1. Budding young authors

2. Say it! If you can say it, you can write it! Regular reading makes better writers - exposure. Role play: act out, adapt existing and invent new scenes. Play with accents and dialects – how would you say it? Write it? Demonstrate phonic knowledge! Actions – what is that character doing? Feelings – freeze frame – how are they feeling right now?

3. Punctuation Children need to demonstrate a range of punctuation. Punctuation needs to be accurately used to suit the purpose and emphasise your message. TRY THIS! Walk around as you read out loud. Change direction every time you reach ANY punctuation mark. This demonstrates how punctuation gives emphasis – if you’ve walked too far, your sentences are too long!

4. Dialogue Including direct (“quoted”) and indirect/reported (summarised) speech. Direct speech can slow action down: “I said NO!” “Yes!” “No!” Indirect speech can speed it up: ‘They argued for some time and, even now, haven’t agreed.’

5. Vocabulary Include a rich and varied vocabulary – readers rely on you to set the scene and describe the characters and events! Control it! Own it! Quick improvements: rule of 3 (three adjectives/noun phrase) > improve verb > add an adverb > turn the sentence around. Write it out, chop it up and rearrange! ‘I walked through the wood.’ ‘I walked through the dappled, damp and dingy wood.’ ‘I wandered through the dappled, damp and dingy wood.’ ‘Warily, I wondered through the dappled, damp, dingy wood.’

6. Structure Paragraphs give structure to writing – ‘new character/setting/event = new paragraph’. In role play, practise recording a story map/mountain – cut pictures out of magazines to put a story together. Each section can be a paragraph or chapter. Link them together (so that they refer to the previous one), but make sure they make sense alone.

7. Characters and settings Put together a few random items of clothing or some belongings – who wears/wore them? What do they do? What do they sound like? What’s their favourite food? What’s their secret that no one knows? Look at pictures of different places – find a spot and describe who might be standing there. What can they see/smell/hear/feel? Encourage making a mini world – zoom in close with a camera/phone and imagine who lives there and what their day-to-day life is like. Use play figures out and about to generate stories, poems – could they write a news report from where they are?

8. Activities to try… Use a stopwatch – how much can you write in 2 minutes on any topic? Ink-waster – write non-stop for one minute without stopping, write nonsense if you can’t think of anything! Consequences – begin with a character; roll down a piece of paper and begin each section with a connective. Writing prompts – objects, music. Role-play. Cut up a poem or story and rearrange it! Can you invent another scene? Make your own story dice.