English

Here are some resources to help support your child's writing during their time in Year 2.

Year 2 Writing

What should a great piece of writing look like in Year 2? Click on the picture below to download an example of how the different grammar and punctuation techniques can be used for maximum effect. 

Your child's teacher will be looking for the following features from a Year 2 writer. They will be expecting skills taught in Year 1 to be secure. 

Your child's writing should display the following skills:

• write simply, but clearly and coherently, about real or fictional events;
• use capital letters, full stops and question marks mostly correctly;
• use past and present tense mostly correctly;
• use co-ordination (e.g. and, or, but) and some subordination (e.g. when, if, that, because) to join correctly;
• spelling many words correctly by breaking into sounds or making plausible attempts at their spelling;
• spell many of the common exception words;
• form all lower case letters, capital letters and digits 0-9 correctly, starting in the correct place and moving in the correct direction;
• lower case letters, capital letters and digits 0-9 should be the correct size relative to one another;
• use spacing between words.

Here are some resources to help support your child's writing during their time in Year 3.

Year 3 Writing

What should a great piece of writing look like in Year 3? Click on the picture below to download an example of how the different grammar and punctuation techniques can be used for maximum effect. 

Your child's teacher will be looking for the following features from a Year 3 writer.

They will be expecting skills taught in previous year groups to be secure. They can write stories and write about their personal experiences. Sentences should use capital letters, full stops and question marks correctly with only some error. Tense should also be mostly correct and conjunctions should be used in writing.

Your child's writing should display the following skills:

• write a range of fiction and non-fiction texts using the correct layout;
• begin to organise writing with paragraphs;
• use a range of co-ordinating conjunctions (e.g. or, and, but) and subordinating conjunctions (e.g. when, if, that, because);
• express time and cause using adverbs/adverbials and conjunctions (e.g. soon, later, next, therefore, after);
• use apostrophes correctly for contractions (e.g. can't, didn't, I'm etc.);
• punctuate speech with inverted commas;
• be capable of producing joined and legible handwriting if required;
• most Year 3 spellings patterns are correct, with a dictionary used to support unknown words;
• spell most words on the Year 3 word list and use them in writing.

Here are some resources to help support your child's writing during their time in Year 4.

Year 4 Writing

What should a great piece of writing look like in Year 4? Click on the picture below to download an example of how the different grammar and punctuation techniques can be used for maximum effect. 

Your child's teacher will be looking for the following features from a Year 4 writer.

They will be expecting skills taught in previous year groups to be secure. Sentences should be grammatically correct and use correct tense, with only rare error. Capital letters and full stops should be mostly correctly used. Contractions should be correctly punctuated with an apostrophe and legible joined handwriting should be produced when required.

Your child's writing should display the following skills:

• write a range of texts such as fiction narratives, newspaper articles, non-chronological reports, information texts, letters and persuasive writing;
• paragraphs are used to organise writing;
• avoid repetition by using pronouns (she, he, they etc.);
• use adverbials or conjunctions, to make links within a text to structure a text (then, next, soon, after, while etc.);
• fronted adverbials - with an awareness they are followed by a comma;
• use a range of co-ordinating conjunctions (e.g. or, and, but) and subordinating conjunctions (e.g. when, if, that, because)
• awareness of correct verb/subject agreement. E.g. Does not make mistakes such as ‘we was’ or ‘I were’.
• accurately punctuated speech - inverted commas with some other correct speech punctuation;
• handwriting is joined correctly when required;
• most spellings are correct, with a dictionary used to support unknown words;
• spell most words on the Year 4 word list and use them in writing.

Here are some resources to help support your child's writing during their time in Year 5.

Year 5 Writing

What should a great piece of writing look like in Year 5? Click on the picture below to download an example of how the different grammar and punctuation techniques can be used for maximum effect. 

Your child's teacher will be looking for the following features from a Year 5 writer.

