Australia · ACARA Content Descriptions
Foundation English
A comprehensive introduction to the English language where students develop essential skills in oral communication, phonemic awareness, and early reading. Students explore how texts work and begin to express their own ideas through drawing, scribing, and emergent writing.
The Power of Storytelling
Students explore the magic of narrative by listening to and interacting with a variety of picture books and oral stories.
Identifying the people, animals, and places that make up the world of a story.
Understanding that stories have a beginning, middle, and end through oral retelling.
Linking events in stories to students' own lives and experiences.
Sounds and Letters
Building the building blocks of literacy through phonological awareness and letter-sound relationships.
Exploring the musicality of language through nursery rhymes and chants.
Hearing, identifying, and manipulating individual sounds in spoken words.
Learning the shapes of letters and the primary sounds they represent.
Sharing Our Ideas
Developing oral language skills to communicate needs, opinions, and information effectively.
Practicing active listening skills and following multi-step instructions.
Engaging in group discussions and building on the ideas of others.
Making Meaning in Print
Understanding how books work and developing early decoding strategies.
Using clues from illustrations and titles to guess what might happen next.
Recognizing common words by sight to build reading fluency.
Becoming Authors
Experimenting with writing to express ideas, record information, and tell stories.
Using detailed illustrations to convey meaning and support emergent writing.
Creating lists, labels, and simple sentences for different reasons.
Developing the fine motor skills required for legible handwriting.
Exploring Information
Investigating non-fiction texts to learn about the real world and how to find facts.
Distinguishing between imaginary stories and information about the real world.
Identifying photographs, captions, and headings in informative texts.
Developing inquiry skills by asking questions about topics of interest.