Teach-Reading-and-Writing-Issue-22

Amanda Webb is primary English teaching and learning adviser at HFL Education. For further information about HFL Education, including its popular Fixing Full Stops training, visit hfleducation.org/home Metacognitive talk for Year 2 Display the written examples below, and talk about the differences between and , but and or . Displayed sentence: Luna watched her teacher and she tried out the steps. Metacognitive talk: The word and links these two ideas together. Displayed sentence: I know you fell over but you are still a real dancer. Metacognitive talk: The word but shows contrast, where something opposite or different happens. Displayed sentence : Luna could give up dancing or she could dance again. Metacognitive talk: The word or shows an option or a choice. Model writing the sentence below and orally testing out ideas to extend it. Write the extended sentence on the board. Displayed sentence: Luna went to a show. Metacognitive talk: Luna went to a show... and the dancers were brilliant, or... and it was great, or... but she still felt upset. Yes, I like ‘Luna went to a show but she still felt upset.’ Let’s write that, starting with a capital letter for Luna. (Extract courtesy of HFL Education ESSENTIAL WRITING) end-of-sentence punctuation – but how often do we teach and model this process? Introduce visual reminders Colour pop is a great reminder for children to use end-of-sentence punctuation and capital letters. Here they can choose a different colour pen/pencil to write their capital letter and full stop. This acts as a physical reminder to include their end-of-sentence punctuation followed by a capital letter. This can be used from Y1 through to Y6, for a time- limited period, as a prompt when writing. Be consistent If you are a subject lead, ensure there is a consistent approach to the teaching of sentence structure across the school. We need to ensure this learning is taught sequentially, with time to circle back to previous Year Groups’ learning, in order to ensure strong foundations are laid and built upon. Provide time to proof If children are secure in their understanding of sentence structure, but this becomes lost at times through extended pieces of writing, teach them how to proofread for sentence structure accuracy. Provide dedicated time to do this, and ensure there is a real, chosen authentic audience who they will be sharing their writing with at the end of the process. In this way, you will be developing their motivation to want to write something purposeful and authentic with accuracy for their reader. Building strong writers As teaching professionals, we need to keep a sharp focus on teaching all children how to write correctly-structured sentences in a systematic way within the context of an authentic piece of writing, to ensure misconceptions do not persist. But we must also give children the tools they need to make authorial choices around which sentence constructions to use and when to engage their authentic readers. Only then can we ensure children will become successful writers and communicators. www.teachwire.net | 31 T E ACH I NG T E CHN I QUE S