Year 1 Pop-in Term 4

1. Year 1 Pop-inTerm 4 Welcome to our Pop-in about writing

2. Your children have been learning to write for a long time. This would have started at home as they learnt to grasp feeding implements, toys and crayons. They would have moved their hands with large random movements and gradually learnt to control those movements to make recognisable marks.

3. They will have had lots of mark making opportunities throughout preschool. • Lots of opportunities were given during their time in Reception to continue to develop their fine motor control. • Your children were taught to write phonemes (letters and sounds), tricky words and how to segment (break up) and blend words for writing.

4. During Year 1 the children have continued to develop their writing skills through phonics, spellings and writing lessons. • Our writing lessons focus on a story, a picture or a series of pictures.

5. We have discussions about the task and from the discussions the teachers will complete the writing task on the board whilst interacting with the children. • The children will then read the writing to mark it with the teacher.

6. The writing tasks have success criteria which is discussed with the children. • This helps the children to know what they are expected to achieve. • Often the success criteria is unpicked with the children giving examples of what it means. • What the children say is recorded and put on our working wall as a reminder.

7. Example of success criteria. • I can think of a sentence. • I can say my sentence on my fingers. • I can write my sentence with a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. • I can read my work to the teacher. • I can use my phonic knowledge in my spelling. • I can use time connectives. • I can use ‘and’ and ‘because’. • I can use pronouns.

8. As the children write they have prompt cards and they are reminded of the success criteria by having a copy stuck in their book.

9. Task for writing.Look at the picture and discuss it with your child. Generate some sentences to write. You act as scribe and write sentences. As you write ask your child to help you by:-saying what comes next, reading and checking what you have put, sounding out words for you. Remember the success criteria and include as many things as you can in your writing.

10. Check your work. Where you see evidence of the success criteria put 2 ticks. • I can think of a sentence. • I can say my sentence on my fingers. • I can write my sentence with a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. • I can read my work to the teacher. • I can use my phonic knowledge in my spelling. • I can use time connectives. • I can use ‘and’ and because. • I can use pronouns.

11. As you can see there are a lot of steps involved in learning to write. • It is important that children have lots of opportunities to read and to be read to, this helps develop story language. • It is important to practise to say and write spellings. • It is important to keep doing short activities from the phonics letters we send home. • Talk for writing homework is important and a valuable tool to help to improve writing.

12. We thank you for your support and value the partnership between home and school to support your child’s learning. • Any questions?