Writing

More details on this scheme can be found in the reading section of the website (click here). 

The aspects that relate to writing that may be helpful to parents and carers are outlined below:

How can I help my child to practise their handwriting?

Remind your child:

• To hold their pencil in ‘perfect pencil grip’ (hold a pencil in a tripod pencil grip with the non-writing hand flat holding their paper)
• Say the handwriting phrase to help them form the letter correctly – see Handwriting Phrases on https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/ or below ...

Challenge your child to see how many sounds they can write in a minute.

Say the sound and children write e.g. ‘write m’, ‘write s’, ‘write w’.

 

How can I help my child to spell words?

• Encourage your child to use Fred Fingers to spell words
• Ask your child to say the sounds in the word as they press the sounds onto their fingers
• Ask your child to then write the letters – if they get stuck, say the sounds again
• Praise your child for spelling using the sounds they know, even if their handwriting is not perfect.

Talk 4 Writing

At St Margaret’s Lee we have implemented the Talk 4 Writing approach from Early Years and Key Stage 1, to run alongside Read, Write Inc phonics into Key Stage 2, where we are continuing to develop creative, confident writers. In KS2, units of work are taught over 3 weeks and include fiction, non-fiction and poetry. 

Why Talk for Writing?

We want all our children to develop into thoughtful readers and creative, independent writers and it is through the Talk for Writing approach that we believe we can achieve this. Through its multi-sensory and interactive teaching it enables children of all ages and abilities to learn to write a wide range of story/text types using various methods including:

• listening to and learning texts and stories;
• taking part in drama and role-play;
• drawing and story mapping;
• words and language strategies
• building their working knowledge of grammar.
   

What exactly is it?

Talk for Writing is an innovative approach to teaching writing developed by the literacy specialist and writer Pie Corbett (www.talk4writing.co.uk). It uses high quality model texts to introduce the children to different story/text types, which they then learn off by heart and unpick with a writer’s critical eye.
They learn the underlying structures and the process of planning using story maps. They also learn about the key strategies for creating interesting characters and settings and how to use a range of sentence types to create different effects including suspense or adventure.

Process
Talk for Writing has three key phases that work together to develop knowledge, confidence and independence in writing:
 

Imitation and Immersion

During this phase the children learn a model text using actions and story maps. The key to success for this is that they internalise the text type through repetition and rehearsal. They explore the structure of the narrative and investigate the different characters, settings and events. They also begin to look closely at the language used and the effect this has on the reader. We call this process ‘read as a writer’. The classroom becomes a dynamic, interactive resource filled with word ideas, sentence types and language tools collected by the children to use in their stories later.

Innovation
During this phase the teacher and the children begin to change aspects of the model text using their own ideas. They explore the text using different characters, settings or events and new ideas for descriptive language whilst hugging closely to the underlying structure.
It is during this phase that the children work using their toolkits. The toolkits, based on the features and ingredients of the model text, remind children of the different strategies they could use in their stories and helps them to see the progress they are making.

Invention
During the invention week the children plan and write their own story based on the text type they have been learning. They experiment with the ideas and begin to explore their own style of writing using sentence types from the model text.

When children begin writing, spelling often follows phonic cues e.g. because will be spelled 'becoz' or people spelled 'peepl'.  Children learn the spelling of words as they read e.g. cat, frog, bake etc. and they learn to spelling through our phonic teaching programme. We begin to introduce the spelling of irregular high frequency words (common words that don't follow a simple phonic pattern) in Year 1. 

Below is the list of words that we aim for all children to be able to spell and apply in their independent writing.

Spellings - 1	Spellings - 7	Spellings - 13
the	Mr	yellow
go	Mrs	blue
to	called	purple
into	asked	brown
I	people	orange
no	because	white
Spellings - 2	Spellings – 8	Spellings - 14
he	once	Monday
she	water	Tuesday
we	where	Wednesday
me	who	Thursday
be	again	Friday
was	though	Saturday / Sunday
Spellings - 3	Spellings - 9	Spellings - 15
you	through	January
they	friends	February
all	eyes	August
are	different	September
my	any	October
her	many	December
Spellings - 4	Spellings - 10	Spellings - 16
said	laughed	one
have	could	two
like	would	three
so	should	four
do	every	seven
some	someone	eight
Spellings - 5	Spellings - 11	Spellings - 17
come	thought	it’s
were	magic	we’re
there	more	there’s
little	everyone	don’t
one	these	didn’t
when	school	won’t
Spellings - 6	Spellings - 12
out	our
what	I’ll
with	I’ve
oh	animals
looked	house
their	didn’t

In Year 3-6, we primarily use Spelling Shed for our curriculum 

Each year group has a comprehensive teaching plan, outlining a clear order and progression to the teaching of spelling. Each stage corresponds with the year group (Stage 4 = Year 4). An overview of Stage 3 to 6 can be downloaded below.

As well as providing teachers with a clear plan and engaging in-class activities, children also have the chance to independently practise using the Spelling Shed app. The app responds to the child's misconceptions and provides relevant extra practice in these areas.

It also provides children with a range of games and challenges to help make spelling fun!