Grade 1 English

What does this question even mean? And why am I asking it?
Well, we're obviously planning on learning a language through this course and the next many grade levels. That is a pretty big investment of time. And so, it's only fair to ask a few questions, such as:

• Have human beings always had languages to communicate?
• How did we end up with so many languages, even in relatively small areas?
• Which languages came first? And when did (any) people start speaking English?
• When and why did we start writing?
• How did we end up with alphabets for so many languages?

All these questions might seem a lot more complicated than the core content of grade 1 English. But I think they are fundamental to why we must learn language, and the alphabet to begin with. I think a little bit of context never hurts. And it's always a great idea to think about a question for a while before we start taking in information and learning.

Since I posed a bunch of questions, it only makes sense that I attempt to answer them as well. These answers aren't something that you need to learn by heart. This reading only serves to add some context. I hope that reading through this gives you a sense of where languages came from and how the alphabet is central to it.

• 📃The Dawn of Language
• 📃The English Language
• 📃The Story of Writing

We're going to learn what might be the most commonly known song in the world. Most 1st graders will already know the song and the alphabet, but this is more to cover our bases. The linked video has the alphabet song repeated a few times and it also has a phonic version, which helps learn the sounds of letters too. There's no shortage of such videos all over YouTube. The note after that is just a short explanation of why I think this is an important and useful step.

• 🎞️The Alphabet Song
• 📃Why Memorise the Alphabet Song?

The alphabet song should really help learn all of the letters in the alphabet. But just to make sure, we're on track, you would want to literally check whether you know all 26 letters of the alphabet. While, we're at it, it makes sense to ensure that one knows how each letter is written in both capital case and small case. Oh, and did you know we split our alphabet into 2 groups of letters, called "vowels" and "consonants"?

• 📊Alphabet

With most things in language, more exposure and practise is always the answer. One way to get comfortable with and remember all of the letters is practise. So, it helps to sing the alphabet song and just look at the entire alphabet, write it and so on. A more interesting way to get more exposure to the alphabet is to see what words start with each letter. This is the best way to start building an understanding of each letter, and associate with it some words, sounds and even the look of the letter. Why stick to just "A for Apple, B for Ball", when you can explore the fun game of "name, place, animal, thing".

• 📃Name, Place, Animal, Thing - Rules
• 📊Name, Place, Animal, Thing - Picture Book

Now that we have learnt the names of all letters and got comfortable with them, let's dive a bit deeper. Each letter makes different sounds and is written in a few different ways. In order to be able to use the letters to communicate effectively, we must understand the different properties of these letters.

• 📃Properties of Letters

We have had a look at what all letters we have in the alphabet, and have got some exposure to their names, shapes, sounds and the words that they form. It will take a lot more exposure and repeated practise for the above ideas to sink and commit to memory. One of the most useful and important ways to commit the letters to memory is to practise writing them. There are several writing practise books and resources that one can find online and in stores. I have tried to curate some simple and effective tools that I have found or put together myself.

• 🎞️How to Write Each Letter (print)
• 🔗How to Write Each Letter (Print and Cursive)
• 📃Writing Worksheets

I am going to assume that you have practised writing each letter by hand sufficiently. A few years of experience writing out complex words, sentences and entire essays is useful to develop a neat handwriting and pick up the skill of writing quickly. However, there is likely to come a stage in life when you end up typing a lot more than you write by hand. At that stage it is charming, even if not super useful to have a font which resembles your own handwriting. If this sounds useful, or more likely interesting, try creating your own font using your handwriting.

• 📃Convert Your Handwriting to a Font

Going forward, in order to learn how to read, we will need to learn how to pronounce the words that we read. But before getting into all that important learning, let's have a look at how we actually assign sounds to letters and words.

• 📃Sound in Language

There are different sounds that we attach to each letter and group of letters. That is the process through which we are able to read and translate scribbles into sounds. So, we of course need to learn what sounds are made by which letters and in which contexts. There are 44 different phonemes (or units of sound) in English. And there are a few more commonly strung together sounds which help us understand almost every sound that we will encounter in English.

• 📃Sounds of Letters
• 📊Map of English Phonemes

We are always encountering new words and learning their meanings. It is useful as a first step if we're at least able to pronounce a word "correctly", so that we can communicate effectively. There are a few standard rules and approaches which help us do exactly this. And of course a lot of practise.

• 📃Pronouncing New Words

Grade 1 is probably too early to get into the nitty-gritties of grammar. So, I won't. But this seems like as convenient a time as any other to get some context on what grammar is and how it shapes language. For the most part we absorb grammar informally and apply it to our language subconsciously. But we will end up formalising our understanding of grammar in later grade levels.

• 📃What's Up With Grammar?

Much like the rest of grammar, punctuation will largely be informally absorbed at the grade 1 level. However, while reading, there will be a lot of punctuation marks which one encounters. It is useful to have a reference of all the different punctuation marks, how to read them and how to use them. I would not recommend attempting to learn all of the punctuation marks and their rules by heart. Rather, it might be interesting to casually read about them. When in doubt, this reference might be very useful to better understand a punctuation mark that you have encountered and are curious about. That is probably the best way to internalise how each punctuation mark is to be used.

• 📃Punctuation?!