Please click on this link to find the ‘Intent’ for this subject. The ‘Intent’ is our school aim for what we would like the children to be able to do, know and understand.

Intent for Writing

How we teach Writing at Winter Gardens Academy

At Winter Gardens Academy, we believe that reading is the key to effective learning. Reading widely across a range of genres plays a fundamental role in developing children’s imagination, vocabulary and confidence to be a natural writer.

EYFS

In Early Years children are provided with a wide range of fine motor activities. For example: tweezers, paintbrushes, chalks to allow them to develop their muscles which will support them to write with confidence. Throughout the Early Years provision, the children have access to writing materials. For example: clipboards in the role play area. Children begin to write by mark making – giving meaning to the marks they make.

The children begin learning their sounds after the first few weeks of settling into school. This is through the RWI programme. See document ‘How we teach Reading, EYFS’, which is available on our website.  Once they begin to learn their sounds they are then encouraged to segment to hear the sounds as they write. This is modelled to them during RWI and Writing lessons but also throughout the Early Years provision.

An introduction to Talk for Writing

“We know that linguistically children can’t write sentences unless they can say them and they can’t say a sentence unless they hear them a lot,” (Pie Corbett).

Click on the link to watch Pie Corbett explain the purpose and power of teaching writing through the Talk for Writing approach.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6K6YH3ci5Q

Talk for Writing developed by Pie Corbett is the movement from imitation (learning a text by hear), to innovation (adapting the text) and the independent (own version using original structure of the genre taught) application.  In Early Years through to Year 6, children learn a model text – based on a fiction or non-fiction text but adapted to suit the skills the children need to learn in their spoken and written work. To see the texts currently being taught in each year group, click on the tab ‘writing’, the year group you wish to see and ‘Talk for Writing’. Click on the link to watch Pie Corbett teaching a class to internalise the story ‘Little Red Hen’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdvJZD-cplg

Talk for Writing in the Early Years

We believe that children become confident, successful and enthusiastic writers if they have been absorbed into a range of high quality literature.

The picture below shows some of the books they will begin to have read to them from Reception to Year 2. The children will also hear texts from other key authors – see our extended reading list – Key authors – on our website under reading. This will ensure that by the time our children finish primary school they will be able to recall books by at least 30 significant authors.

“Behind every confident storyteller is a confident writer”

Once the children internalise the text, through actions and text maps – as show in the videos above and the photos below, they have opportunities to role play the text during continuous provision. Appropriate props and resources are provided to the children to encourage ad develop the children’s story telling which impacts on their spoken vocabulary. As a class, the children then innovate the original story by considering alternative characters and settings. They then re-learn the text with the adaptations and the teacher models writing to them. Within continuous provision, writing opportunities are provided to the children to encourage them to write captions, labels, familiar phrases or sections of a story using the skills they have been taught.

There are specific actions suggested by Pie Corbett that the children learn. These are displayed in classrooms from EYFS to Year 4.

This image illustrates some of the actions used for storytelling in Key Stage One

The image above illustrates some of the actions used for storytelling in Years 3 and 4

Talk for Writing continues throughout Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and 2):

The process continues in the same way ensuring consistency in the teaching of writing. In Year One and Two, children continue to hear books by significant authors to ensuring they are hearing rich language structures and imaginative ideas.

In Key Stage One, the children continue to learn the text – internalisation stage. Alongside the teacher, the children create a text map – as shown in the picture – to help them to recall the text and learn the structure. Words and phrases are colour coded to support children with the grammatical terms

In key Stage One, the children develop the process of innovation through sentence substitution (see photograph)

Children are provided with a range of scaffolds to support them in adapting the text to create alternative versions. At the end of the innovation process the children plan their own stories using the structure and vocabulary in week one and two. This allows all children to demonstrate their skills as a writer.

Children are provided with a range of scaffolds to support them in adapting the text to create alternative versions. At the end of the innovation process the children plan their own stories using the structure and vocabulary in week one and two. This allows all children to demonstrate their skills as a writer.

For genres taught for each text please see our Literacy Map on our website.

Talk for Writing continues throughout Key Stage 2 (Year 3,4,5 and 6)  

The process continues in the same way, ensuring consistency in the teaching of writing. In Key Stage Two, children continue to hear books by significant authors to ensure they are hearing rich language structures, age appropriate, powerful vocabulary and imaginative ideas. The picture below shows some of the books they will have read to them to support our curriculum. See our extended reading list – Key authors – on our website under reading.

In key Stage Two the children develop the process of innovation through modelled writing. This could include:  Similarly to EYFS and Key Stage One, teachers use age appropriate, high quality texts, linked to the curriculum (see table below) and then write the texts to include the skills the children need to learn (National Curriculum).  During the teaching of Talk for Writing in Week Two, the teacher heavily models high quality writing by innovating the original text, reading aloud to check for sense and modelling a growth mind set through editing. Each day, throughout the week, the children have the opportunity to innovate the original text by applying the skills they have been taught through the internalising the text and modelled writing.  Throughout the process, the teachers are continually creating word banks, adding new vocabulary, encouraging children to magpie ambitious, powerful vocabulary in their sentences – both orally and written. The Talk for Writing approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. At Winter Gardens, our aim is to create writers across the curriculum.

For genres taught for each text please see our Literacy Map on our website.

Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

During week one of Talk for Writing, we teach a grammar lesson linked to the model text the children will be learning. Throughout week one – learning the text and text mapping – the teachers draw the children’s attention to the grammatical terms through colour coding words or phrases. Punctuation is taught alongside the three-week process. Spelling is taught separately through the RWI spelling programme. See document, ‘How we teach Spelling’ for more information (available on our website).

How to support your child at home

For more information about how to support your child at home and the Talk for Writing process/resources please visit the following websites:

https://www.talk4writing.co.uk/

https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/12374/supporting-childrens-writing-in-the-reception-class.pdf

You will also find further handouts on our website.