EYFS

At St Joseph's, Nursery and Reception classes teach literacy through the Talk for Writing approach which was developed by Pie Corbett. Talk for Writing enables children to imitate the key language they need orally before they try reading, analysing and recording it.  It is a fun, creative yet also rigorous approach to develop writers.

Talk for Writing has three key phases which work together to develop knowledge, confidence and independence in writing:

Imitation

During this phase the children create actions to accompany the oral re-telling of the story. They also create story maps, using pictures and symbols, to depict actions and events from the text. The key to success for the children is that they internalise the text type through repetition and rehearsal. They also begin to look closely at the language and text features that have been used. 

Innovation

During this phase the teacher and the children begin to change aspects of the model text using their own ideas. They explore the text using different characters, settings or events and new ideas for descriptive language whilst sticking closely to the underlying structure. This process enables the children to write their own versions through developing their ability to generate good words and phrases.  It is during this phase that children also look at how they can address their targets to progress their writing.

Invention/Independent application

During this phase the children write their own story based on the text type they have been learning. They experiment with the ideas and begin to explore their own style of writing using sentence types from the model text before finally writing their version of the text.