New English curriculum 'set to raise reading standards'

The Government states that the new curriculum for English will raise reading standards "because children will be expected to read increasingly challenging material independently".

Under the new system, children between the ages of five and seven will learn to:

• Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words
• Learn to reads words with contractions, eg I’m, I’ll, we’ll
• Learn how to use both familiar and new punctuation correctly
• Expand noun phrases to describe and specify, eg the blue butterfly

• Use conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions to express time and cause
• Listen to and discuss a wide range of poems, stories and non-fiction at a level beyond that which they can read independently