EYFS Writing workshop for Parents 7th March 2017

Aims of the session To gain an understanding of the developmental stages that children need to go through before writing. To understand how writing is taught to children in the Early Years Foundation Stage. To take part in a writing session with your child.

Early learning goal Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible

What does this look like?

Let’s write! Ask parents to write a simple sentence on their paper. Give 20 seconds warning. Now tell them to place pen in hand they do not write with, give them a sentence in arabic and tell them to write this sentence down.

What do children need? Physical development: Children need to be physically ready to write. They must have grasped the concept of how to hold a pen/ pencil and control it before they start to write. Once they have developed these skills, they can then move onto practising how to form their letters.

What you can do at home! Help your child develop their fine motor skills by doing the following:

Use items from around the home.

• Once a child is physically able they will start by making simple marks. The children will often put meanings to these marks. • As they become more confident they will try to form the sounds that they have learnt. Many children will begin with the sounds in their name.

• Once they start using sounds we encourage them to try to hear the initial and then final sound in the word before finally getting them to sound out the whole word. For example: A child might write dg instead of dog.

Communication and Language Children need to have developed their language skills before they can write. If they can not talk about a picture, story or an event, then how can they write about it.

What can you do? Children need a language rich environment. They need to hear a range of vocabulary and be able to structure a sentence verbally before they can write. Provide your child with lots of prompts when writing e.g. using visuals, key vocabulary and role modelling how to say a sentence.

What can you tell me about this picture? Always give children a starting sentence as a prompt if they are struggling. They will often need a sentence role modelled for them in order to help them expand their ideas.

In Reception we use this method when writing: Think it Say it Write it Check it

A sound mat to help them identify the sounds they need.

What can you do to help? Encourage and praise all mark making • Ask questions like: Which sound does it begin with? • Support your children in writing in lower case not CAPITAL LETTERS as this will help them identify the sounds. • Help children to form their letters correctly.

One common mistake for children is to draw an O in a clockwise direction. Helping them to form it in an anticlockwise direction will enable the to form the following letters more easily – c,d,q,a,g,s,f – that’s nearly a third of the alphabet! • Model writing with your child so that they can see its purpose; shopping lists, thank you cards, to do lists etc. • Playing games such as ‘I Spy’ or ‘Letter Lotto’ to get your child thinking about the sounds that are in a word. • Take the pencil out of writing – mud writing, shaving foam writing, water writing.

MAKE WRITING FUN!!!!! IF IT IS BORING THEN THEY WILL NOT BE MOTIVATED TO WRITE.