This writing was entirely child led. After retelling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk orally, Finny was keen to write some of it down so that he could “read it like a book.”

Resources

  • Paper
  • Pencil
  • Photographs of him retelling Jack and the Beanstalk
  • Scissors
  • Glue

Method

As always, I let Finny sounded out the words and spell the words the way he heard them. I didn’t change any of his spellings as they were all phonetically plausible. I’m far more interested in him developing a love of writing, than I am in correcting everything he writes. He worked hard on leaving a finger space between each word.

He sounded out his second sentence, then I asked him what should go at the end.

He remembered his capital letter at the start of the sentence.

I kept checking that Finny still wanted to keep writing, but he was determined to write up to the part where the beanstalk grew. I wasn’t sure what word he was writing when he started writing ‘that‘ as he had broken the word down in to the-a-t.

This was his finished writing:

DfES Early Learning Goals (2017)

Literacy

ELG 10 – Writing:

Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.