Once upon a time... Our Primary teacher, Ms. Deana Fieldhouse, is an expert in helping our Early Years children learn how to tell a story and then be able to write this thanks to the Talk for writing method. The project is based on assimilating the language and structures of story telling and then being able to write more precisely. This technique can be used to improve KS1 writing skills. It was introduced at School, after Pie Corbett's inspirational visit in May 2014.
During March, parents were able to attend a presentation in which Ms Fieldhouse was running this activity on the stage of the School Theatre with a group of Year 1 children. Ms. Stewart and Ms. Rackham explained the methodology on which this technique is based.
The youngsters have fun and learn using a method where the Year 1 children first listen to a story and then, they themselves narrate it. In order to do this they have to make a timeline of what has happened in the story. They draw the characters and connect these using arrows to better express their ideas in order and also learn to use connectors (then, but, finally, in
the end…). These allow them to relate ideas in a precise way. Then the children are able to create another story changing the characters, the plot or the ending....They understand the basic structure of how to make up a story to be able to create their own and link actions and ideas. In a short time, they can write their stories down on paper and are soon able to produce funny stories in English with perfect structure and well organised paragraphs.