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Michael Gove, the education secretary, wants to make English teaching at primary schools more rigorous. Children as young as five will be expected to learn and recite poetry by heart in a major overhaul of the national curriculum for schools in England.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, will promise a new focus on the traditional virtues of spelling and grammar when he sets out his plans for the teaching of English in primary schools later this week. Gove is said to be determined to make the teaching of English at primary school "far more rigorous" than it is at present.

On the teaching of English, the aim is to ensure that pupils leave primary school with a strong command of both written and spoken English, with high standards of literacy. It will call for a systematic approach to the teaching of phonics as a basis for teaching children to become fluent readers and good spellers.

It will also emphasise the importance of grammar in mastering the language, setting out exactly what children should be expected to be taught in each year of their primary schooling as well as lists of words they should be able to spell.

At the same time the study of poetry will become an important part of the subject at primary school level. From Year 1, at the age of five, children will be read poems by their teacher as well as starting to learn simple poems by heart and practise recitals. The programme of study for Year 2 will state that pupils should continue "to build up a repertoire of poems learnt by heart and recite some of these, with appropriate intonation to make the meaning clear".

More generally the curriculum will place a much stronger emphasis on reading for pleasure with children from Year 1 "becoming very familiar with key stories, fairy stories and traditional tales".
A Department for Education spokesman said: "We will be making an announcement on this shortly."