Writing in the EYFS

There are a lot of schools in my local area taking on 'Big Write' type approaches across the whole school. For those of you not familiar with 'Big Write', it essentially involves every child in the school building up to a write across the week and then once a week (usually Friday) writing for at least 30 minutes independently (or 1 to 1 with an adult in some cases). In my opinion, this has no place in a quality EYFS classroom. I have seen brilliant progress from this teaching method but that's mainly because the first pieces of writing the children produce are, of course, just a few marks and letters if you are lucky. The writing I have seen from the end of the year is not on par with the quality of what my children produce over a much shorter time period. So here are my...

6 top tips for getting outstanding writing in the EYFS.

1- Start by teaching quality phonics.
We use Floppy's Phonics as a basis for our phonics teaching across EYFS and Year 1 (where it is taught in a mixed Y1/2 class). As the Phonics lead teacher, I teach phonics across the school due to our flexibility of timetables. We teach phonics from about week 4 in Reception, meaning that the children have learnt all phase 2 sounds before Christmas, as well as roughly 30 of the high frequency/tricky words. We learn how to physically write each sound as we learn it too- in traditional, 3 space/4 lines, handwriting books. We also do the writing in sand, shaving foam etc. approach but found that it didn't work on its own.

2- Have nice, inviting, writing resources inside and out.
We have a small writing area inside the classroom with notebooks (Primark sale is great for these), fancy pens (Asda, Tiger, Poundland), glittery pencils, stampers etc. There are also clipboards available and a post-box (Hobbycraft). Every now and then, we'll put in new things like envelopes, cards and glittery whiteboards.
Outside we have some Ikea hanging pots with pens, pencils, highlighters, rulers etc. and more notebooks, sticky notes etc. Alongside all of these, are 'writers toolbelts' (TTS) that the children can carry around with them with all of their chosen resources in.

3- Give the children reasons to write.
There in no better way to get the children to want to write than to make it purposeful. If there's a reason for it, they'll want to do it. Some examples...

• When changing after PE, the children hang up their PE kits in the cloakroom and then write their name on my special clipboard (in a list that I, or another adult, ensures is done correctly to make it fair). Before we get ready to go home, I close my eyes and pick out a sticker sheet from a selection. We go through the list of names in order giving out stickers until they are all gone (or the list is finished). I tend to use sticker sheets that have around 20 stickers on them so at the beginning of the year, all of my 15 children are guaranteed to get a sticker, then after a few weeks, to try and speed them up a bit, I add in some sheets that already have some stickers used. Sometimes only 1 child gets a sticker sometimes almost all do. It's great for encouraging them to write their names in a useful way.
• Outside, near the bikes and scooters, we have a chalkboard with a sand timer attached (Cosy Catalogue). If the bike or scooter that the child wants to go on is being used, they write their name on the board and start the timer. When the timer finishes, it is their turn to go on the bike.
• Throughout our topics, all of our role-play areas have reasons to write attached e.g. during the Space topic, we get letters from our local 'Space Agency' (me!) asking the children to investigate things and let them know what they found out. There is no pressure to write, they can communicate however they like, but some children will choose to. When Barnaby Bear travels the world, he sends us emails and the children have the chance to write postcards to him or emails of their own.
• Use the other classes and teachers in school, or pre-school. "Let's make a book about all of the exciting things we do at school to send to the children at pre-school", "Let's send a card to your new teacher telling them something about you that she needs to know" etc.
• Use the books that the children love. Pete the Cat was the favourite book of my class last year so we wrote our own version of it. The children loved it so much they showed it to the Ofsted inspector when she visited and it got a mention in the final report.

4- Have as many word & picture labels around the room as you can and model using them for writing.

Particularly in role-play areas, label the area with word and picture cards. Websites like Twinkl have ones you can print or make your own. When you model how to use the role-play area, or play alongside the children, show them how they can use those words to help with their writing. It means that you've put them there for a reason rather than just classroom decoration too.

5- Praise.
Praise the children when they attempt to write even if it's not that good! The more they enjoy writing, the more they will want to do it. There are lots of great stickers out there with a writing theme too.

6- Don't put any pressure on the children to write too early.

This really is my main focus when it comes to writing success. If you wait until the children are ready to write (within reason) then you will get better results. We don't do any whole class writing or teaching of writing until after the Easter holidays. After this point, most of the children are phonically ready to be good writers and some of the difficulties are reduced. We do then do quite a lot of writing activities to ensure the children can show what they are capable of. For example...

• After teaching the phase 2 and 3 phonic sounds, we split the children into 3 different groups: children still struggling at phase 2 (LA), children needing a small amount of help at phase 3 (AA) and children who are comfortable with all of that and capable of more (HA). The HA children then learn some common vowel alternatives e.g. 'ay' and 'ea' as well as split digraphs. The AA take part in a TELL phonics intervention, re-capping the digraphs and trigraphs from phase 3 and the LA re-cap any phase 2 sounds they have struggled with. After May half term, the LA and HA groups come together to do a more structured 'literacy' session whilst the AA continue with phonics.
• For the last 20 minutes of the day, once a week, parents are invited in for a 'Parents in Class' writing session (Autumn term- reading, Spring term- maths, Summer term- writing) where every child is set a writing challenge designed to write for different styles. The children who have parents that join us (maybe 3 or 4 regularly) work with them, and myself and my TA support the weaker children with the Higher Ability working independently. Each week, we do a different kind of writing e.g. recounts, stories, letters, lists etc.
• Every week, a new writing challenge is introduced (as well as other subjects/areas of learning). If the children complete the challenge, they get a reward of team points and a sticker. Things that have worked well include giving the children an alphabetical list and asking them to write a word starting with each letter or creating a new menu for the role-play cafe.

Teaching writing isn't always easy but in my opinion, there is no point trying to get the children doing good quality writing until they are ready. 

It is exactly the same as maths, you wouldn't expect the children to use numbers to 100 if they can't count to 10 so why expect them to write if they can't speak a sentence or recognise letter sounds. 

Don't make writing a chore at the start of their school life and hopefully they will continue to be keen to show what they can do.