Supporting Writing

Writing stages

Your child has been learning to write since he/she could hold a crayon. Below are some of the key developmental stages of writing your child will go through.

Mark-making-

Your child will first start to explore different ways of making marks; from dots to circles to lines.

As your child’s vocabulary increases your child will begin to give meanings to the marks they make.

Sounding out-

As your child develops their phonic knowledge, they will become more aware of how to use sounds and how they are used to represent words. You might start to see some correct sounds in your child’s writing. As your child increases in confidence, he/she will become more accurate with the use of phonics to support them in their writing.

Spelling/ sentence structures-

The more you read with your child the better they will be at writing! Your child will begin to recognise and write words on sight, enabling them to have a fluency to their writing. They will also begin to develop simple sentence structures.

Building in content and emotion-

As your child becomes more confident with writing they will then begin to play around with words to make their writing more interesting. Adding adjectives, conjunctions etc as well as using a range of punctuation to bring their writing to life.

As parents, it is important to understand how to support your child’s development in writing. Here are some ideas you might want to consider-

Reading-

Exposing your child to lots of different types of texts is important. The more you read with your child the more your child’s vocabulary will increase. Imagination and creativity is a significant part of writing and so exploring different books will help to do this.

Writing with different media and materials-

Making writing exciting can help engage your child. Some children are disengaged with the thought of writing, so it is important to let children explore writing in different ways. Writing with pen, pencil, chalk, felt tips on different materials can make the activity more inviting. Writing on pads, envelopes, boards and even outside on the floor, are all examples of ways to change the dynamics.

Writing for a purpose-

Try to give your child a reason to want to write;

Shopping lists

Diary

Letter to a family/friend

Information about their new toy

Recount of an exciting trip/ day out

At school we use phonic sound mats to support children whom are at the early stages of writing. Please speak to your class teacher if you would like a copy of one.