They will be expecting skills taught in previous year groups to be secure. Sentences should be grammatically correct, with only rare error. Capital letters and full stops should be correctly used and children should use a range of different vocabulary and sentence starters.

Your child's writing should display the following skills:

• write a range of texts such as fiction narratives, newspaper articles, non-chronological reports, information texts, letters and persuasive writing;
• ensuring paragraphs or sections are used to organise writing;
• characters and settings are described with details (such as adjectives, adverbs, similes, metaphors or expanded noun phrases);
• the difference in formality between written and spoken English;
• cohesive devices, such as pronouns, to avoid repetition (she, he, they etc.);
• cohesive devices, such as adverbials, to structure a text (later on, soon after, the following morning, meanwhile etc.);
• modal verbs;
• different sentences structures (simple sentences, subordinate clauses, starting with conjunctions or adverbials etc.);
• fronted adverbials are followed by a comma;
• parenthesis (using brackets, commas and dashes);
• use of the dash;
• relative clauses and relative pronouns;
• correctly punctuated speech;
• handwriting is joined correctly the majority of the time;
• most spellings are correct, with a dictionary used to support unknown words;
• spell most words on the Year 5 word list and use them in writing.

Here are some resources to help support your child's writing during their time in Year 6.

Year 6 Writing

What should a great piece of writing look like in Year 6? Click on the picture below to download an example of how the different grammar and punctuation techniques can be used for maximum effect. 

Your child's teacher will be looking for the following features from a Year 6 writer.

They will be expecting skills taught in previous year groups to be secure. Sentences should be grammatically correct. Capital letters and full stops should always be correctly used and children should use a range of different vocabulary and sentence starters. Apostrophes should be present in contractions and children should use a range of conjunctions.

Your child will learn the following skills:

• write a range of texts such as fiction narratives, newspaper articles, non-chronological reports, information texts, letters and persuasive writing;
• ensure that all text types (as mentioned above) have the correct tone, formality and features to match the audience and purpose;
• in narrative writing, characters, settings and atmosphere are described with details (such as adjectives, adverbs, similes, metaphors or expanded noun phrases);
• dialogue is mixed into narratives to convey character and advance the story;
• cohesion is achieved through a range of adverbials, synonyms and pronouns;
• use modal verbs and passive voice;
• different sentences structures (simple sentences, subordinate clauses, starting with conjunctions or adverbials etc.);
• parenthesis (using brackets, commas and dashes);
• use of the dash;
• use of the colon;
• use of the semi-colon;
• relative clauses and relative pronouns;
• use of hyphenated words to avoid ambiguity;
• correctly punctuated speech;
• handwriting is joined correctly and is legible;
• most spellings are correct, with a dictionary used to support unknown words;
• spell most words on the Year 6 word list and use them in their writing.

Ways to Support Learning

There are lots of ways you can encourage your children to write. It is important to think about word development as well as writing whole sentences and texts.

Encourage your child to:

• explain a game or activity
• describe a person, place, picture or thing
• retell stories
• talk about things they have done (encourage detail)
• predict what might happen next in a story, TV programme or sequel to a film
• play word games (Hangman, Guess Who, Boggle, Scrabble, Who am I?)

When reading with your child discuss the ways authors use words to shape their ideas. Good readers make good writers!

Where possible, encourage your child to write alongside you for real purposes e.g. shopping lists, birthday lists, labels, letters (to friends, family, authors), emails to friends, postcards, cards for relatives, scrap books, diaries, posters, short stories or poems for family members, menus, bedroom or house rules.

If you can, have an exciting selection of writing materials available e.g. a range of pencils, felt tips, coloured crayons and/or gel pens.

There are many sites that can support your child's learning. Here are some that you may find useful.

The Literacy Shed contains a range of ideas to stimulate creative writing.

BBC Bitesize offers information on all the skills that children learn in school.

Children in Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 can developing spelling strategies using IDL. Ask your child's teacher for their login details.