English Writing
How do we teach English at Pinner Wood?
At Pinner Wood we promote a love of reading and writing for all children. We ensure children reach the best possible outcomes. We teach English not only during Read, Write Inc, guided reading and writing sessions, but throughout the curriculum and children are provided with opportunities to apply their literacy skills.
Writing
The English curriculum at Pinner Wood is designed to be relevant and meaningful for all our children. Literature plays a central role in how we shape our writing curriculum, and our reading and writing lessons go hand in hand. At Pinner Wood we believe that reading is the best teaching of writing and therefore our writing and reading curriculums are parallel. Through this model the children are exposed to high quality, challenging texts which aim to stimulate and improve their vocabulary, comprehension and understanding of the English language. The children are taught to write with clarity, and awareness of the audience, purpose and context, as well as an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Grammar rules are taught explicitly through timetabled lessons which allows the children to improve their fluency and application of what they have learnt.
Writing at Pinner Wood follows the Talk for Writing structure of imitate, innovate, and invent to support all our learners. Throughout the school, writing is taught, where children are immersed in a text type (either fiction or non-fiction) by looking at key features, vocabulary, and example texts. We use high-quality, diverse books as the stimulus for our writing, which allows the children to use the language that they hear in the stories and books that we use in our guided reading sessions and story times. The reading for writing model ensures that children are exposed to challenging, ambitious and relevant concepts which mirror our diverse community.
Across the school the children have opportunities to develop and enhance their writing through drafting and redrafting a piece of text. The children work up to an extended write on a weekly basis which is then marked and assessed. As part of the Read Write Inc. Programme children in reception and year 1 have an additional writing session every week.
English at home
We know that parents and children at Pinner Wood are always keen to know what they can do at home to support learning. Writing can be done anywhere as well: ask your child to write a shopping list, they can write a diary, writing letters to family members and writing their own birthday or Christmas cards are all great ways of including writing at home.
For children beginning their writing journey, we encourage children to work on their fine motor skills to support them when holding a pencil. This could include ripping paper, rolling playdough, using tweezers and pegs.