Today, 14-month-old Isla got her mum’s pencil case out and ‘played writing’…

Child on the process of generating writing ideas:

Coming soon… 🔜 👀

This is a cute little book-making project for teaching colons. The “drumroll of punctuation” project 👇

The “who dunnit?“ passive voice project. This little book-making project allows children to see the functional purpose behind using the passive. By using the active and passive voice, and by adjusting their drawings accordingly, they see the change in meaning. 👇

I really enjoy this little book-making project. Children get a lot out of it. On day one, they write a simple picturebook. The next day, we think about how we can be more precise when thinking about our nouns. I like how they see their illustrations change too. 👇

Here’s a nice way to help children remember their capital letters. Ask them to write a ‘capital letter story’ - showcasing all the reasons for a capital letter. They can then leave this on their desk as an aide memoire. 👇

A nice poster to help children decide whether they need a capital letter or not:

The “tell your reader more stuff” project. A nice book-making project if you’re looking for your chn to see the functional benefit of using coordinating conjunctions. Day 1, they write simple sentences on each page. Day 2, they look to tell their reader more stuff by using conjunctions. 👇

Here’s a nice way to help children understand tense. Show children how you wrote your own 20 word story and then rewrote it in a different tense. Discuss the differences between the two. Which do they prefer? Why? You can then invite them to do the same. 👇

Here’s a nice way to illustrate the functional purpose behind using ‘proper nouns’. Show children how and why YOU use proper nouns in your writing before inviting them to do the same that day in their own writing 👇

Here’s a nice little book-making project to help children see the functional purpose of using relative clauses. On the first day, they make simple picture books using simple sentences. On the second day, they use relative clauses to give their readers some “Psssttt… BONUS information”. 👇

This story handout can help children think about the transformation their characters might go through in terms of their personalities. It can also help them think about how their characters will engage in the world they’ve created and how they are likely to interact with other characters. 👇

We can show children how they can use ‘show don’t tell’ to share how their character is feeling 👇

Article in the Observer about the National Literacy Trust and my work as part of the Literacy Lab The University of Edinburgh 👇 observer.co.uk/style/featur...

Here’s a nice little way of encouraging children to use ‘show don’t tell’. When reading their stories with friends, they can look for opportunities to ‘prove it!’. In the process, they’ll start to use show don’t tell. 👇

A great technique to extend children’s story writing is to have them write their story in a variety of narrator voices. They can then discuss which one they think works best — and why. 👇

I love teaching this technique to children. You take your writing idea, in this case a seagull and a worm, and you place it on these four common story arcs. In the process the idea completely changes. They can then pick their favourite to pursue 👇

I provide a list of themes as part of our narrative class writing projects. You can create a great list of potential writing ideas on flipchart paper together this way. Once children are comfortable with the idea, they can begin to use it for themselves. 👇

This handout can really help children think about the emotional story arc their character is going through and what their motives are. What drives their characters’ thoughts, feelings, interactions and actions in their story? 🤷‍♂️👇

Looking to encourage children to write in response to their reading? Try giving them a prompt sheet like this 👇 📚✍️

Did you know that children don’t have to write dry, objective information texts if you don’t want them to? Here are some prompts that can help children write non-fiction with heart, personal interest and self-expression too 👇

This is a lovely idea generation technique for inviting children to write their own explanation texts. Ask them to finish off the sentence stems as many times as they like and pick their favourite idea ⭐️✍️🥳

A lovely idea generation technique. Twenty words. Invite children to write a host of twenty word stories together. They can then pick their favourite one to develop into a short story 👇⭐️🎉

Here’s one of my all time favourite idea generation techniques to show children. Idea Webs! The idea is simple. You take two of your favourite books. Write down the setting, character and general plot line of each. Then, you mix and match. In the process, you create a whole new story idea!💡 ⭐️👇

I love this idea generation technique. It’s simple. You ask children to write ‘What if…’ statements. ‘What if… I was a dog’ ‘What if… I could play for Arsenal’ ‘What if… there were Aliens on Earth’ ‘What if… I could travel back in time’ Reading ‘Supposing…’ is a great hook for the lesson too.

Paddy! I had the best time listening to you! I wrote down so many notes. So many wonderful examples of practice too. 🤩🥰 I absolutely loved reading the special object pieces 🥹 Extraordinary. Incomparable with so many school writing tasks I see. Children’s voices were so loud and clear. Beautiful.

I love teaching children this idea generation technique! It’s called ‘Spark Line’. The idea is simple. Take a line from a book that’s really grabbed your attention and use it to write a short story (or anything else for that matter). 👇

In Writing For Pleasure schools, children in Nursery to Year Two use our book-making approach to writing. This can be a really useful writing process to share with the youngest of writers. It works a treat because it has every in it to help children write their very best texts. 👇

It can be really useful to ask children about their favoured writing process. Here are some that I typically share and model to children. 👇 Children are also able to discuss the pros and cons of their favoured writing process too.