Primary - Writing

Age 6 - 11

Teaching writing skills follows the same approach as teaching reading and spelling. Pupils with early literacy difficulties needs to be taught how the English language works and they need to develop a sight vocabulary alongside a knowledge of word patterns (orthographic pattern). A pupil with a specific difficulty will require a lot of practice and consolidation to develop automaticity in the skills of spelling to be able to transfer this skill to independent writing. All the sub-skills need to be developing before the pupil can confidently attempt independent writing.

Morphology 

A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a word. Knowledge of words and their parts, for example, prefixes, suffixes, for example, ‘cat’- ‘cats’, ‘look’- ‘looked’.

Syntactic knowledge 

Knowledge of grammatical structure and punctuation. What a sentence looks like.

Semantic Knowledge 

Knowledge that the pupil will have acquired from experience of the world. Word meanings. 

Orthographic knowledge

Knowledge of word patterns, for example, ‘man’, ‘can’, ‘ran’.

Phonological knowledge 

Awareness of all the sounds at the grapheme / phoneme level, syllable level and whole word level.

It is important that learning takes place in structure, for example, if the pupil has learned the cvc words with the orthographic pattern ‘at’ he / she can write - ‘The cat sat on the mat.’ Modelling of a sentence in structure is essential. Use of the cursive script enables consistency in the starting place for each word:

  • The teacher models the sentence, using appropriate punctuation (begin at sentence level)
  • Reduce the cognitive load on memory by providing key words, a writing frame or clicker 8
  • Involve oral language and discussion to encourage reflection on what the pupil has written
  • Discuss the benefit of planning a structure before beginning
  • Look at examples of similar pieces of writing and discuss how they have been structured (look at examples of writing with 2 or more sentences)
  • Some pupils may begin by copying underneath the modelled example
  • Cut up this sentence and the pupil can rearrange in correct order
  • Some may construct a simple sentence
  • Re-read and develop skills of self-monitoring and self-correction
Executive Function Difficulties

Pupils, when left to work independently may find it difficult to manage their time to complete tasks, to organise and prioritise tasks, to meet assignment deadlines and / or may overlook vital details and information.  When completing a literacy task, pupils who display planning and prioritising difficulties are unable to recognise the specific steps to follow to reach the end goal. They find it difficult to determine their goal and/or understand the importance of planning to be prepared for a certain situation and are therefore unable to work independently. 

Impact on WritingRecommendations for Reasonable Adjustments
The pupil may have difficulty following and remembering the teacher’s instructions 
  • Encourage pupil to be in a state of ‘readiness’ with attention starting phrases 
  • Explain instructions clearly and check pupil’s understanding of task 

  • WALT Board to ensure the pupil is aware of the learning intention (explain explicitly - never assume the pupil fully understands). At the end of the lesson summarise what has been learned:

    Teacher Resource: WALT Board

  • ‘Help Box’ or ‘Help board’ displayed on Interactive Whiteboard or post-it at the pupil’s desk to remind them of the step- by step process
The pupil may have difficulty with planning, organising, and executing a piece of work 
  • Provide scaffolds such as visual prompt cards with headings and sub-headings, sentence or paragraph starters and writing frames so pupil does not feel so overwhelmed with writing task:

Printable Resource: Recount Writing Prompts

  • Create routines for writing tasks 
  • Use planning outlines, graphic organisers. Mind Maps, Story Maps and timelines to help pupil sequence ideas: 
    Printable Resource: Story Map
  • Teach the meaning of the questioning terms such as analyse, compare, discuss, explore, explain, demonstrate and summarise and ensure the pupil understands the terms 
  • Ensure pupil has appropriate writing materials for class tasks; offer an easy-to-follow checklist
The pupil may have handwriting difficulties in formation of letters
  • Provide alternative forms for recording written information:
  • Speech-to-Text technology on Microsoft Dictate or Texthelp Read and Write:  

