Writing is one of the hardest skills that children will learn over their lifetime. We tend to see a wide range of writing abilities throughout Year 1.

Among first parts of learning to write is a solid understanding of phonics, so it's very important that phonics learning is a priority. 

For very early writers, it is important to encourage drawing of shapes, learning the letters within their own name and being able to do so independently.

Moving forward, children learn to write familiar words. In school we build this by asking children to label or caption pictures.

This lends itself to writing simple sentences, such as: Ben is my cat. At this stage, children also learn to spell harder to read and spell words, such as I, a, the. This is linked to our phonics learning. On the home learning sheets, you will see the progression of the harder to read and spell words that we teach. 

Once children grasp the idea of capital letters, full stops and finger spaces, they then move onto to writing longer pieces of writing with higher level vocabulary and more punctuation. 

This is a long process that requires lots of practise and support. At home, we would encourage children to find a love of writing and to find purposes for it. Over time and with practise, their writing will improve. 

Writing does not always have to involve sitting at a table with paper and a pencil (though once children are writing sentences, it is the most common method). In the earlier stages of writing, children could practise their skills in other ways:

• Use magnetic letters, or rocks with painted letters, to make simple words.
• Write words with a stick in dirt or sand.
• Collect letter cards on an outdoor scavenger hunt to then make words (real or nonsense).
• Give experiences, such as visiting a beach or going to the zoo, for children to write about.
• Start a diary- this could be labelled pictures to start with. 
• Have access to scrap paper/cardboard/anything that can be written on and writing implements for children to include in their play. For example, they might be playing "Mums and Dads" and might need to write a shopping list in their game.

... and so many other possibilities!

Writing Ideas