Writing

Aspects to consider when writing

There are a number of aspects to consider when writing. These include:

• knowing what the purpose of our writing is and who we are writing for;
• thinking about the content and what form our writing will take. For example it might be a shopping list, a report, a letter to a friend, or an email;
• thinking about the structure appropriate to the purpose and form of our writing, including the use of sentences, paragraphs and punctuation;
• selecting the vocabulary that will best convey our meaning;
• thinking about how to spell the words we write.

Supporting and encouraging your child

Children can find writing a real challenge. They need encouragement, support and praise for their efforts. You can best support your child by:

• encouraging them to write on every possible occasion, praising their efforts and, importantly, letting them see you writing whenever possible;
• encouraging them to write for pleasure, not just to get better at writing. They might choose to write comics, poems or recipes - all of these give them a chance to apply writing skills around purpose, audience, language, layout and structure;
• playing word games with them, for example, I spy, Crosswords, Wordsearches and Change one letter puzzles;
• pointing to interesting or new words as you read with your child (without interrupting the flow of the story) or that come up in conversation. Help them to develop a fascination for new words and support them in trying to use them in different contexts;
• composing emails, letters, poems, stories together or even creating simple web pages.