Year 2
The English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of language, literature and literacy. Teaching and learning programs should balance and integrate all three strands. Together, the strands focus on developing students' knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. Learning in English builds on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years, and teachers will revisit and strengthen these as needed.
In Year 2, students communicate with peers, teachers, students from other classes and community members.
Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view and interpret spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is to entertain, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These encompass traditional oral texts, picture books, various types of print and digital stories, simple chapter books, rhyming verse, poetry, non-fiction, film, multimodal texts, dramatic performances and texts used by students as models for constructing their own work.
The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature, including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as well as the contemporary literature of these two cultural groups, and classic and contemporary world literature, including texts from and about Asia.
Literary texts that support and extend Year 2 students as independent readers involve sequences of events that span several pages and present unusual happenings within a framework of familiar experiences. Informative texts present new content about topics of interest and topics being studied in other areas of the curriculum. These texts include language features such as varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of high-frequency sight words and words that need to be decoded phonically, and a range of punctuation conventions, as well as illustrations and diagrams that support and extend the printed text.
Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts including imaginative retellings, reports, performances, poetry and expositions.
(source: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)
Achievement Standard
Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)
By the end of Year 2, students understand how similar texts share characteristics by identifying text structures and language features used to describe characters and events, or to communicate factual information.
They read texts that contain varied sentence structures, some unfamiliar vocabulary, a significant number of high-frequency sight words and images that provide extra information. They monitor meaning and self-correct using knowledge of phonics, syntax, punctuation, semantics and context. They use knowledge of a wide variety of letter-sound relationships to read words of one or more syllables with fluency. They identify literal and implied meaning, main ideas and supporting detail. Students make connections between texts by comparing content. They listen for particular purposes. They listen for and manipulate sound combinations and rhythmic sound patterns.
Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)
When discussing their ideas and experiences, students use everyday language features and topic-specific vocabulary. They explain their preferences for aspects of texts using other texts as comparisons. They create texts that show how images support the meaning of the text.
Students create texts, drawing on their own experiences, their imagination and information they have learnt. They use a variety of strategies to engage in group and class discussions and make presentations. They accurately spell words with regular spelling patterns and spell words with less common long vowel patterns. They use punctuation accurately, and write words and sentences legibly using unjoined upper- and lower-case letters.
(source: www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)
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Narrative Writing Visual Prompts Presentation
A 19 slide teaching presentation containing visual narrative writing prompts.
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Compound Words - Word Search Pack
Search, find, and spell compound words with a fun set of Compound Word Word Search Puzzles!
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I Have, Who Has? Fact and Opinion Game
A whole class game to help students understand the difference between a fact and an opinion.
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Add It In Listening Activity Bundle
Practise following directions to colour and draw pictures with a free printable listening activity worksheet pack.
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Coordinating Conjunctions Worksheet
Distribute this coordinating conjunctions worksheet to help your students practise joining clauses with conjunctions to form compound sentences.
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Readers' Theatre Script - What's My Pet?
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
- Free Plan
Phoneme Spotter Story - Long 'a' Sound
A decodable text featuring various graphemes that make the long 'a' sound.
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Character Traits, Feelings and Appearance - Posters
A set of 3 posters depicting words and phrases that can be used to describe a character's personality, feelings and appearance.
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Sequence a Procedure Text – Cut and Paste Worksheets
Use these procedural writing examples to teach your students about sequencing instructions in a logical order.
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Procedural Writing Prompt Task Cards
Need some procedural writing ideas? Download these task cards to use as a writing activity during your procedure writing unit.
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My Book of Synonyms and Antonyms
Combat overused words in your students’ writings by having them build their very own book of synonyms and antonyms.
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Narrative Text Structure Posters
A set of 8 narrative text structure posters to add to your classroom narrative writing display.
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Speaking and Listening Activities Task Cards
A set of 13 cards with instructions for speaking and listening activities.
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How to Make a Pizza Interactive Activity
Use this “How to Make a Pizza” procedural writing interactive activity to model the purpose, structural elements and language features of procedure texts.
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Naked Mole Rat - Reading Comprehension Worksheets
Read and learn facts about the naked mole rat with a printable reading comprehension worksheet pack for year 4 and 5.
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Inference Detectives Worksheet Pack
Guide your students to use personal experiences and text evidence to make inferences with this set of reading worksheets.
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Writing Editing Checklist
Now your students can make sure that they check everything when they are editing their work... no mistake gets left behind!
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FANBOYS Poster for Teaching Coordinating Conjunctions
Display this grammar poster in your classroom to help students choose appropriate coordinating conjunctions using the acronym FANBOYS.
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Perfect Punctuation Volume 1 – Worksheet Book
A workbook packed with 50 punctuation activities for use in the classroom.
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'Facts About...' - Informative Texts Worksheet
A fact finding scaffold to use when introducing informative writing in the classroom.
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Little Red Riding Hood – Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Flashcards
Use this set of 16 colourful flashcards to introduce students to the attributes that make up simple, compound and complex sentences.
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Readers' Theatre Script - Three Billy Goats Gruff
A script which can be used during readers' theatre or Drama sessions, aimed at students 6 years and over.
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Exploring Procedural Writing Teaching Slides
Teach your students how to write a procedure using this detailed slideshow targeted at lower primary school students.
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Narrative Writing Checklist (Simplified Version)
A checklist for students to use when proofreading and editing their narrative writing.
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Alphabet Handwriting Sheets - Including Non-Examples
Handwriting sheets with opportunities for students to trace, identify and write the letters of the alphabet.
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Procedural Writing Checklists
Use these procedural writing checklists when teaching your students how to editing their procedure texts.
- Free Plan
Common Nouns and Proper Nouns - Sorting Task
A sorting task to help students learn the difference between common nouns and proper nouns.
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Year 2 Magazine - What's Buzzing? (Issue 1)
A beautifully designed, 24-page reading magazine specifically written for Year 2 students.
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Facts and Opinions - Caterpillars
A fun activity for students to use when identifying facts and opinions about caterpillars.
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The Three Little Pigs – Comprehension Worksheet
Develop your students' reading comprehension skills with a well-known fairy tale.
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Exploring and Building Narrative Characters PowerPoint
A 14 slide editable PowerPoint template to use when teaching younger students about how to build a character for a narrative text.