Teacher Guidance: Microsoft Dictate Help Sheet

Read and Write Quick Reference Guide for Google Chrome

Read and Write-for Windows: Support Tools for Students with Dyslexia

  • Cloze procedures
  • Bulleted lists
  • Writing frames

Offer pupil choices to help them become more engaged and independent (type or write)

Processing Speed Difficulties

Processing speed is a way of describing - how the brain receives, understands, and responds to information.  Not everyone thinks at the same pace.  A pupil with slow processing speed may struggle to follow lessons and complete tasks. Working memory is closely linked to the speed at which information is processed, so it is common to see difficulties with working memory coupled with a slower rate of processing information.

Impact on WritingRecommendations for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil may struggle with background noise and process speech sounds incorrectly 

 

The pupil may be slow to begin work because of difficulty organising his / her work / planning ideas

  • Ensure the class is quiet when introducing a lesson
  • Seat the pupil near you (if possible)

  • Provide visuals of the learning intention- WALT Board (and explain explicitly what the pupil is learning today) and at the end of the lesson summarise what has been learned:

    Teacher Resource: WALT Board

  • Speak slowly and use simple terms
  • Repeat key words and phrases
  • Find ways to provide increased processing time, for example deliberately leave time between instructions / information to allow the pupil time to process what he / she has heard
  • Provide a checklist of what needs to be done during the activity
The pupil’s self-esteem may be impacted 
  • Provide specific praise for the efforts shown by the pupil and encouragement to do more
  • Allow ‘thinking time’ when posing questions orally. A pupil with processing difficulties may not respond immediately even though he / she knows the answer
  • Give shorter activities to enable the pupil to master the concepts whilst avoiding the frustration of not being able to finish all the assigned work.
  • Give extra time to complete classwork and tests
  • Agree with the pupil a discrete way for him / her to let you know he / she needs more time, for example using a traffic light system:
    Printable Resource: Traffic Lights (Help Indicator)
  • Be aware that timed tasks may be a source of anxiety for some pupils with speed of processing difficulties
The quantity of writing produced is limited
  • Use voice typing to dictate his / her answers or story, using, for example, in Word or Speech-to-Text in Read & Write or the microphone in iPages on Apple devices:

Teacher Guidance: Microsoft Dictate Help Sheet

Working Memory Difficulties

Pupils with working memory difficulties may struggle to spell even simple words which will impact on self-esteem and the production of written work. Pupils may also find it difficult to follow instructions in the classroom and as a result may find initiating a task challenging.

Impact on WritingRecommendations for Reasonable Adjustments
The pupil struggles to follow written instructions 
  • Break instructions down into a step-by-step procedure
  • Record on post-its or use a help box or help board
  • ‘Text-to-speech software’  could enable the pupil to access typed instructions as many times as he / she needs to, to ensure understanding
  • For written instructions, use numbers rather than bullet points so that the pupil can keep track of where he / she is when completing an activity
The pupil struggles to recognise spelling patterns and he / she often spends a significant amount of time attempting to recall words
  • Patterns and sequences which are consistent in sound and spelling reduce the burden on working memory by helping the pupil to ‘reason by analogy’, realising that if he / she can spell one word, he / she can spell related words, for example, train, strain, brain
The pupil’s sentences may show limited awareness of punctuation or contain no punctuation 
  • Use a highlighter to find and highlight all the full stops or question marks in a page of text to support knowledge of punctuation and help learn their symbols and meanings
  • Provide examples and model good practice
  • Encourage a metacognitive approach at each stage of the process of writing, reflecting, reviewing, monitoring and transferring new learning

The pupil’s sentences may often be incomplete 

 

The pupil may be struggling to spell even simple words which will impact on self-esteem

