We recognise that high-quality writing is a skill built up over many years and requires deliberate, daily practice of key handwriting skills, grammatical knowledge and understanding of the conventions of punctuation to aid the reader. Foundational to all of this is an exposure to rich, lyrical language and a cementing in the long-term memory of vocabulary and prosody, turns of phrase and text conventions.
Our approach to writing (hand in hand with our approach to reading) aims to develop a deep understanding of language. Adults frequently model and rehearse a variety of texts to the children – both through oral storytelling and through reading quality published texts by celebrated authors.
In EYFS and KS1, the teaching of letter formation, and phoneme-grapheme correspondence, segmenting and spelling is taught through daily small group phonics sessions, alongside reading. Children practise these skills in writing books and on whiteboards, and are provided with immediate feedback. Writing forms part of continuous provision, with carefully-chosen adult-led and adult-directed tasks. In addition, teachers help children to learn a selection of short stories through oral storytelling. The stories that are chosen help children to develop a familiarity with differing sentence types, as well as being immersed in rich Tier 2 vocabulary. Children will begin to innovate these learnt stories, creating their own versions and as their physical writing skills develop, they will begin to record these, having had them modelled first by adults.
We organise the writing text types into four categories and ensure that all are covered each year:
Being able to write coherent and effective non-fiction is a very important skill and we are careful to ensure these text types are given as much weighting as fiction writing, even if the subject content is sometimes fictional in origin. A progression document for these text types and the associated grammar and punctuation can be found here: Text Types & Progression Booklet.pdf
Through KS2, writing is primarily taught around a key text, often a beautiful picture book, which inspires a love of reading, introduces more rich vocabulary and promises a wealth of writing opportunities. A list of recommended texts can be found here: Recommended Texts.pdf but there are always more to add to the list. English leads for the trust’s schools should validate the quality of any new text that class teachers wish to use. For maximum synergy, these will be linked with other curriculum areas being taught concurrently, but the quality of the text is more important than a potentially-tenuous curriculum link. Over the course of the teaching sequence, the children build their writing skills through three main phases:
Further information about the teaching sequence we use can be found here: Teaching Sequence and Planning for Writing.pdf
Finally, some pieces are chosen to be published, with all the edits included in the final piece.
We passionately believe in the power of words. For this reason, we take a research-informed approach to ensuring our children develop a wide vocabulary of intentionally-selected words. There is extensive evidence which links educational outcomes with the breadth of a child’s vocabulary. See Feldman et al. (2005) for evidence that vocabulary size in infancy is a strong predictor of linguistic and cognitive abilities at four years and Marchman & Fernald (2008) for the same at eight years. In addition, vocabulary size is clearly linked to the acquisition of competence in reading (see for example Ouellette 2006; Snow, Tabor, Nicholson, Kurland 1995) and, in turn, to success in school (see for example Biemiller & Boote 2006; Bornstein & Haynes 1998; Tymms, Merrell & Henderson 1997).
We take a two-dimensional approach to vocabulary instruction based on the ‘Tier System’ developed originally by Beck (2013) in Bringing Words to Life. In this model, Tier 1 words are those that are very common and frequently seen in conversational language. Tier 3, meanwhile, are words very specific to a certain field and whilst they are critical for gaining expertise in that area, they have less utility across a wide range of linguistic events. Tier 2 are those words that sit somewhere in between. They are unlikely to be used in spoken language, but appear regularly across a range of texts. Our methodology targets the explicit teaching of both Tier 2 and Tier 3 words.
Tier 2 words are taught as part of our guided reading curriculum (see separate document) in which texts are selected to form a synergy between reading lessons and other areas of the curriculum. Crucially, all students are exposed to this teaching, including those who are still struggling to decode and are undertaking additional phonics to help them catch up. The rationale for this is clear: Scarborough’s reading rope (2001) demonstrates that word recognition is only one element of reading and therefore we aim to develop all learners’ other elements of reading as they receive extra support decoding. No pupil is kept behind in developing their vocabulary and, in turn, developing their other areas of comprehension.
The Tier 2 words we teach are carefully selected by first choosing high-quality texts which link to our curriculum. Teachers choose their Tier 2 language from these texts so that reading and vocabulary instruction are seamlessly intertwined. Although the texts themselves link to the curriculum, the words taught are those that have the greatest scope of utility across a range of circumstances. For example, when reading a text concerning Tudor monarchs, the words selected would be equally as likely to appear in a text on volcanoes or the environment. These words are selected well in advance and can be found on the first page of each guided reading unit. By collating these it is possible to draw up a progression of all Tier 2 words taught in KS2 down to the year, term, unit, and even lesson that they are taught in.
