Writing Resources

Here are some resources to help your children with writing.

General Writing Pointers
I encourage the children to read their work and edit it as they go along. I don’t mind if they put capital letter and full stops in at the end, as long as once they say “I’m finished!” the punctuation is in place. I also like the children to read their work out loud as it helps them to spot places where they have missed out words or started one sentence and finished another.
Normally with writing I am not too concerned with spelling- as long as it’s phonically plausible and I can tell what they mean, we can fix spelling later during the editing process.

Full stops and capital letters

I teach my class that full stops need to go at the end of an idea. They can usually spot the place by reading their work aloud and finding the place where they naturally pause. It’s also sometimes the place where they have written “and then”. The full stop should be a reasonably small dot and should sit level with the bottom of the letters (i.e. on the line).

Capital letters are used at the start of every sentence and also for names of people, places, months, days and so on.

Click here for a full stops/capital letters practice sheet.

Speech Marks
Here are a few speech mark rules:
Speech marks go around the words which are being spoken aloud.
The punctuation goes inside the speech marks.
You start a new line when someone else starts speaking.

For example:
“I wonder what’s for dinner?” asked Fiona.
“I don’t know,” replied Fred “but I hope it’s chips!”

Click here for a speechmark practice sheet.

Handwriting
I expect the children to write neatly in pencil, using a joined cursive script. Click here to download a sheet with lines to support handwriting practice.