  • Provide spellings in onset or rime groups for example, (onset) flat flag fled or (rime) oat, boat, coat, float, throat
  • Use spelling lists that are composed of words that follow the same sound and spelling pattern (for example, teach ‘snow’ and ‘grow’ separately to ‘toe’ and ‘hoe’ or ‘now’ and ‘how’)
  • Focus on the High Frequency Words which continue to cause difficulty - only 4/5 each week (personalise to suit the pupil)
  • Provide Mnemonics for spelling:

Printable Resources: Spelling Mnemonics 

During the writing tasks, the pupil struggles to remember what he / she wants to say once he / she begins to write
  • Support memory by using the pupil's interests and autobiographical knowledge when planning writing tasks (what they have experienced already)
  • Draw on the pupil’s prior knowledge

  • Provide visual prompts as appropriate, such as mind maps, flow charts: 

    Printable Resource: Mind Map (Bubble Format)

  • Use Verbal repetition to help the pupil to keep information in his / her short-term memory for long enough to record it
  • Encourage the pupil to use verbalisation:
    • Naming the letters before writing a word down
    • Repeating back a dictation sentence before writing it
    • Saying aloud the next word in a sentence prior to writing it and so on
  • A structured / dictated sentence, using only the letter patterns introduced, ensures the best chance of successful spelling for the pupil. This routine also provides a means of assessing progress
    EA Guidance Video: Dictation Routine (9:02 mins)
    Teacher Guidance: Dictation Routine
    • Teacher dictates the sentence 
    • Pupil repeats the sentence 
    • Teacher dictates the sentence again (to ensure accuracy and correct pronunciation) 
    • Pupil repeats the sentence, checking for accuracy 
    • Pupil writes the sentence (the use of a cursive script helps to develop automaticity in spelling the new words and hence frees up the working memory)
      EA Guidance Video: Dictation Routine (9:02 mins)
      Teacher Guidance: Dictation Routine
  • Assist the pupil to plan his / her writing, prior to beginning -use mind maps, Story maps or flow charts so that he / she can access ideas:

Printable Resource: Mind Map (Bubble Format}

Printable Resource: Story Map

  • Provide writing structures
  • Prompts for different types of writing-see below ‘recount writing prompts’:

Printable Resource: Recount Writing Prompts

  • Provide the pupil with opportunities to use voice typing to dictate his / her answers to questions or to write stories. Word or Speech-to-Text in ‘Read and Write’ or the microphone in iPages on Apple devices: 
    Teacher Guidance: Microsoft Dictate Help Sheet
     
  • Use “Picturize” or “Clicker Grids” on the Clicker 8 App to help the pupil build words and sentences, support his / her writing and reduce working memory demands
The pupil may have developed phonics skills but have limited morphological knowledge
  • Use a Guided Discovery Approach with a pupil who has limited morphological knowledge, for example when teaching the ending ‘ed’ invite the pupil to search for and find examples of words that end in ‘ed’ in his / her reading books
  • Provide activities for the pupil to sort words with ‘ed’ to discover the rules for adding ‘ed’. Draw attention to the three different sounds ‘ed’ can make - (/d/, /t/, /id/)
  • When presenting written material, simplify the grammatical structure of sentences as needed
  • Use rhymes / sayings to help the pupil to remember spelling rules, such as, the doubling rule when adding ‘ing’ or ‘ed’  “1, 2, double I do” (pupil starts counting at vowel and if followed by a consonant, the word must be doubled), for example, skip = 1, 2, double I do (skipping/skipped) “1, 2, 3, no doubling for me” (pupil starts at vowel and if followed by 2 consonants then there is no doubling) camp = 1,2,3 no doubling for me (camping/camped) 
    • The doubling rule: When a word has one vowel before a single consonant, double the consonant before adding the ending. The word ‘sit’ becomes ‘sitting’
    • The drop ‘e’ rule: When a word ends in ‘e’ you drop it before adding a suffix, if the suffix begins with a vowel, ‘care’ becomes ‘cared’
    • The add rule: If the suffix begins with a consonant, such as, ly, ness, ful, s, less, ment, some, ty, keep the ‘e’ and just add the suffix:
      • Hope becomes hopes / hopeful / hopeless
      • Wise becomes, wisely
      • Tire becomes, tiresome / tireless
      • Like becomes, likely, unlikely: 

