Easy ideas for early reading and writing skills!
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Mark Making for early writing skills!
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Check out 'Fun Phonics' to see Bouncy Blending in action and check out their other ideas while you're there!
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Our children loved Pirate Blending! It's really easy to set up - you can grab a copy of the Word document below and then just handwrite your words onto the sheets. You could easily add more crosses so that you can have longer words!
We left some of the blank sheets in the provision and found that some of the children enjoyed having a go at their own spellings! 
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Story bags
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We talk to the children about becoming Awesome Authors and how that before they can write stories they need to be able to retell them! We use daily Story Bag sessions to improve oracy and generate a deep understanding of how stories are structured.
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Teaching sentences to superheroes!
Every day, during the register, we have Super Sentences! The children copy and/or complete a sentence. This gives us focus time on sentence structure, finger spaces, punctuation, handwriting and capital letters!
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The children love it because every week we chose a Super Sentence Writer of the Week and they wear the Super Sentence Writer cape and headband for the whole day - including to lunch and assembly! They are also celebrated on the school website and Twitter feed!
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For more information about Super Sentences, check out Ace TV Episode 1!
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Download our Super Sentences file here.
We created them weekly to fit in with sounds we were looking at or the theme that we were currently following - so they might not be appropriate for everyone! Also - check the 'lines' that the words/sentences were written on because we hadn't added them all on and you might need them. You will notice that we progress to giving sentence starters but your cohort might not be ready at the same time, so you'll need to be inventive! You will also notice that at one point we experimented with using lines to show how many words the children had to write independently but we moved away from this as the children found it too constraining. |
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Here you can see an example of Super Sentences from April. The children loved writing about the evil pea from the story Supertato!
Super Sentences and learning theory
The aim of education is to create children who are able to learn on their own.
Bruner (1960) disagreed with Piaget's notion of readiness (children can only learn specific concepts when they were developmentally ready) and believed that "complex ideas can be taught at a simplified level first, and then re-visited at more complex levels later on."
The concept of discovery learning implies that students construct their own knowledge for themselves (also known as a constructivist approach).
Bruner (1961) believed "the teacher should not be to teach information by rote learning, but instead to facilitate the learning process.".
Bruner (1961) went on to say that "This means that a good teacher will design lessons that help student discover the relationship between bits of information. To do this a teacher must give students the information they need, but without organizing for them."
Bruner and Vygotsky both agree that "adults should play an active role in assisting the child's learning." (McLeod, S. A. 2008)
The term scaffolding first appeared in the literature when Wood, Bruner and Ross described how tutors' interacted with preschooler to help them solve a block reconstruction problem (Wood et al., 1976).
Scaffolding (like Vygotsky's notion of zones of proximal development) "refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring". (McLeod, S. A. 2008)
This naturally leads to the idea of a play-based curriculum that is the basis of the EYFS in the UK. "Forty years of research has shown positive correlation between play and children’s learning". (Lillard et al, 2012) "This has led many to generalize the conclusion that play is beneficial for all learning. Many of the findings are reflective of procedural knowledge rather than declarative knowledge." (Pinkham et al, 2012) "The assumptions that children can learn declarative information, such as words or facts, simply based on evidence that children acquire skills in play can not be made." (Pinkham et al, 2012)
And so this brings us to Super Sentences. We created it to teach the declarative information needed to write sentences. It removes the freedom in the task of writing sentences (i.e. the content) so that the children can concentrate on the difficult skills of sentence construction. Gradually over time we remove the scaffolding and support children to use their skills in a more child-based, context driven way. That way children are able to use sentence writing as just another skill in their play.
Now, just because we can use cognitive/development theory to back up why we do Super Sentences, it doesn't mean you should take it on. Our provision is largely child-initiated/led and we use Super Sentences as a whole class adult led input. We all teach differently, with access to different resources, with different children and varying levels of experience so what works for some won't work for others and it might not fit with your teaching style or your current cohort of children. We have talked about it because it works well for us and we thought some of you might be interested, as you all know we have gone from being a school in Special Measures to almost outstanding and our journey has been relentless so 'Think' things through and make your own decisions - you know your children best!
Anita and Mark
References
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21-32.
Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 17(2), 89-100
Pinkham, A. M., Kaefer, T. & Neuman, S. B. (2012). Knowledge Development in Early Childhood: Source of learning and classroom Implications. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M.D., Hopkins, E.J., Dore, R.A., Smith, E.D. & Palmquist, C.M. (2012). The Impact of Pretend Play on Children’s Development: A Review of the Evidence. Psychological Bulletin. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0029321
McLeod, S. A. (2008). Bruner. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html
The aim of education is to create children who are able to learn on their own.
