Learning to Read in Prep, Year 1 and Year 2: A Parent's Guide

The first three years of school are where reading is built - and they're also where the classroom has changed most since today's parents were in it. If your child's book bag is full of oddly repetitive "decodable" readers and lists of sounds instead of the books you remember, here's what's going on, year by year.

Prep (Foundation): cracking the code open

The headline work of Prep is phonemic awareness - hearing that cat is three sounds, /c/ /a/ /t/ - and connecting those sounds to letters. By year's end, most children know the common single letter-sounds, can blend short words like sun and hop, and recognise a first set of high-frequency words. Books go home matched to the sounds they know, which is why early decodables read like "Pip sat. Sam sat." That's deliberate, and it works - our phonics guide explains why.

At home: play with sounds in the car - "what starts with /b/?", "what rhymes with hat?". Sound games are reading practice in disguise, and they're free.

Year 1: the engine room

Year 1 is the heaviest lifting of the whole journey. Children learn digraphs (sh, ch, th, ng), long vowel patterns (ai, ee, igh, oa), and start handling two-syllable words. Victorian Year 1 students also sit the Phonics Screening Check - a short, low-key check of decoding that includes made-up words like vap and splog. Nonsense words aren't a trick: they're the purest test of decoding, because they can't be memorised or guessed.

At home: ten minutes of reading at an easy level, most days, and don't fear the nonsense words - turn them into a game of "alien words". If your child guesses at real words instead of sounding through them, tackle that habit now, while it's shallow.

Year 2: from decoding to reading

Year 2 is where the code gets finished and fluency moves to centre stage. Children tackle the trickier spellings (ou, aw, soft c and g), longer words, and - crucially - start reading with phrasing and expression. Comprehension questions shift from "what happened?" to "why did she do that?". By year's end, most children are reading simple chapter books and starting to read silently for pleasure.

At home: re-reading favourite books is genuinely valuable fluency training, not laziness. And keep reading to them, above their own level - it feeds the vocabulary and comprehension that Years 3 and 4 will draw on heavily.

When to lean in

Timelines vary and wobbles are normal - but letter-sound gaps persisting past mid-Year 1, guessing as the main word-attack strategy, or hard avoidance of reading are worth acting on rather than watching. The signs-that-matter guide covers how to tell, and early conversations with teachers beat wait-and-see every time.

Ziado's reading path follows this same journey - sounds, blending, patterns, high-frequency words - one mastered step at a time, aligned to the Australian Curriculum from Foundation to Level 4. Wherever your child is on the ladder, that's where their quests begin.