Teacher Guidance: Advice for Teachers on Spelling Rules

Limited semantic and syntactic knowledge

Pupils with specific literacy difficulties may have limited vocabulary knowledge, due to limited exposure to reading or a reluctance to read. They may however have very good oral vocabulary however they are reluctant to use certain words in their written work as they are not able to spell them correctly. Some pupils may struggle with the grammatical structure of a sentence and as a result tend to keep their sentences very simple avoiding more complex sentences. Pupils may be unaware of meaning of keys words, such as, who, why, what, when.

Impact on WritingRecommendations for Reasonable Adjustments

The pupil may find it difficult to build a mental model of the event he / she wants to write about due to lack of background knowledge or limited experiences

 

The pupil may have limited vocabulary 

  • Provide opportunities to discuss and explore relevant vocabulary and what each word means, prior to beginning the activity
  • Draw on prior experiences
  • Encourage class or small group discussion to provide opportunities to share ideas and experiences
  • Pre-teach new vocabulary and be careful to explain unfamiliar word meanings
  • Provide visuals of new words in the classroom
  • Provide writing frames or sentence starters to support the pupil 
  • Teach recount writing prompts:

Printable Resource: Recount Writing Prompts

The pupil may be unsure of correct punctuation 

 

He / she may be unsure of how to arrange words in the sentence and incorrect use of grammar is evident

  • Explore sentence structure and the use of appropriate punctuation
  • Model a complete sentence and progress to complex sentences using adjectives and adverbs
  • Some pupils may still require cut up sentences or cloze procedure activities to develop knowledge of a sentence structure
Handwriting difficulties

Pupils who struggle with handwriting may not be motivated to undertake writing tasks and use avoidance strategies. It is therefore particularly important for teachers to provide regular daily practice and routines to help pupils to establish motor patterns of letter formation in memory. When a pupil embeds the correct handwriting style this will free up his / her working memory to focus on the composition and produce a piece of written work. A pupil with literacy difficulties will benefit from being taught a cursive style script from the first point of learning so that the muscle memory develops automaticity.

Impact on WritingRecommendation for Reasonable Adjustments
The pupil may have poor fine motor skills 
  • Provide opportunities for the pupil to develop skills by:
    • Squeezing a stress ball
    • Manipulating Play-Doh
    • Cutting with scissors
    • Stringing pasta on to wool 
    • Building with small blocks 
The pupil may have an inappropriate or insufficient pencil grip 
  • The pupil could use a spray bottle or use tweezers to grab and hold small items to develop his / her pincer grip  
  • Provide a ‘tripod’ grip for the pupil’s pencil
  • Provide triangular pencils
Pupil displays inappropriate seating position and posture  
  • Ensure the pupil’s seat and table are at an appropriate height for them to be able to sit with their hips, feet and ankles bent at 90 degrees, with the desk 2.5-5cm higher than the pupil’s bent elbows 
  • Try providing a writing slope to encourage correct posture 
He / she has poor letter formation 
  • Use a multisensory approach when introducing new cursive joins:
    • Move from big movements ‘sky writing’- forming large letters in the air using a finger, or using chalk in the playground
    • Reduce in size to writing in a sand tray / using a marker on a whiteboard and then to tracing over the letter on paper
    • Finally forming the letter independently on paper 
  • It can be helpful to introduce related letters in groups according to the stroke patterns, with related visuals:
    • The “magic ‘c’ letters” include: ‘c’, ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘o’, and ‘q’ and all begin with a letter ‘c’ stroke
    • The ‘diver letters’ include: ‘b’, ‘h’, ‘r’, ‘n’, ‘m’, and ‘p’ and all begin with a line down and then ‘swim up and over’ strokes 
The pupil may struggle to implement taught cursive 
  • It is helpful to introduce cursive handwriting at the Foundation Stage to ensure a progressive and consistent approach throughout the school
  • Focus on cursive handwriting for half a term, to ensure that the formation of all the letters are introduced quickly and are secure:
  • It is useful to connect rhyme and movement to reinforce and consolidate letter formation in visual and auditory memory
The pupil’s letters may be inconsistent sizes 
  • Provide lined paper with a choice of widths so the pupil can experiment (a wider line may be helpful initially):
    • A highlighter line could be drawn to provide the pupil with a reference point for correctly sizing ‘small’ and ‘tall’ letters
    • This can progress to a pencil line drawn above the writing line
    • Encourage the pupil to think of sky, grass and soil in three layers to help focus on size and placement of ascenders and descenders in relation to the line
    • Model a sentence using the cursive script
    • Ensure through repetition and consolidation that the letter formation is secure in memory
    • Correct any errors immediately to avoid wrong practice developing
The pupil may write with inappropriate pressure (too light) 
  • Provide the pupil with a light-up pen, as these will only illuminate if sufficient pressure is applied 
  • Assist the pupil to use carbon paper and to see how many layers he / she has written through
The pupil may write with inappropriate pencil (too heavy) 
  • Provide a mechanical pencil (the lead will break if heavy pressure is used) 
  • Practice writing on paper placed on top of a foam sheet (the pencil will poke through if the pressure is too hard) 
The pupil may struggle with positioning of paper 

