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Excellence through Effort & Enjoyment
Be Kind…Be Safe…Be Responsible

Writing, including handwriting and spelling

Writing

Our aim at Boughton Primary School is that children are inspired by writing and become confident and enthusiastic writers themselves. Our approach to writing is based on Talk for Writing (T4W) which enables children to write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. A key feature is the use of high quality texts, which children become so familiar with that they internalise the language structures needed to write through 'talking the text'.

More information about the Talk for Writing approach can be found by following this link:  Talk for Writing

Handwriting

In order to become fluent, confident and enthusiastic writers, children need to secure the skill of handwriting.  We use Kinetic Letters, which has the aim of making handwriting easier for everyone.  This research-based approach has had a significant impact on our pupils' writing, leading to them becoming fluent, legible writers for whom the process is automatic, which leaves them the cognitive space to focus on the content of their work.

You can find out more about Kinetic Letters by following this link:  Kinetic Letters

The links below may help your child to practise the different letter families:

To practise the letters in the Abracadabra family, click here

To practise the letters in the Fisher family and the letter 'e', click here

To practise letters in the Jumper Family, click here

To practise the letters in the Slider family, click here

To practise letters in the Window Cleaner family, click here

Spelling

At Boughton Primary School, we encourage our pupils to think and write creatively, be adventurous with their use of language and to write with clear purpose and for pleasure. In order for these aims to be realised, it is essential that our pupils learn the knowledge and skills to spell accurately. Children who can spell feel confident and are able to write with enjoyment. We want our pupils to be equipped with the knowledge and range of strategies for learning spelling and to be able to apply their strategies when spelling words in their independent writing. Our teachers enjoy exploring and investigating the patterns and contradictions of the English language and we encourage the children to take delight in what they discover.

In EYFS and Key Stage 1, we use Sounds-Write phonics as our main approach to spelling.  Children learn to write the sounds of the English language, quickly building and writing words, and go on to discover the different ways that some sounds are written.  They also practise the common exception words, which are the words that can't be easily spelled from phonics and need to be learned and recalled visually; we use a technique called look, say, cover, write and check.  

At Key Stage 2, these skills are built upon, and enhanced with "word of the day" to encourage children to explore and broaden their vocabulary by saying, defining and writing a wide range of words.  The common exception words continue to be taught and practised, with the expectation that children should be able to spell the words for their year group as identified in our progression documents.  Spellings are tested weekly, through lists and sentence dictation.