Year 1 Writing

Discover Year 1 writing standards

In Key Stage 1, children are expected to quickly develop foundational English language skills . Some primary school students start with very limited writing ability, mainly using verbal skills to communicate. The key development in Year 1 writing is to bridge the gap between spoken language and printed words.

A great writing activity to try with your young writer is to break down spoken interactions into different types. Being able to identify different types of interactions helps children learn many forms of expression, and how each employs different vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation.

There are three fundamental types of writing (sometimes called "composition") that children will learn about and practice in Year 1:

Opinion Writing
Informative Writing
Narrative Writing

While your child’s writing will be basic in Year 1, they’ll start to understand the difference between the writing styles listed above. Your child will also learn about correct sentence writing practices, as they’ll be expected to write short compositions displaying their knowledge of each text type and structure. The more they practise writing, the easier it will be for them to identify different styles of text.

Opinion Writing

Year 1 students will learn that their opinion is linked to their thoughts and feelings about something, and that people can have different opinions on the same thing! When writing about their opinions at this primary education level, they'll be expected to express their thoughts and ideas using correct grammar and punctuation, whilst also supporting their argument with a reason for their opinion. As children are still developing their basic writing skills at this level, it’s always important to remind them to write in complete sentences, using capitalisation and punctuation to help logical articulation.

A simple example of Year 1 opinion writing could be:

(Title or Question) Which animal is the best?
(Give your opinion) I think that the lion is the best animal.
(Give a reason) This is because they rule the savannah.

Informative Writing

Informative writing informs its reader through primarily factual content. In Year 1, young children should be able to identify informative writing, distinguish facts from opinions, and write simple yet complete sentences about a variety of topics.

Typically, learners will study simple scientific facts or learn about the environmental world around them. You can encourage this by giving your child many opportunities to read factual scientific books and articles. Even if your child is a struggling reader, this activity will develop a deeper understanding of what it takes to write a great informative text, whilst also adding valuable knowledge that will be helpful for them as they move on to Year 2.

Practice Tip

Challenge your child to complete one of the report writing lessons on Night Zookeeper. These lessons model examples of great informative writing and ask children to write their own sentences about the animals featured in the lessons.

Report writing lesson series on Nightzookeeper.com.

Narrative Writing

In Year 1, children are often already aware of narrative devices, structures, and forms, but mainly through non-written mediums, such as watching TV and films, and listening to friends and families recount their experiences. They may not, however, be used to the formal breakdown of this and how to write a story themselves.

This style enables your child to practise their creative writing skills, while learning key writing rules, such as sentence writing and story mapping, while growing their vocabulary list!

Narrative writing is perhaps the best writing style to teach your child all they need to know about sequencing, which relates to the three main components of a story plot: beginning, middle, and end. It also offers Year 1 students the chance to learn how to use appropriate structural and linguistic devices to give a story an arc - such as (but not limited to) "once upon a time", "then", and "happily ever after".

Key Story Features

It's always a good idea to break up these features and work on them separately with your child as they try to make sense of each component.

Practice Tip

Your child can build their own writing world on Night Zookeeper. This will provide lots of opportunities for them to practice their character creation skills as they invent new animals for their Night Zoo.

Children can build their own Night Zoo Map on Nightzookeeper.com.

How Night Zookeeper can help

Our writing program for kids focuses on helping children develop their writing skills in a fantastically fun way! It improves your child’s writing skills using non-traditional writing resources such as fun noun games, punctuation challenges (such as how to use commas), interactive lesson series, creative writing prompts, and more! All our award-winning content follows the English National Curriculum guidelines.

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