Nelson English is a course that aims to improve Pupil's understanding and use of the written word.

The Beginning fiction skills and the Beginning non-fiction skills books focus on fiction texts such as stories, plays and poems. The companion books, Beginning non-fiction skills, look at non-fiction texts, for example, instructions, dictionaries, labels and information texts.

The Developing fiction skills and the Developing non-fiction skills books explore the range of text types using parallel themes. The nine themes covered in both Red level beginning fiction skills and Red level beginning non-fiction skills are:

- Holidays

- Birthdays

- Food

- Foxes

- Beans

- Toys

- Homes

- Tigers

- Myself