Writing at Addison Primary

Wring is a complex task that involves the use and coordination of many thinking skills. At Addison we aim to teach the skills needed together with fostering a love and appreciation of writing.

Our key objectives are to:

• writing with confidence, fluency using a range of independent strategies to take responsibility for their own learning including self-monitoring and editing their own errors;
• teach pupils the writing process including planning, revising, and editing written products (through teacher modelling, supported writing and independent writing) - Composition 

• teach pupils to write for a variety of purposes and audiences so that they understand what their writing will look and sound like to others - Composition
• teach pupils to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing and word processing- Transcription
• become independent thinkers who refer to prior skills to overcome challenges
• using their developing creativity, imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.
• having a deeper understanding of grammar;
• use spelling patterns to decipher new words.

The key components of teaching fiction and non- fiction across the curriculum is:
 

INVENTION / INDEPENDENT APPLICATION – Pupils identify the language features and structural features of the model text. Pupils innovate texts in sections so that they can practise the style before writing it. Pupils independently write that text type in English lessons and where possible across the curriculum. Pupils are encouraged to edit and improve their writing by responding to feedback.

Strategies to support writing.
Demonstrations (Modelling): Working from a model text to demonstrate how to write each text type. Teacher demonstrates how to write that genre referring to the model and talking through their decisions, rehearsing sentences, making alterations and re-reading to check for accuracy and sense. Use ‘Toolkit’ for that genre. - (Imitations and Innovation)
 
Shared Writing: Using the shared writing strategy enables teachers to make the writing process concrete and visible to students. In shared writing, the teacher and students compose text together, with both contributing their thoughts and ideas to the process, while the teacher acts as scribe, writing the text as it is composed. The purpose of shared writing is to model the thought process involved in writing and allow students to engage in and focus on the process. The teacher, ac ng as scribe, frees students from that aspect of the writing process so that they can focus exclusively on the thinking involved in writing. Shared writing is also a powerful method for direct teaching of key skills and concepts needed in the writing process. - (Innovation)
 
Guided Writing: Guided writing takes place in small focus groups, to act as a scaffold and intervention at the point of writing. Guided writing should be linked to targets and writing levels for each group. Guided writing should be planned for and highlighted on planning. Enables teachers to assess pupils against their personal writing targets. During the Guided Writing process pupils are given immediate and specific feedback on targets, which can then be built upon in subsequent sessions. Also serves as an opportunity to assess against listed objectives. - (Innovation and Invention)
 
Independent Writing: Children should move onto independent writing when children have a good grasp of the grammar and vocabulary and structure required to re-create their own version of the text type. A model may be at hand for reference as well as a writer’s ‘Toolkit’ for the relevant genre. It is at this point that the most innovation and invention will be seen. The pupils should have an opportunity to develop/ improve/edit their writing independently, with peers and along- side their teacher. - (Innovation and Invention).

How We Approach Spelling.

Good spelling is a fundamental part of a child's literacy development.

Spelling Tests
Children learn spellings for a spelling test each week. We accept that there will be mistakes in tests, and just look for consistency and improvement. After all, two out of 10 is twice as good as one out of 10!

Identifying their own mis-spelt words
We encourage our children to identify mis-spelt words in their own writing and make the necessary correction using a dictionary.

How to learn weekly spellings
We suggest children learn their spellings using the 'Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check' method. This encourages your child to 'see' and 'hear' the word, and to see if it’s spelt correctly.

Spelling Rules

Help your child to learn spelling rules. There will always be exceptions, but they work most of the time:

1. Most question words start 'wh'
2. i before e except after c
3. Add 's' for plurals except those that end in 's', 'x', 'z', 'ch' and 'sh', when you add 'es'
4. Nouns ending in 'y' change to 'ies'
5. Use 'ce' for nouns and 'se' for verbs (you advise with advice)
6. When adding 'ing' or 'ed', double the last consonant after a short vowel sound (so drop becomes dropping or dropped)
7. Don't drop the final 'e' when you add 'ly' ('safely'), but do drop it to add 'ing' ('coming')

Spelling Tips

1. You hear with your ear.
2. You wear an ear-ing.
3. Where is a place eg. Where are you? We are here?
4. The word separate has "a rat" in it (separate).
5. Donkeys, monkeys - There are keys in donkeys and monkeys.
6. The word here is also in its opposite there.
7. Villain - A villain is one who lives in a villa.
8. There is no word in English ending in -full except full.
9. ‘ie’ words – soldier (soldiers shouldn’t die in battle) friend (friends until the end) believe (if you believe something it’s not a lie)