich your lessons and add interesting angles to your topics at this stage. The resources on this page are produced by organisations which are experts in their field, and are devised with the national curriculum requirements for English at ks1 in mind. Try something different and get inspired teaching ideas with the free resources available above, including worksheets, online interactive games, printable downloads and more.

Key stage one literacy - engaging learners

Most young children are happy to make their voices heard and speak up in class, but getting them to learn to listen makes them into effective communicators. To do this you will need a diverse array of resources to hand which will cater for different learning styles. Some children will cope with literacy or phonics worksheets, others will need to get up and about to understand the topic. Other individuals will love interactive online games and activities. Whatever their learning style and abilities, keeping your pupils on task is made easier with a wide range of materials from different sources, and here these materials are all free to download, print and use or play online. With a little advance planning and time spent finding the right resources, you can save time having to re-invent the wheel every time you start a new topic. Many of the resources listed above include work on vital literacy elements such as grammar, punctuation, phonics or spelling, and will contribute to the end of key stage attainment targets up to all 8 levels in speaking and listening, reading and writing.

During KS 1, children are taught to speak confidently and listen to what others have to say. They begin to read and write with independence. In Speaking and Listening children organise what they want to say, include necessary detail and speak clearly. They develop their concentration when listening to others, comment on what they hear and ask questions to make sure they have understood. Group discussion and interaction forms part of the curriculum. Children learn to take turns when speaking, respond to the contributions of others and develop their ideas through talking. Reading involves children developing their word recognition through phonic knowledge. They learn sounds for letters, segment and blend these in order to decode words. Children come to understand that the same sound can have different spellings. There is currently an emphasis on schools providing high-quality phonics when teaching early reading. At Key Stage 1, children also develop their understanding of texts read through discussion. This includes a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In Writing, Key Stage 1 children apply their phonic knowledge when spelling words. They develop their sentence structure and the use of simple punctuation, such as full stops, capital letters, exclamation and question marks.