Each guided reading session begins with a clear sequence for vocabulary instruction. This sequence remains the same in every KS2 session for the main reason that ‘the predictability of the format of your vocabulary rollout will both maximise your instructional time and increase student ownership… habits lead to efficiency and in this case, optimising the focus on studying words’ (Lemov 2016). The new word is introduced by displaying it on the board and is pronounced by the adult followed by a call and response from the class. Students are then provided with a child-friendly definition, a picture which illustrates the word, and example sentences to understand how it is (and is not) used in context. Five new words are introduced in this manner, and as the adult introduces each new word, they quiz pupils on the previous vocabulary (again, using whole class call and response to maximise participation). Pupils are then equipped with the knowledge of these five new words which they encounter in the text used in that session. Every guided reading lesson ends with a review of that day’s five new words, whereby the new vocabulary is displayed in the classroom for children to reference and use in their own writing. To ensure retention, the subsequent session begins with a review of the previous lesson’s words, and every sixth guided reading lesson is a low-stakes vocabulary quiz. This spacing is designed to move learning from the short-term to long-term memory.
We believe every child should leave our primary schools with the ability to read with fluency to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the world and with an appreciation of rich and wonderful literature that is both lyrical and emotionally powerful.
Phonics: At Minerva Primary School, we use the Read, Write Inc. scheme for teaching our children to read using a synthetic phonics approach to reading. The scheme is introduced in Early Years and carried on into Years 1 and 2. Discrete phonics are taught alongside a range of engaging and high quality texts in daily, small group sessions. Progress in understanding is reviewed every six weeks and children are supported or challenged further accordingly.
Talk through stories: As children increasingly learn the mechanics of reading, we want children to develop a love of stories and, when they know it well, we teach them to use the ‘Tier Two’ words from the story in everyday contexts. (Tier Two words are words that children are unlikely to hear in everyday conversation, but will encounter in stories and teaching as they progress through school.) Some of the books are more challenging than others. If you love the story and think your children will enjoy it, then it’s the right one for them. It is not a cumulative programme. The teaching sequence below has been researched over many years and has proven to be successful in increasing children’s vocabulary.
The principles here provide a framework for daily reading lessons that support learning in other subjects. These lessons should be accessible to all children, regardless of prior attainment and any child in KS2 who is still not yet able to decode accurately or read with fluency, should have daily access to high quality 1:1 or very small group tutoring in addition to these sessions. In KS2, reading should be used as a vehicle for helping children to ‘know more and remember more’ in other curriculum areas – a child with a wide experience of our world’s diverse cultures and history, scientific discoveries and use of language will be a great reader. A child who has some background knowledge of the content of a piece of text will be able to read it more effectively than if it is brought to them ‘cold’.
The aim for KS2 teachers is to create a synergy between reading lessons and other areas of the curriculum which creates a ‘crescendo of knowledge absorption’ (Doug Lemov, ‘Reading Reconsidered’). Background knowledge can be gleaned through fiction and non-fiction texts. It is equally as important to ensure that our children are exposed to a deep and rich collection of high quality fiction that encourages children to explore complex ideas and that develops empathy for others in situations that they perhaps won’t experience themselves.
Our framework for the teaching of writing sets quality text (predominantly fiction) at its heart. Sometimes it will be appropriate to synergise the work in English writing lessons with the focus of the reading lessons. Where fiction novels are used as the basis of a guided reading unit, there should be extracts of non-fiction explored which add a deeper understanding to the novel. It is the responsibility of teachers, in conjunction with their English leadership teams, to determine the balance of fiction and non-fiction, novel and extracts within their school’s wider curriculum. Regardless of the balance decided upon, every child should be engaged with a class reader novel at all times and be developing their own reading choices simultaneously with the teacher. One of the main drivers for improving children’s reading is in hearing adults modelling ‘how to read’ specific text types and then having the opportunity to practise this themselves, through the use of strategies such as ‘echo reading’. Another method for supporting children’s understanding of texts, is the providing of recordings of the texts being read aloud by an adult: these can be accessed independently with the right technology as and when children need them. The benefits of this cannot be overemphasised.
