Teach-Primary-Issue-20.1

www.teachwire.net | 53 T E ACH RE AD I NG & WR I T I NG The power of proof reading Sometimes a seeming lack of understanding of how to write grammatically correct sentences results from not knowing how to proofread. A handy technique, which could be taught to children in KS1 upwards, is to ask them, “How does your reader know where one idea ends and the next begins?” and then teach them the ‘Guess What?’ strategy (from Jennifer Serravallo’s The Writing Strategies Book , (2017) page 331: • Say “Guess what?” then read your sentence aloud. • Does your sentence make sense as an answer to “Guess what?”? • If not, try to rephrase it so that it makes sense. • Reread it now that the sentence has been changed. • Check it again – what do you say first? What does your reader need now that this idea has finished? Not only does this approach provide children with a useful strategy for evaluating the completeness of their sentence construction, but it also reminds the writer to consider the reader in the writing composition process. Moreover, it reminds pupils that the purpose of honing accuracy is to ensure that a reader can make meaning from the text; in turn, this helps to prevent the unintended messaging that accuracy for the sake of accuracy is the end goal. TP Choose a reader first We can enhance children’s motivation through authentic experiences of sharing their writing with a real person or people – perhaps someone they know in their family or wider community. Without an audience or reader, children may consider a task to be low worth if they think they are only ‘playing’ at being a writer and that nobody – other than their teacher – will value their efforts. Ensure your pupils have an authentic readership in mind for their writing, and that they know with whom it will be shared. If you can encourage them to picture this reader engaging with their words at the point of writing, their compositions will become more authentic, engaging and meaningful. Read the room Support pupils to recognise the function that grammar and vocabulary play in the readers’ experience, linking all language choices back to the intended effect. You can build working walls and success criteria collaboratively with pupils, remembering to constantly refer back to the audience and purpose for the writing. For example, if you’re writing a persuasive piece, you might list some techniques together as a class, first. Are the children trying to persuade a friend? An older family member? Or a stranger? How might they use approaches such as hyperbole, emotive language, and facts and figures to appeal to the reader they have in mind? Penny Slater is partnership lead, and Ellen Counter is interim deputy lead adviser for primary English, both at HFL Education. hfleducation.org/home DOWNLOAD RESOURCES AT Find FREE lesson plans, ideas and activities for KS2 persuasive writing at tinyurl.com/ tp-KS2persuasive