At Our Lady of Fatima we use the Talk4 Write process to help embed and inspire children to improve their writing whilst developing their understanding of different grammatical features to engage their intended audience. 

Talk for writing builds on three stages:

 The Imitation Stage

The teachers plan an engaging WOW moment to 'hook ' the children's excitement. A Talk-for-Writing unit would begin with some engaging activities to help children internalise the pattern of the language.

This is often followed by the children talking a text that is learnt by the class, this is supported visually by a text map and actions to help the children recall the story or non-fiction piece. In this way the children hear the text, say it for themselves and enjoy it before seeing it written down.

 Once they have learnt the language of the text, they are able to read the text and start to think about the key ingredients that help to make it work.

This stage includes a range of reading as-a-reader and as-a-writer activities. The class create a toolkit for the type of text they are reading so that they can talk about the ingredients themselves – a key stage in learning what they need to use as writers.

 The Innovation Stage

Once the children have learnt the text, they are then ready to start innovating (changing) parts of the text. The children orally rehearse what they want to say, creating their own version. The key activity in this stage is shared writing planned by the teachers, helping the children to write their own by “doing one together” first. Children will be supported when writing their 'innovated' text. They will learn about the writing process, where to use punctuation, spelling and grammar through guided writing.

The children then will 'show what they know' by writing the text independently with no support.

 The Independent Application Stage

 There are opportunities in the curriculum for the children to independently apply all the skills that they have learnt without the scaffolded support.

 http://www.talk4writing.co.uk/about/

VIPERS

Children are explicitly taught the skills of reading (outlined in the National Curriculum and the KS1 and KS2 test domains) through the use of VIPERS which were created by Rob Smith (The Literacy Shed).

The Reading Vipers can be used by both KS1 and KS2 with a little adaption. The main difference being in the S.

Sequence- KS1

Summarise-KS2

In KS1, 'Explain'; is not one of the content domains, rather it asks children why they have come to a certain conclusion, to explain their preferences, thoughts and opinions about a text.

In KS2, the Explain section covers the additional content domains of 2F, 2G and 2H which are not present in KS1.

Key Stage 1

In Key Stage One children reading skills are taught and practised using the VIPERS during guided reading sessions.

Key Stage 2

In Key Stage Two children reading skills are taught and practised using VIPERS during guided  reading sessions.