Teaching Writing at ICS

Primary update: How is writing taught at the ICS?

One of our primary school areas for development is ‘to further improve and develop writing’. In order to do this we have started a project called ‘Big Writing’. You may have heard your children talking about this. ‘Big Writing’ is a teaching approach developed in 2004 by Ros Wilson designed to raise standards in writing rapidly and effectively. The method is based on fast, fun and lively teaching of the ‘writing voice’ through oracy. It gives pupils confidence and the understanding to develop control of a higher level writing voice without requiring the understanding of technical knowledge of syntax and grammatical analysis. This is important as not all primary aged children are ready for the level of technical knowledge and understanding required to access higher order language in this way.

‘Big Writing’ is a completely new approach to the teaching of the skills of writing. It is highly effective for pupils from Reception to Key Stage 3, and has an immediate impact on writing standards.

Thousands of teachers across the world are now using this approach to successfully raise standards in writing.

It is highly successful for bilingual pupils, because of its clarity and structure.

For all of these reasons, we have implemented ‘Big Writing’ in our primary classes this year.

Big Writing has some key elements that are common regardless of the age range. You may hear your children talking about them or come across them when you visit us at school.

VCOP

The teaching of VCOP is one of the key strands of Big Writing.
VCOP is focused teaching of the following:
Vocabulary = teach a wide range of ‘wow’ words, (ambitious vocabulary);
Connectives = teach a wide range of words and phrases for connecting thoughts, ideas, sentences etcetera;
Openers = teach a wide range of ways of opening sentences, including sequence words, linking words and phrases and the 3 power openers;
Punctuation = teach a wide range of punctuation.

Pyramids

The Punctuation Pyramid is a graphic representation for the range of punctuation that should be realistic for most children at each level of writing.
Each line represents a level and therefore use of a full stop only is Level 1 in punctuation, (not necessarily in writing overall) a full stop and a question mark are Level 2 and so on.
Pro-active teaching encourages children to be ‘having a go’ at levels they are not yet quite ready for and thus they go through an ‘emergent’ phase where the use may not be quite accurate.
This phase must be praised and the child not made to feel they are ‘getting it wrong’. The teacher continues to model correct use of the punctuation and encourage increased understanding through use of strategies such as the following:

Timing

Big Writing takes up to one and a half hours a week. This is split in half by a break, creating two sessions.

The text type and context is introduced the afternoon before ‘Big Writing’. For example the stimulus could be a letter home.
Your child will come home from school talking about the ‘Big Writing’ theme for the week. Your child might be asked to talk to as many people as possible about an event or issue. We call this ‘Talk Homework.’

Reading

Schools are reporting that the teaching of Big Writing is having a positive impact on reading comprehension scores and the answering of question in the full range of National Curriculum test papers.
‘Big Writing’ is an exciting new project for our school.

Below is how the ‘Big Write’ will be introduced in each of the different units across the ICS primary school.

Foundation Stage

Introducing the ‘Big Write’ in Reception. We will do it the same afternoon every week. We will begin the day before, telling children the focal point of that week so they have thinking time both at home and school. The following day we will start with lots of sound activities and talking to the children about phonics/ spelling/ finger spaces- etc. lots of playing with sounds activities.

We will move on to make living sentences using large cards / white boards and building sentences. Emphasis will be on the Capital letter and the full stop first, then moving on to make the sentence more exciting by adding wow words. We will then remind them of the focus of the piece of writing that week. They will then have play time

When they return they will have huge A3 sheets of paper to write on, classical music playing and they write. Writing maybe emergent, independent, small group of whole class while teacher scribes.

Unit 1
Year 1 & 2 will be launching the ‘Big Write’ as part of their Literacy programme. We will introduce the main components of vocabulary, sentence openers, connectives, punctuation and ‘wow’ words to the children using examples in sentences. Each class will have a ‘wow’ word focus; this may be a ‘wow’ wall, tree, window or book within the classroom that children can add words to for their writing. It will become ever changing supply of new, interesting and descriptive vocabulary! We will be sending home ‘Big Write’ talking homework. By talking to your child the evening prior to our ‘Big Write’ sessions about topics of focus he/she will be prepared to offer a wider variety of words about familiar things such as clothes, toys, animals etc… in class the next day. Remember, children are only confident to write about what they can say so talking is essential for the development of quality writing.

Unit 2
This term in Yr 3 and 4 we will be introducing ‘Big Writing.’ Each week the children will take part in a writing session that concentrates on the narrative aspect of writing. The children will remain in their Literacy sets and will participate in a 2 part lesson focusing initially on VCOP and then on an aspect of story for example characters and setting. After 5 weeks of activities and focused writing, the children will compose a complete story. This piece of work will be used as an assessment in order to give each child individual targets to focus on in the next group of sessions.
We want to encourage children to enjoy the writing process and teach them how to: check their work, self assess and challenge themselves. During these sessions we may dim the lights, play soft music, display a writing timer, flash ‘wow’ words on the board for example.
Visual displays and table resources will be used in each of our classrooms to support ‘Big Writing.’ These will include a range of levels of vocabulary, punctuation, connectives and sentence starters that the children can access.
As the children become familiar with ‘Big Writing,’ we aim to incorporate a ‘talking homework’ to help children explore vocabulary and develop their ideas with you at home.
We are all very excited to be introducing this new approach to writing and hope to see all of our Year 3 and 4’s having fun writing and experiencing new vocabulary.

