Key Stage 2 · Years 3 and 4 · ages 7 to 9
Years 3 and 4 English: what your child learns
In Years 3 and 4 children read more widely, from myths and legends to non-fiction, and write in paragraphs with joined handwriting. Grammar grows to include fronted adverbials, the present perfect, inverted commas for speech and the plural possessive apostrophe, while spelling covers prefixes, suffixes and a statutory word list. Children also practise explaining their ideas, performing poems and plays, and taking part in debates.
Guides for parents
Years 3 and 4 English
Drafting sentences, paragraphs and stories
How Year 3 and Year 4 children draft writing: saying sentences aloud first, organising paragraphs by theme, creating settings, characters and plot, and using headings.
Years 3 and 4 English
Editing, proofreading and reading aloud
How Year 3 and Year 4 children improve writing by editing for sense and pronouns, proofreading spelling and punctuation, and reading their work aloud to an audience.
Years 3 and 4 English
Planning by learning from model texts
How Year 3 and Year 4 children plan their writing by studying a model text and by discussing and recording ideas, with a worked example and ways to help at home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Joined handwriting and legibility
How Year 3 and Year 4 children learn to join letters with diagonal and horizontal strokes, decide which stay unjoined, and make their handwriting clear and consistent.
Years 3 and 4 English
Performing poems and plays
How Years 3 and 4 children prepare and perform poems and play scripts, show meaning with their voices, discuss powerful words and meet forms of poetry such as free verse.
Years 3 and 4 English
Inference, questioning and prediction
How Years 3 and 4 children learn to read between the lines: inferring feelings and motives with evidence, asking questions, predicting what happens next.
Years 3 and 4 English
Main ideas and non-fiction
How Years 3 and 4 children find main ideas across paragraphs, summarise, find and record facts in non-fiction using contents and indexes, and discuss books.
Years 3 and 4 English
Reading widely, myths and legends
What Years 3 and 4 children learn about reading widely: fairy stories, myths and legends, plays, poetry and non-fiction, plus themes, conventions and dictionaries.
Years 3 and 4 English
Plural apostrophes, dictionaries and dictation
How children in Years 3 and 4 learn to place the apostrophe in girls’ and children’s, find words in a dictionary using the first letters, and write dictated sentences.
Years 3 and 4 English
Prefixes, y and ou spellings
How children in Years 3 and 4 learn prefixes such as dis–, mis–, in–, re–, sub– and anti–, and tricky spellings like myth and young, with a worked example and home ideas.
Years 3 and 4 English
Endings -tion, -sion, -cian, -ous, -sure
How Years 3 and 4 children learn to spell the endings -tion, -sion, -ssion, -cian, -ous, -sure and -ture, with a worked example, common mistakes and home ideas.
Years 3 and 4 English
Greek, French and Latin spellings; ei, eigh, ey
How Years 3 and 4 children learn spellings borrowed from Greek, French and Latin, such as chorus, chef, league and science, and the ei, eigh and ey spellings.
Years 3 and 4 English
Plural apostrophes and homophones
How Years 3 and 4 children place the apostrophe in plural possessives such as girls’ and children’s, and spell homophones like break and brake, with ideas for home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Spelling words: accident to difficult
The first quarter of the Years 3 and 4 statutory spelling list, from accident to difficult: why they are tricky, how schools teach them and how to practise at home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Spelling words: disappear to important
The second quarter of the Years 3 and 4 statutory spelling list, from disappear to important: what makes these words tricky and simple ways to practise them at home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Spelling words: interest to potatoes
The third quarter of the Years 3 and 4 statutory spelling list, from interest to potatoes: library, medicine, opposite and possession, with ways to practise at home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Spelling words: pressure to woman
The last quarter of the Years 3 and 4 statutory spelling list, from pressure to woman: separate, strength, through, weight and more, with practical ways to help at home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Suffixes, –ation and –ly
How children in Years 3 and 4 add endings to longer words, when to double the consonant, and how to spell words ending –ation and –ly, with a worked example and tips.
Years 3 and 4 English
Prefixes, suffixes and homophones
How children in Years 3 and 4 learn spelling rules for prefixes such as dis- and im-, suffixes such as -ly and -ous, further homophones and often-misspelt words.
Years 3 and 4 English
Explaining and justifying ideas
How Year 3 and Year 4 children learn to give reasons and evidence, structure spoken explanations and stories, wonder aloud and weigh other views, with home ideas.
Years 3 and 4 English
Presenting, performing and debating
How Year 3 and Year 4 children learn to present, perform and debate, spot Standard English and non-standard forms, and change their register, with advice for home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Listening, questioning and group talk
How Year 3 and Year 4 children learn to listen actively, ask questions that go deeper, work out new words and agree rules for group discussion, with ideas for home.
Years 3 and 4 English
Direct speech, commas and apostrophes
How Year 3 and Year 4 children punctuate direct speech, put commas after fronted adverbials and use apostrophes with plural nouns, with a worked example and home ideas.
Years 3 and 4 English
Conjunctions, present perfect, fronted adverbials
What Year 3 and Year 4 children learn about conjunctions, the present perfect, pronouns, words that show time and cause, and fronted adverbials, with a worked example.
Years 3 and 4 English
Reading new words from their parts
How Years 3 and 4 children use root words, prefixes and suffixes to read and understand longer words, and cope with unusual spellings such as island and answer.
Everything in the Years 3 and 4 English curriculum
The National Curriculum topics for Years 3 and 4, in the order the National Curriculum lists them.
Spoken language
Reading – word reading
Reading – comprehension
Writing – transcription (spelling)
Writing – handwriting
Writing – composition
Writing – vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation – English Appendix 2
- Prefixes, a or an, and word families (Year 3)
- Expressing time, place and cause (Year 3)
- Paragraphs, headings and the present perfect (Year 3)
- Inverted commas for direct speech (Year 3)
- Plural vs possessive –s and Standard English verb forms (Year 4)
- Expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials (Year 4)
- Paragraphs, pronouns and punctuating direct speech (Year 4)
Spelling – English Appendix 1
- Adding suffixes to longer words; –ation and –ly
- y for /ɪ/, ou for /ʌ/ and more prefixes
- Endings –sure, –ture, –sion, –ous, –tion, –ssion and –cian
- Spellings from Greek, French and Latin; ei, eigh and ey
- Plural possessive apostrophe and homophones
- Statutory word list years 3 and 4: accident to difficult
- Statutory word list years 3 and 4: disappear to important
- Statutory word list years 3 and 4: interest to potatoes
- Statutory word list years 3 and 4: pressure to woman