  • On the desk, the paper the pupil is writing on should be slightly angled. 

    The right side of the paper should be slightly higher for a right-handed pupil. For a left-handed pupil, the left side should be higher. The non-dominant hand is used to stabilise the page.

The pupil begins writing in the middle of the line  
  • Place a small dot on the writing line to guide the pupil where to begin 
Assistive Technology

To enable the pupil to use ICT-based Inclusive Technology effectively, it is important that he / she is competent using a laptop/ iPad independently. This will require building the pupil’s confidence and accuracy in using a touch screen or mouse, and his / her ability to use a keyboard for typing. A touch-typing course such as BBC Dance Mat Typing or Doorway Online could be used daily in short sessions to develop keyboard skills and increase typing speed: 

  • Using speech to text software can be extremely empowering for pupils with significant difficulties with handwriting and/ or spelling, however they will require training in how to insert punctuation, take a new line, include capitalisation and so on. Speaking slowly and clearly enough for the transcription to be accurate is also likely to require support and practice
  • Clicker 8 is a great tool to use with pupils with writing difficulties. It is a child friendly word processing software available to all schools to use via the C2k network. Clicker 8 features speech feedback, talking spell checker and word predictor tools to help learners tackle writing tasks
Signposting for Free Professional Learning Modules

The following professional learning modules may be helpful for additional information regarding the strategies recommended in this chapter. They are provided by the Literacy Service and are available through the Children and Young People's Services Professional Learning Programme, which is hosted on the EA website. The access code to the courses is updated each year and shared with your Principal in September:

Bibliography and References

EEF: Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1: Eight recommendations for 5 to 7 year olds

EEF: Improving Literacy in Key Stage 2: Seven Recommendations for 7-11 year olds

Kelly, K & Philips, S. (2022) ‘Teaching Literacy to Learners with Dyslexia: A Multisensory Approach,’ Sage, London

Limpo, T.& Graham, S. (2020) ‘The role of handwriting instruction in writers’ education.’ British Journal of Educational Studies, 68(3): 311-329 

Resource File for Schools to support children with SEN DENI 2012  Page 111-194 ‘Reading, Writing and Spelling for Children with SEN’ [Accessed 26th April 2023]

Simpson, R. & Holden, C. (2020) ‘Reading and Writing Speeds Guidance’. London: SASC (SpLD Assessment Standards Committee)