Growing into Confident Readers, Writers, and Thinkers

By the End of First Grade

First Grade is a year of growing independence. Students strengthen foundational skills while learning to use them with greater fluency, accuracy, thoughtfulness, and confidence.

From Beginning Reader to Fluent Reader

First Grade continues Canterbury’s systematic approach to phonics. Students review the sounds learned in Kindergarten and move into more advanced vowel and consonant patterns, blends, digraphs, diphthongs, syllables, root words, prefixes, suffixes, compound words, and contractions. Rather than memorizing whole words by sight, students increasingly learn how to analyze an unfamiliar word and work it out for themselves.

First Grade is where decoding increasingly becomes reading for meaning.

As decoding grows more automatic, reading develops in every other direction as well: accuracy, fluency, phrasing, expression, pronunciation, pace, vocabulary, oral confidence, and comprehension. Students encounter stories, poetry, fables, Scripture, realistic fiction, biography, and children’s literature, including works by writers such as Aesop, Christina Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Lewis Carroll.

Comprehension is treated as seriously as decoding. Students increasingly answer factual and inferential questions, sequence events, compare characters, identify cause and effect, and discuss setting, character, plot, and moral.

From Cursive Practice to Written Expression

Cursive handwriting, begun in Kindergarten, continues to develop in First Grade. Students strengthen letter formation, spacing, slant, and connections, along with the posture and pencil grip that make careful handwriting possible, and they learn the remaining capital letters they have not yet mastered.

As formation becomes more automatic, handwriting is put to use for real written work—moving from letters to words, from words to sentences, and from sentences to paragraphs and original composition. Students write original sentences and short narratives, choose titles, and compose beginning and concluding sentences, along with simple friendly letters.

Beautiful handwriting now serves a larger purpose: communicating ideas clearly and thoughtfully.

Both the core language program and Shurley English reinforce the same idea: writing is a process of thinking, organizing, drafting, checking, and improving—not simply copying a sentence correctly the first time.

Poetry Worth Remembering

First Grade students continue Canterbury’s practice of memorizing and reciting poetry, working through eight lyrical poems over the course of the year. Memorization builds memory, vocabulary, rhythm, expression, oral confidence, and a simple enjoyment of good language, while reciting before the class builds poise and quiet confidence.

This work joins Canterbury’s larger culture of committing good words to memory—Scripture, traditional prayers, and hymns—so that children carry a store of beautiful language with them well beyond the classroom.

Beginning the Story of America and the World

First Grade students begin to build a real, if still elementary, knowledge of history and geography. They study American history and its major figures, the flag and other national symbols, and the foundational documents and landmarks that shape our country’s story.

Geography work introduces maps and globes, cardinal directions, the continents and oceans, and the peoples and countries of the wider world, gradually helping students situate themselves in time and place rather than presenting geography as an isolated list of facts.

Learning to Sing Together

First Grade students receive a weekly choir lesson taught by Canterbury’s own faculty. Choir instruction forms both the ear and the memory through traditional sacred music, and students sing traditional hymns and sacred music in English, Latin, and German over the course of the year.

Music instruction develops age-appropriate pitch matching, attentive listening, singing in unison, breath and posture, rhythm, melody, solfège, following a director, and memorization.

Children learn that singing is something we do together—with attention, discipline, memory, and joy.

This work joins naturally with Chapel and the wider life of the school, where the hymns and sacred music students learn in choir become the songs of worship they sing together as a community.

Strength, Health, and Physical Confidence

First Grade students participate in regular Physical Education classes emphasizing health, fitness, cardiovascular activity, coordination, movement, stamina, and age-appropriate strength, along with games, physical skills, teamwork, and good sportsmanship. Physical education is part of forming healthy, capable, disciplined students—not elite athletic training.

En Garde: Fencing at Canterbury

All Canterbury students also receive fencing instruction on campus, through our partnership with Maximum Fencing Club of Los Altos. In age-appropriate form, fencing builds coordination, balance, footwork, attention, self-control, quick decision-making, confidence, and respect for an opponent.

Courtesy, Manners, and the Habits of a Christian

First Grade students receive intentional formation in traditional Christian manners, drawing especially on the British tradition of courtesy, self-command, and consideration for others. Children practice greeting adults properly, saying please and thank you, apologizing, answering when spoken to, listening attentively without interrupting, table manners, orderly conduct in lines and public spaces, respect for teachers and classmates, and taking responsibility for their own belongings and surroundings.

Manners are not merely rules of etiquette. They are practical ways of learning self-government, respect, gratitude, and consideration for one’s neighbor.

Health & Good Habits

Alongside manners, students receive age-appropriate formation in nutrition, sleep, exercise, posture, hygiene, and the responsible, careful habits that support a healthy and orderly life.