In the Autumn Term we focus on letter formation and learning to confidently write our name and CVC words alongside our Read, Write Inc Phonics Scheme.

When the children are ready, we also introduce The Write Stuff - which is a scheme and system that puts key aspects of communication at the heart of our teaching and learning. Children's language is nurtured through developing ideas, strengthening talk and widening writing opportunities.

Our EYFS The Write Stuff writing journey, looks like this:

Fantastic Lens:

Every communication, language and literacy session will focus on one of the FANTASTICs lenses. There are nine ideas for writing and these feature on the top tier of the EYFS Rainbow.

Initiate

This part of the session is where the teacher acts as a narrator to introduce a plot point and with rich story-telling skills, cohesively joining plot points together in talk.

Meaningful Moment

This is a physical bag that includes real objects, artefacts and photographs to bring the children’s thinking into focus. The objects inside the bag are relevant to the content of the sentence the children will be writing. The clue clicker is used to introduce more technical inspiration eg. sound clips, film or animations.

Grandma Fantastic

Grandma Fantastic is a puppet, with a basket, who brings words into the classroom that have been sorted into the nine ideas for writing. The words are grouped into feelings, asking, noticing, touching, action, smelling, taste, imagining and checking sounds.

She always brings the most challenging words, that pupils will probably not be able to suggest themselves. Her function is to furnish pupils with more ambitious words, that are related to the ideas you are generating.

Chotting

‘Chotting’ is when pupils chat about words and jot their ideas down at the same time (chot). During the chotting section, pupils also borrow some words from Grandma Fantastic and make a note of their favourites.

Model

The teacher always models a complete sentence, showing the writer’s brain in action. The teacher changes their mind, improves and rejects some of the vocabulary, to settle on a final sentence. This sentence guides the pupils’ own thinking, as they set out to write their own.

Sentence

Pupils are challenged to build a sentence that captures the plot point/way point focus

Incidental Opportunities to Write

Our learning environment is set up with a plethora of opportunities to write! Whether it's lists and maps on clipboards in our construction area, or post it notes and jotters for our role play area, children have many wonderful opportunities to mark make and write. They love sharing with us what they have written!

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