Successful writing is the skill of being able to communicate ideas and thoughts coherently with others through a written form.

In order to write successfully, children need to develop confidence across two dimensions of writing: transcription and composition. Additionally, children need to have a developed understanding of audience and purpose, so they are able to adapt their language and style to suit a range of contexts, audiences and reasons for writing. Finally, as writers, students will need to be able to independently plan, edit and evaluate the effectiveness of their own writing. Therefore, we have designed a curriculum which allows children to develop all of these skills across their primary learning journey.

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Pupils receive daily spelling lessons which are taught through the Read Write Inc. ‘Get Spelling’ programme. We chose to use this programme as it is underpinned by explicitly teaching phoneme-grapheme correspondence and was designed to follow on from the RWI phonics programme that we use as a school to teach phonics in Primary 1-3.  Alongside spelling, it develops children’s knowledge of word families, how suffixes and prefixes impact root words and provides mnemonics to help remember tricky spellings. More information can be found on the RWI Spelling page.

In Primary 6 and 7, Spelling and Vocabulary are taught on alternate weeks. Our focus on explicit vocabulary teaching aims to enhance children's vocabulary to support their achievement in Reading, Writing and the wider curriculum. We use Mrs Wordsmith resources as a stimulus for these lessons.

Handwriting is also explicitly taught during the week. More information on our handwriting scheme can be found on the Handwriting page.

Composition

Writing lessons are predominately taught using Pie Corbett's 'Talk for Writing' approach with some teacher planned ‘stimulus writing’ units. All units are underpinned by a strong belief that discussion (talk) is the starting point for all pieces of writing.

Talk for Writing units are taught in 3 phases: Imitation, Innovation and Independent. Each unit includes a writing 'toolkit' which is a collection on writing features that will be focused on during the unit. 

Imitation Phase - Children are introduced to a model text. The purpose of the model text is to  give children a secure understanding of what a strong example of the text genre looks like. Children learn this text to learn the structure of the text genre, acquire new vocabulary, embed sentence structures and gain exposure to the uses of punctuation.   The imitation phase typically includes:

- imaginative and engaging 'hook' to the unit

- model text mapped and learned with actions 

- text read as a writer to unpick language features, tools and effects that the author has used

- text unpicked to elicit plan which would have been used (simplified plot pattern referred to as the 'bare bones' of the text) 

- discreet grammar skills taught and practised

- drama, debate and discussion activities

Innovation Phase - The children use what they have learnt during the imitation phase to create an innovation of the model text.  Usually, the content of the innovation text is the same for the whole class.  This phase focuses heavily on teacher modelling and paired discussions.  The innovation phase typically includes:

- teacher modelling how to plan based off the model text 

- children practise the skills they will need for their writing through quick starter activities 

- shared write - the teacher writes parts of the text, modelling the thinking process aloud and getting new ideas from the class 

- children orally rehearse and independently write

- opportunities for responding to feedback through peer and self editing 

Independent Phase - Children write independently using the stimulus of the unit and skills taught through the previous weeks. The independent phase typically includes:

- discuss invention ideas based off 'bare bones' 

- map/plan text and orally rehearse

- use tools taught

- skill/grammar starters

- responding to feedback 

A phrase used frequently in Talk for Writing is to 'magpie', where children are encouraged to collect ideas from the model text, other reading they have encountered or one another to use in their own writing.

More information on Pie Corbett's Talk for Writing approach can be found here. 

P4-P7 Writing Overview


VCOP

Across the school, the terminology of 'VCOP' from Ros Wilson's Big Writing is still frequently referred to with children.  The information below will give you an understanding of what is meant by this. 

Vocabulary and How to help at home

Vocabulary

To enrich writing we promote the use of ambitious vocabulary. Children are encouraged to extend their vocabulary, highlighting interesting or unknown words in reading texts and in conversations. Children may wish to ‘borrow’ exciting words which they read or hear and use them in their writing.

