Writing

Writing 

At St Anne's we use a clear sequential structure to support our writing across the school. Children will develop the skills to write for many different purposes whilst developing their flair and creativity. 

The key elements of the writing process which are followed throughout the school are planning, drafting, editing and revising, proofread and then publishing or sharing. 

Modelling is a key element in the teaching of the writing process, with teachers using 'think out loud' to guide children through how to craft a piece of writing. By modelling, the expert writer lets less experienced writers in on the big secret … What is going on in the head of a more experienced writer? By modelling, we demonstrate options for planning, strategic problem solving, self-monitoring, reviewing, revising and proofreading. We also show how techniques can be used or applied; we work through challenges and teach good grammar. And we do it all within the context of authentic writing!

Handwriting

As a school, one of our current focusses across all subjects is presentation of written work. As such, we have adopted the ‘Letter-join’ scheme to support pupils with this. Alongside using this scheme in English lessons to explicitly teach handwriting and correct letter formation, all children will be asked to use printed letters (rather than cursive) in their written work to ensure we can see their letters are formed correctly (starting and ending in the correct place). Children must be able to form printed letters correctly before joining their letters together to ensure the joins are in the correct place. Pupils can log in to the Letter-join website at home on iPads, tablets and computers. There you will find the same, easy-to-use handwriting resources that we use at school to support letter formation and handwriting.

What do handwriting lessons look like?

Each lesson, we spend 5 minutes focusing on one or two letters a day, this means children are getting at least 25 minutes of handwriting practice a day. These letters stay the same each day and children are asked to write them on handwriting lines. These lines look slightly different to what you may be used to and this is to support letter size. Standard handwriting lines do not teach letter size.

Letters are modelled by the teacher with the correct formation and RWI letter hooks are used to support and embed this. Children are then given their handwriting lines with one or two modelled letters on and the children continue to write a line of each letter. Teachers walk around the room to ensure that all children are using the RWI letter hooks and are starting and finishing their letters in the correct place. This is reinforced throughout the lesson and you should expect to see handwriting lines in each book every day.

Please find the handwriting lines on the document below.