Immersion
- In order to enthuse and capture children’s imaginations to want to write purposeful pieces for a wide variety of audiences. We ensure that children become immersed in the text right from the start of their learning journey, by providing a hook into the text. This could be in the form of the blurb, an image or video clip, a concrete item to provide a clue and to provoke discussion or an extract of the text to entice the children to want to find out more! This element of the sequence will give children the necessary desire and knowledge of content to be able to write high quality pieces of writing.
- Children’s prior experiences, knowledge and interests are all taken into account when planning and ensure that children are not disadvantaged through a lack of outside of school experiences.
- Good speaking and listening skills are crucial to the development of writing. Drama and role play opportunities are provided prior to writing. Teachers also plan for talking opportunities through drama, talk partners and group discussion to enable children to verbally rehearse their ideas before writing
Modelled Writing/Planning
- Modelling is an important part of the writing process where children get to observe and learn from how expert writers think about the writing process.
- During modelled writing, the teacher thinks aloud while writing and models strategies in front of the children, communicating the strategies being used.
- Teachers may model writing skills such as punctuating, rehearsing, proof reading, editing, word selection, sentence construction and paragraphing.
Shared Writing
- This strategy can also be used in guided writing groups and should be used more frequently than modelled writing.
- In shared writing, the teacher skilfully invites contributions from the children and teaches writing skills such as rehearsal, proof reading and editing, and production of a final draft.
- Shared writing should be focused around smaller pieces of text in order to ensure that the focus is on the quality of the writing and deeper learning can take place around more focused content
Re-drafting/Editing.
Editing and Redrafting are considered essential elements of the writing process.
- Editing will often have a focus on syntax, spelling and basic punctuation; whereas, redrafting will have a more prominent focus around the vocab, composition and cohesion of the piece.
- Both of these elements need to modelled to children frequently in order for children to observe expert writers improving their own work
Publication.
We believe that writing should be purposeful and children should have a final product in their writing that they take pride in.
- At the beginning of an English learning journey, an example of the purpose of their writing will be shared with the class and placed on display for children to refer to throughout the unit.
- A copy of the final piece will be placed into the literacy books and some will be used for display purposes.
Developing Writing Skills in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words. This understanding begins in EYFS through daily, high quality phonics lessons.
In EYFS, children are encouraged to attempt their own emergent writing and their efforts are valued and celebrated. As their phonic knowledge increases, so does their ability to write independently. At the same time, their knowledge of key words is supported through reading and writing activities, including shared reading and writing. Legible letter formation is explicitly taught and modelled on a daily basis. A wide variety of opportunities are provided for children to engage in writing activities and independently apply their phonic skills through role play, creative activities, computing and the outdoor area.