BlogLearnThe Ultimate Guide to Year 6 English

The Ultimate Guide to Year 6 English

Child write in a notebook - Year 6 English

Congratulations! Your little one has made it to the final year of primary school, Year 6, and just like all previous years, they’ll need to study English. 

To help you understand what your child will be learning, we’ll break down the Year 6 English curriculum outlining the key learning areas, types of texts, themes and assessments throughout the year.

Let’s dive right in! 

The Year 6 English Curriculum
#1: Language
#2: Literature
#3: Literacy
Standards for Year 6 English
Year 6 English Worksheets and Resources

Searching for English guides for other year groups?

If you have a child in a different year group to Year 6, we’ve also got guides for them! Have a look at our guides for the various year groups:

Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 7 | Year 8 | Year 9 | Year 10

The Year 6 English Curriculum

The Year 6 Curriculum has three strands:

  • Language
  • Literature
  • Literacy

The curriculum aims to develop and integrate all three strands together. These skills help to develop your child’s knowledge and understanding in listening, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating. 

Throughout the year, students will engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment to expose them to a wide range of texts and cultivate their interest.

They will read, view, listen to, interpret and evaluate written and multimodal texts. These texts’ purposes may range fro aesthetics, to informative and persuasive

Your child will encounter various forms throughout Year 6 as well, ranging from newspaper, film and digital texts, junior and early adolescent novels, poetry, non-fiction and dramatic performances. These texts will include Australian literature like the oral narrative traditions of Indigenous People and contemporary literature, classic world literature, contemporary world literature and texts from Asia!

#1: Language

check mark box next to english exercise - Year 6 English

In Year 6, your child will learn about how language varies and changes, including how the language we use changes based on who and what we are interacting with. Australia is a multicultural nation and the range of dialects and accents in Australia are reflective of that.

Your child will recognise that there are more than 150 Aboriginal languages and two Torres Strait Islander languages and how they relate to geographic areas in Australia. They will develop an awareness and appreciation for all languages and dialects, recognising that each is of equal value even if different ones are used in different contexts. 

Interaction

Through their English studies, students in Year 6 will understand complex interactions and different levels of formality required in various social contexts. Furthermore, they will develop an understanding of when it is appropriate to share personal opinions or when they should remain objectives.

Through these, they will learn how to differentiate between facts and opinions and the textual forms these may come in. 

Understanding How Texts are Formed

In addition to learning all the nitty-gritty details about the English language, they will also take a big picture approach by studying the structure and organisation of texts. Students will develop an understanding of how authors innovate and play with text structure and play with language features to achieve a particular aesthetic or humorous and persuasive effects.

Through a range of everyday, community, literary and informative texts, your child will compare the overall structure and effect of the author’s choices in two or more texts. Furthermore, examining works by an author who specialises in humour will also help students to identify strategies used to amuse readers and offer insight into a characters’ feelings, building empathetic readers. 

Putting Their Knowledge Into Practice

Your child will also have an opportunity to apply these skills practically by expressing and developing their own ideas. By crafting their own texts, students will develop an appreciation for complex sentences and how to utilise them to convey elaborate ideas.

Additionally, students will understand how careful word choice can convey their ideas more effectively or expand them. 

Like the previous years in primary school, your child will continue to develop their spelling abilities by studying word origins, such as Latin and Greek roots, base words, prefixes, suffixes, letter patterns and spelling generalisation to help them to spell new words. They will also continue to refine their knowledge of grammar. 

In summary, your child will learn about: 

  • Language variation and change 
  • Language for interaction 
  • Text structure and organisation 
  • Expressing and developing ideas 
  • Phonics and word knowledge

#2: Literature

Best Books for 11 Year Olds - Featured Image

Literature is the study of specific texts, in this strand students will learn about how authorial and audience context can affect the work, learning how to respond to literature, and analyse them. Students will learn how to draw connections between their own experiences and those of the characters and events represented in texts, drawing from different historical, social and cultural contexts. 

In responding to literature, students will study the similarities and differences in texts on similar topics, themes or plots. By studying different authors with different styles who are writing on the same topic, your child will learn how to identify the differences in the use of narrator, narrative structure, voice, language style and literature.

Furthermore, they’ll be introduced to English techniques such as modality, repetition and metaphor choices that affect the writing. 

These skills will culminate in students examining the literature and creating their own texts. They’ll learn how to identify, describe and discuss the similarities and differences between texts, evaluating an author’s style.

Furthermore, they’ll learn how to identify the relationship between words, sounds, imagery and language patterns in narratives and poetry. These will help your child to create literary texts that adapt or combine these aspects of works they have studied, to create their own original pieces! 