Unit 3
Year 5 & 6 have been trying to develop their writing skills by using the ‘Big Write’. This is a process which incorporates everyday activities, games and strategies, and each week will focus on a different aspect of writing. So one week we might be looking at vocabulary, trying to find and use ambitious ‘wow’ words, and then the following week we might give our attention to connectives, or sentence openers, or punctuation. These lessons culminate in regular “Big Write” time, where children bring together the skills learned and practiced previously. Although we have only recently started using the “Big Write,” we feel that the children are already more easily motivated to experiment with their writing, and we are confident that they will soon be creating more interesting and powerful pieces of work. Who knows, we might even unearth another J K Rowling!!

Here are some comments from students:

“Big Writing helps us to improve our writing” Nuthara and Bola

“It makes me improve my way of writing stories; I use fascinating, interesting and exciting vocabulary in my stories.” Giulia

“Sometimes when I write a story now, I feel that it is really happening” India.

“I am enthusiastic about writing on a Thursday!” Taiki

“It helps me concentrate on using full stops and capital letters properly.” John

“I want to make my stories longer and more interesting by using high level vocabulary.” Abhigyan.

For further information about Big Writing or clarification about how to conduct ‘Talk Homework’, please contact your child’s class teacher.

Foundation Stage	Introducing the ‘Big Write’ in Reception. We will do it the same afternoon every week. We will begin the day before, telling children the focal point of that week so they have thinking time both at home and school. The following day we will start with lots of sound activities and talking to the children about phonics/ spelling/ finger spaces- etc. lots of playing with sounds activities. We will move on to make living sentences using large cards / white boards and building sentences. Emphasis will be on the Capital letter and the full stop first, then moving on to make the sentence more exciting by adding wow words. We will then remind them of the focus of the piece of writing that week. They will then have play time When they return they will have huge A3 sheets of paper to write on, classical music playing and they write. Writing maybe emergent, independent, small group of whole class while teacher scribes.
Unit 1	Year 1 & 2 will be launching the ‘Big Write’ as part of their Literacy programme. We will introduce the main components of vocabulary, sentence openers, connectives, punctuation and ‘wow’ words to the children using examples in sentences. Each class will have a ‘wow’ word focus; this may be a ‘wow’ wall, tree, window or book within the classroom that children can add words to for their writing. It will become ever changing supply of new, interesting and descriptive vocabulary! We will be sending home ‘Big Write’ talking homework. By talking to your child the evening prior to our ‘Big Write’ sessions about topics of focus he/she will be prepared to offer a wider variety of words about familiar things such as clothes, toys, animals etc… in class the next day. Remember, children are only confident to write about what they can say so talking is essential for the development of quality writing.
Unit 2	This term in Yr 3 and 4 we will be introducing ‘Big Writing.’ Each week the children will take part in a writing session that concentrates on the narrative aspect of writing. The children will remain in their Literacy sets and will participate in a 2 part lesson focusing initially on VCOP and then on an aspect of story for example characters and setting. After 5 weeks of activities and focused writing, the children will compose a complete story. This piece of work will be used as an assessment in order to give each child individual targets to focus on in the next group of sessions. We want to encourage children to enjoy the writing process and teach them how to: check their work, self assess and challenge themselves. During these sessions we may dim the lights, play soft music, display a writing timer, flash ‘wow’ words on the board for example. Visual displays and table resources will be used in each of our classrooms to support ‘Big Writing.’ These will include a range of levels of vocabulary, punctuation, connectives and sentence starters that the children can access. As the children become familiar with ‘Big Writing,’ we aim to incorporate a ‘talking homework’ to help children explore vocabulary and develop their ideas with you at home. We are all very excited to be introducing this new approach to writing and hope to see all of our Year 3 and 4’s having fun writing and experiencing new vocabulary.
Unit 3	Year 5 & 6 have been trying to develop their writing skills by using the ‘Big Write’. This is a process which incorporates everyday activities, games and strategies, and each week will focus on a different aspect of writing. So one week we might be looking at vocabulary, trying to find and use ambitious ‘wow’ words, and then the following week we might give our attention to connectives, or sentence openers, or punctuation. These lessons culminate in regular “Big Write” time, where children bring together the skills learned and practiced previously. Although we have only recently started using the “Big Write,” we feel that the children are already more easily motivated to experiment with their writing, and we are confident that they will soon be creating more interesting and powerful pieces of work. Who knows, we might even unearth another J K Rowling!!