Writing: effective teaching strategies for primary pupils

Get ideas for quality teaching for writing at Key Stage (KS) 1 and 2. Find example strategies from research, a teaching framework and a primary school to help you improve writing outcomes in your own school.

Last reviewed on 9 September 2021
School types: All · School phases: Primary
Ref: 235
Contents
  1. Teach pupils these research-based writing strategies 
  2. Consider the Talk for Writing approach for any stage
  3. Get inspiration from a primary school
  4. Support your staff to teach writing using CPD Toolkit

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KS1: teach strategies for pupils to successfully plan and monitor their own writing Look to explicitly teach handwriting and spelling alongside these strategies, so this is automated, and pupils can focus their thinking on the content of their writing. Introduce the following strategies using modelling and structured support, before reducing input until the pupil can complete the activity independently. Pre-writing activities  These help pupils to think of ideas and organise them, such as finding out about a topic they're not familiar with, or arranging their ideas visually using a planning tool. Read more about the pre-writing activities used by WISE multi-academy trust, on page 31 of the Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 report by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).  Drafting, revising and editing  These strategies help to break up writing into manageable chunks, and help pupils see writing