In summary, the literature aspect of English in Year 6 will include: 

  • Literature and Context
  • Responding to Literature
  • Examining Literature
  • Creating Literature 

#3: Literacy

Close-up of boy hand with pencil writing english words by hand on traditional white notepad paper. The boy writes his first letter in English

Literacy relates to a child’s understanding and interpretation of a text. The Australian curriculum develops literacy by examining texts within a context, encouraging students to interact with each other and share their ideas, alongside interpreting, analysing and evaluating texts. 

By comparing texts that represent different ideas and events in different ways, students are about to analyse and explain the effects of different approaches to a text. They will examine language choices and the point of view of authors. 

Active Participation

A key part of English is developing and articulating ideas to be shared with others, either verbally, written or through a representational form.

During class, students will be encouraged to participate and contribute to discussions, clarifying and interrogating ideas, developing and supporting their arguments, sharing and evaluating information and listening to experiences and opinions.

They will also learn how to use conventions of spoken interactions like voice, volume, pitch, pace and the formality of interaction depending on who their audience is. 

Understanding Texts

In developing their literacy, Year 6 students will analyse how text structures and language features work together to meet the purpose of a text. This will help them to analyse and understand works, utilising comprehension strategies to analyse information and ideas, including strategies that authors use to influence readers.

This will also develop their ability to select and read texts for a range of purposes, helping them to process and understand texts. 

Putting Their Knowledge Into Practice

Lastly, students will also learn about the process of creating texts.

They will learn how to plan, draft and publish texts that are imaginative, informative and persuasive and will be encouraged to choose and experiment with structure, language features and images that are appropriate to the purpose and the audience.

Students will learn how to edit their own work and provide feedback to others. 

The literacy aspect of the curriculum includes: 

  • Texts in context
  • Interacting with others 
  • Interpreting, analysing and evaluating 
  • Creating texts 

Year 6 English Achievement Standards

The Year 6 achievement standards are based on two modes — receptive and productive. 

Receptive Modes

Receptive modes refer to listening, reading and viewing. Teachers will assess students on how they understand the use of text structures to achieve particular effects, analysing language features, images and vocabulary used by different authors to represent ideas, characters and events.

Students will compare and analyse information in different texts, explaining literal and implied meaning by selecting and using evidence from a text to support their ideas. 

Productive Modes

Productive modes refer to speaking, writing and creating. In this area, students understand how language features and patterns can be used for emphasis and to support certain points of view.

Year 6 students also learn how to create a range of different texts for various purposes and audiences. In writing their pieces, they will demonstrate an understanding of grammar, making vocabulary choices to enhance cohesion and structure in their writing.

They will also develop an appreciation for accurate spelling and punctuation for clarity to make and explain editorial choices. 

Year 6 English Worksheets and Resources

Trying to find English worksheets and other resources for Year 6 students? Look no further — we’ve got just what you need!

Spelling Worksheets

Even as your child enters high school, spelling will still remain an important skill for your child to learn, as they discover more complex words to add to their vocabulary.

To keep them practising this skill, we’ve developed a range of spelling lists which you can check out below:

Download Printable Year 6 Spelling Words Worksheets

Punctuation Worksheets

In Year 6, your child will be learning about the punctuation concepts of dashes, parentheses, ellipses and clauses. You can access the worksheets we’ve created for their year group below:

Download Printable Year 6 Punctuation Worksheets

Reading Lists

Searching for the best books for your child to read in Year 6? No stress — we’ve put together a list of books recommended by NESA that you can browse through below:

Year 6 Recommended Reading List: Best Books for 10 and 11 Year Olds

For more information on the Year 6 curriculum, the full page can be found here in the Australian Curriculum. 

Looking for some extra help for your child with Year 6 English?

We have an incredible team of English tutors and mentors!

We offer tutoring and mentoring for students in Years K-12 in a variety of subjects, with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home, online or at one of our state of the art campuses in Hornsby or the Hills!

Ace Year 6 English with you perfect Penrith Tutor, or engaging Hurstville Tutor!

Looking for English tutoring in Queensland? Check out more info here!

We’ve supported over 8,000 students over the last 11 years, and on average our students score mark improvements of over 20%!

To find out more and get started with an inspirational English tutor and mentor, get in touch today or give us a ring on 1300 267 888!


Tiffany Fong is currently completing a double degree in Media and Communications with Law at Macquarie University. She currently contributes to the university zine, Grapeshot where she enjoys writing feature articles, commentary on current affairs or whatever weird interest that has taken over her mind during that month. During her spare time, Tiffany enjoys reading, writing, taking care of her plants or cuddling with her two dogs.

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