Talk 4 Writing & The Importance of Reading Parent Workshop September 2016
Alicia West and Kirstine Porter
Welcome
Aims of this session • What is T4W? • How does it work? • What does a T4W classroom look like? • What can you do to support your child at home? • Why is reading so important for your child? 2
What is Talk for Writing? ▪A whole-school initiative that teaches creative writing. ▪It enables children to make faster progress in writing and gain confidence through spoken word, drama and creative activities. ▪It embeds the correct use of grammar and sentence and text structures. 3
Let’s warm up our creativity! ▪Professor Know-it all
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Let’s warm up our creativity! Did you know that…? In addition to…. The most extraordinary thing about… It is a little known fact that…
Amazingly…
Normally…… are found in…. You may not know Usually…. but… Generally…… like Although they can to usually be found…. they also.. The first thing to Despite their…. say about… is…… they are….
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How does T4W work? •
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Stories are impossible to write unless you know a range of stories. It is important for children to hear stories, perform stories and read stories regularly. It is important to read a wide range of fiction and non-fiction stories of varied genres and plot types from a very early age.
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The 4 I’s • Imitate - learn a story • Innovate – take the basic structures, adapt it and make it their own (hug the text) • Invent – taking all of the skills they have developed, the children can then write their own story, using the same plot type • Independent Application – at some point in the future, the children can demonstrate that their knowledge is truly embedded and apply the skills with greater independence, without the support of having immediately just learnt about it 8
Cold Task What do the children already know about this genre/ text type? What needs to be a focus in this unit of writing? Are there any grammar targets that need to be worked on?
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Imitation Stage The ‘Hook’ Warming up the text Story Map Telling the Story Being Active Learners Key Actions Investigating Key Vocabulary
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bist4w.blogspot.co.uk
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Drama and Artistic Expressions
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Story Maps
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What are Magpie Books?
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Innovation Stage - Boxing up the text - Ideas and ambitious vocabulary are collected - Story Maps are changed and developed - Modelled and shared writing occurs
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Modelling the Writing Process
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Invention Stage With a solid understanding of a genre, children are now ready to write independently using Story Maps to support their planning. Children are confident and motivated to write as they are full of ideas!
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Independent Application Stage This stage allows the child to demonstrate skills and writing techniques that they have fully understood and embedded, as part of their writing unit.
Independent application often shows that the processes and techniques that the children have enjoyed, are the things that ‘stick in their minds’ and they can use again.
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What can you do to help at home? Can you show me the story you are learning at school? Can you teach me the actions? Is the story map on the Blog for us to look at and learn?
Discuss homework tasks – in either English or your home language. Offer help in developing new ideas. Encourage the use of ambitious vocabulary and phrases.
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Inspire your children to want to read‌
Be amazed and excited with them!
Be good role models.
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What do we ask our readers to think about?
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Use ‘Question Bookmarks’ 22
Mother tongue
Use your home language when discussing a book! If you're not confident in English, it is much better to discuss a book in your home language rather than reinforcing incorrect grammar. Also, bilingualism and trans-languaging can often mean that the child has a much more secure understanding, as well as building important translation skills. 23
Be on the look out for‌
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Choose books together!
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Any questions?
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