Talk for Writing is a programme that encourages oral language before writing.  Children use a story map with pictures, actions and words to learn a story.  They learn about the language features and text structure.   

Teachers use shared writing to model good writing and explicitly teach grammar and vocabulary so that students develop a series of ‘toolkits’ for writing.

 

Once students are confident with language, they are encouraged to innovate or change aspects of the text such as characters and setting to write their own pieces.  With further work, students invent their own stories using the skills they have learnt.  A “cold task’ is used at the start of the unit and a ‘hot task’ at the end of the unit to measure progress.