Bruner (1960) disagreed with Piaget's notion of readiness (children can only learn specific concepts when they were developmentally ready) and believed that "complex ideas can be taught at a simplified level first, and then re-visited at more complex levels later on."
The concept of discovery learning implies that students construct their own knowledge for themselves (also known as a constructivist approach).
Bruner (1961) believed "the teacher should not be to teach information by rote learning, but instead to facilitate the learning process.".
Bruner (1961) went on to say that "This means that a good teacher will design lessons that help student discover the relationship between bits of information. To do this a teacher must give students the information they need, but without organizing for them."
Bruner and Vygotsky both agree that "adults should play an active role in assisting the child's learning." (McLeod, S. A. 2008)
The term scaffolding first appeared in the literature when Wood, Bruner and Ross described how tutors' interacted with preschooler to help them solve a block reconstruction problem (Wood et al., 1976).
Scaffolding (like Vygotsky's notion of zones of proximal development) "refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring". (McLeod, S. A. 2008)
This naturally leads to the idea of a play-based curriculum that is the basis of the EYFS in the UK. "Forty years of research has shown positive correlation between play and children’s learning". (Lillard et al, 2012) "This has led many to generalize the conclusion that play is beneficial for all learning. Many of the findings are reflective of procedural knowledge rather than declarative knowledge." (Pinkham et al, 2012) "The assumptions that children can learn declarative information, such as words or facts, simply based on evidence that children acquire skills in play can not be made." (Pinkham et al, 2012)
And so this brings us to Super Sentences. We created it to teach the declarative information needed to write sentences. It removes the freedom in the task of writing sentences (i.e. the content) so that the children can concentrate on the difficult skills of sentence construction. Gradually over time we remove the scaffolding and support children to use their skills in a more child-based, context driven way. That way children are able to use sentence writing as just another skill in their play.
Now, just because we can use cognitive/development theory to back up why we do Super Sentences, it doesn't mean you should take it on. Our provision is largely child-initiated/led and we use Super Sentences as a whole class adult led input. We all teach differently, with access to different resources, with different children and varying levels of experience so what works for some won't work for others and it might not fit with your teaching style or your current cohort of children. We have talked about it because it works well for us and we thought some of you might be interested, as you all know we have gone from being a school in Special Measures to almost outstanding and our journey has been relentless so 'Think' things through and make your own decisions - you know your children best!
Anita and Mark
References
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21-32.
Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 17(2), 89-100
Pinkham, A. M., Kaefer, T. & Neuman, S. B. (2012). Knowledge Development in Early Childhood: Source of learning and classroom Implications. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M.D., Hopkins, E.J., Dore, R.A., Smith, E.D. & Palmquist, C.M. (2012). The Impact of Pretend Play on Children’s Development: A Review of the Evidence. Psychological Bulletin. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0029321
McLeod, S. A. (2008). Bruner. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html
Mud kitchen writing!
The mud kitchen is very popular but we've been searching for ways to ensure that children are not just engaged but also moving their learning forward. To help with this we have introduced our Mud Kitchen Recipe Book! If children make something fab in the mud kitchen, they can then fill in a recipe sheet. We will then stick it in, along with a photo ready to be followed by all the children to come! The pictures for the Mud Kitchen books are available from www.twinkl.com.
Boys can write!
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We have been working really hard to ensure that the boys in our classes are enthused about their writing. While in Homebase this Star Wars wallpaper caught our eye! We knew the boys would love to come up with some ideas for what the characters are saying - and there were some very amusing ideas! This writing wall is part of our continuous provision but, as it on the door where we often line up, there has been writing and talking at all times!
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Here's the Boys Writing Club in action! The boys all have a 'membership card' that reminds them of how to write a sentence (using capital letters, finger spaces, punctuation, handwriting etc.).
(And, yes, we did argue about an apostrophe in the title but decided that we'd leave it off as it looked better that way!) 
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Like our resources? Have an idea, request or problem? Drop us a message!
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Story maps
We use story maps as a way to support the children in learning a story. By immersing children in a story they are able to retell it and then in the future use that story as inspiration for their own stories! Here are 2 story maps that the children made to retell Handa's Surprise!
Pencil grip!
Finger spaces!
Finger spaces can be tricky to handle. Some children can naturally leave a little gap and some learn this after physically using their finger for a while. For left handed children this can be especially difficult and when we asked our Ace family on Facebook they gave us these ideas!
Handa's Surprise
For World Book Day we had a couple of days based around Handa's Surprise!
Encouraging writing
We're always looking for ways to encourage the children to write and one of the most popular activities is in the Exploration Station. We covered an old table with white board role (we got this from a DIY shop) and the children love drawing and writing on it!
