Beginning with a potted history of writing pedagogy, and a section on the science of writing (more on that later), Quigley then turns to two crucial nuts and bolts of the craft: grammar and syntax. Prioritisation activity. This is a simple summary of comment writing priorities that feature in all school types. The resource can be used as a prompt for discuss and purposeful prioritisation. Novice writers, including those learning in schools, encounter teachers as gatekeepers of topics, forms, means and processes. But those teachers are often constrained by systems, including the accountability that tests and examinations required by governments engender." - Wyse, How Writing Works

Closing the Writing Gap | Free Chapter - Routledge

After over fifteen years in the classroom, I now support the cause of education from the other side the school gates. For most of the week I work for an educational charity, supporting teachers and school leaders to access research evidence. For a teacher, distinguishing between developing an ear for writing as Wyse describes, and letting pupils know that writing is difficult and a craft as Heller suggests, provides a real challenge, especially when the curriculum asks for ‘greater depth’ alongside ‘fronted adverbials’. This is further complicated when looking at children with ‘spiky’ profiles. Those who shine in some areas dull as soon as pen reaches paper; the sparkle is lost and the assessment process may mask their true academic potential. So how can we attempt to close the attainment gap for these children?The ear of the writer is her most precious attribute. When well developed, this ear brings analytic precision, compositional fluency, and technical skills that are necessary to create and craft writing.” - Dominic Wyse, How Literacy Works Try visual note taking or drawing images to use as memory prompts - it won’t solve the full sentence but could generate enough information to trigger memory and build writing content. Our lives can be filled and fulfilled by writing," says Alex Quigley. In this important new book: "That story begins with our birth certificate and ends with our epitaph …". I can’t think of a text which better articulates the importance of writing, and then goes on to articulate how to put ambition into practice. It is a book of wise principles and practical implementation. In it, Quigley establishes himself even further as my go-to source of insights into the all-important subject of whole-school literacy." Furthermore, as this article encourages, a child with a specific difficulty such as dyslexia may have literacy as a barrier, but it does not mean they are low ability. Be vigilant and find strategies to enable them. Discrete phonic lessons are needed but not at the expense of a broad and balanced curriculum, and challenge at the same level as their peers. As Mary Myatt writes, set high challenge but with low threat. Catch children succeeding by removing barriers rather than creating a system that sets them up to fail. In the current climate, I know that can be difficult, but with strategies like those suggested above, these children can show what they are truly capable of achieving. Teaching sentence variation. This resource concisely summarises the four key types of sentence level moves that pupils can practise to develop their writing style.

CLOSE THE WRITING GAP - The Confident Teacher 7 STEPS to CLOSE THE WRITING GAP - The Confident Teacher

It is crucial that busy teachers are supported with timely and accessible resources to support their work. As a result, to go alongside my new book, ‘Closing the Writing Gap’, I have produced a small number of tools that I hope will help translate the insights from the book into action. Steps to Close the Writing Gap. This simple infographic offers a basic summary of the key steps to improve writing that feature throughout the book. Geoff Barton, General Secretary, Association of School and College Leaders, and former English teacherAfter some grim national writing results last year, and lots of conversations with school leaders about their post-Covid teaching and learning priorities, writing is high on many schools’ priority list. Common issues that have been raised to me by school colleagues are wide ranging, from issues with spelling, to extended writing, problematic writing assessments, and … Slow writing’ first came to my attention when The Learning Spy began writing about them. I have used them regularly and find they are great for developing ‘the ear’ for writing and allowing children to learn how to craft sentences. Hold that thought’ is not something children with poor short-term memories can do. They say (or often blurt out) something brilliant and then it has faded away either naturally or because someone or something has disrupted the thought process. It can even happen mid-sentence. Have you met those children who begin telling you something and then hesitate and say, ”I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say now”? Or those children so desperate to tell you something that they put their hands in the air as if their lives depended on it, but when you get to them, they’ve forgotten the answer? This type of behaviour may mean a child has a short-term memory difficulty. Paired writing can help get ideas down or collaborative writing is a fantastic way for pupils to achieve and feel proud of their work. In addition, they are learning through modelling.

Closing the Writing Gap – New Resources - The Confident Teacher

Then when you explore school attainment, you can see the gap and the daily damage that is suffered by many pupils. When you consider that only 73% of pupils leaving primary school reached the expected level for reading in 2019, it is clear that many of those pupils will struggle to access the secondary school curriculum.With the goal of giving every teacher the knowledge and skill to teach writing with confidence, it makes sense of the history and 'science' of writing, synthesising the debates and presenting a wealth of usable evidence about how children develop most efficiently as successful writers.