How to help at home:

  • Continue to read regularly with and to your child - this is the best way to extend their vocabulary and give them ideas for writing.
  • Use ambitious vocabulary in discussions with your child, as appropriate to their age and stage.
  • Discuss the meanings of tricky words and how these might be used in different situations.
  • Challenge your child to find alternative words that are more interesting e.g., ‘said’: whispered, murmured, yelled, grumbled etc.

Connectives and How to help at home

Connectives

Connectives are joining words and phrases, which include conjunctions, and we encourage their use to create more varied and complex sentence structures in writing. Connectives may make sentences longer because they join clauses or they may start a sentence as an opener in order to join two ideas together. The children are aware that there are different levels of connectives and this is one way in which we challenge the children to vary their use of language.

How to help at home:

  • During written homework, challenge your child to extend his or her sentences by using a range of appropriate connectives (not simply and or but). This could also be done in conversation e.g., “The children played all afternoon in the park despite the fact that it was raining heavily” or, “While Tom waited, a bus arrived although it was not the bus he expected so he was forced to consider what to do next.”
  • Identify connectives when reading aloud with your child.

Openers and How to help at home

Openers

The beginning of a sentence can be used to grab the attention of a reader. As the children’s writing develops, they will be encouraged to consider a range of ways to begin a sentence, using imaginative and varied openers to enhance their writing. Children may use -ly, -ed and -ing words as powerful openers e.g. Suddenly there was a mighty crack…; Cornered, Alice did not know which way to turn…; Whispering, they crept stealthily across the lawn...

How to help at home:

  • Play oral word games which encourage different ways to begin sentences.
  • Look out for interesting openers when reading.
  • Encourage the use of verbs or adverbs to describe what people are doing or how they are feeling as an opener e.g., Peering closely at the wizard’s cloak; Apprehensively, he began his homework.

Punctuation and How to help at home

Punctuation

Punctuation can change the meaning of what is written. Basic punctuation is taught from the start of the writing process and gradually built upon as the children’s writing develops. Punctuation, openers and connectives are outlined on each Year Group specific pyramid as a visual reminder. Children are constantly reminded to reread their work to check that they have punctuated correctly.

How to help at home:

  • Point out different types of punctuation when reading with your child.
  • Raise his/her awareness of the need for punctuation so that his/her writing makes sense.
  • As your child reads aloud, raise his/her awareness of the natural pauses and changes in expression which link to punctuation.

Supporting Writing Development at Home

Supporting writing development at home:

  • Encourage your child to retell familiar stories or events. This gives them the opportunity to rehearse sentences and vocabulary in an order which makes sense. Talking is the precursor to communication through writing.
  • You can play games by taking turns to retell a story bit by bit or sentence by sentence so that you can model vocabulary and sentence structure whilst your child has a chance to organise their thinking and to make word choices.
  • Talking homework - help your child with ideas for story writing or story beginnings. Encourage enthusiasm for original ideas.
  • Reading books to your child always helps to widen his or her vocabulary and stimulate imagination.
  • Extend a bedtime story by talking about what might happen next.
  • Be a good role model to show your child the importance of writing e.g. shopping lists, writing notes, thank you notes and greetings cards.
  • At home it is important for your child to write at a table, with good posture, using the correct pencil grip and letter formation.
  • Encourage your child to point out the ambitious vocabulary that they notice in their homework tasks.
  • Encourage children to challenge themselves by considering vocabulary, openers, connectives and punctuation in written homework tasks, for example spelling sentences and topic work.
  • If your child can say it then they will eventually be able to write it! Help your child by modelling appropriate language and gently rephrasing any errors they may make.
  • Discuss different genres of writing and the language styles used in these e.g., newspaper reports, websites, instructions, recipes, letters and leaflets.
  • Help your child to understand the difference between formal and informal language and the different situations in which these are used.