Research School Network: Making our Mark Together: Interactive Writing in Early Years Our ELE, Victoria Day, talks about the pupil-teacher interdependency in beginning to write effectively in the EYFS
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Making our Mark Together: Interactive Writing in Early Years
Our ELE, Victoria Day, talks about the pupil-teacher interdependency in beginning to write effectively in the EYFS
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by Billesley Research School
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What is Interactive Writing?
Interactive writing is a dynamic approach where educators and children collaborate to craft a message. It isn’t just a demonstration where the child watches the adult; it is a “back-and-forth” partnership that builds confidence and technical skill simultaneously.
Reflecting on Practice
Our team recently reviewed our approach to Early Years writing, recognizing its crucial role in laying the foundations for a successful lifelong writing journey. To ensure that your school is framing socio-economic disadvantage in a solution-focused way, it is important to move away from “getting writing right” toward seeing writing as meaningful communication.
These reflective questions can be used to guide your thinking:
1. How does your EYFS culture influence children’s confidence to experiment with mark-making?
2. Are children given authentic, daily opportunities to write?
3. How effectively do adults model writing and drawing during daily interactions?
4. Do you explicitly support letter formation in playful, purposeful ways?
The Three Pillars to consider:
1. The Dialogue: It begins with a conversation to build a message — whether it’s a name, a caption, a story, or a simple set of instructions
2. The Collaboration: The adult and child write together. Initially, the educator may “hold the pen,” but as the child’s confidence grows, the responsibility shifts.
3. The Support: The adult acts as a scaffold, clarifying and sequencing thoughts while the child focuses on emerging marks and symbols.
Connecting Research and Practice
High-quality evidence, such as the EEF’s Preparing for Literacy guidance report, shows that early writing is inextricably linked to communication, language, physical development, and self-regulation. Children need opportunities to develop motor control and express ideas orally before they can communicate fluently through text.
As the report says, “Writing is physically and intellectually demanding. Expressive language underpins writing and should be prioritised. Provide a wide range of opportunities to communicate through writing and develop children’s motivation to write.” (EEF, 2018, P.6).
To turn a shared session into a powerful learning moment, we utilize these evidence-based strategies:
1. Thinking Aloud: Narrating the planning process (e.g., “We’re writing a list of instructions for our Allotment book about how to plant a seed. First, we need to write…”) to model composition.
2. Oral Rehearsal: Verbally repeating a sentence together before putting pen to paper.
3. Co-writing: Gradually inviting children to add recognized letters or marks to a sentence.
4. Structuring & Scaffolding: Using story maps and memory prompts (gestures and images) to help children recall the knowledge needed to write.
Further to these strategies, parental engagement is key in developing children’s communication, language and literacy skills. The Guidance Report recommends, “encouraging parents to read to children before they can read, then to begin reading with children as soon as they can; and running workshops showing parents how to read and talk about books with their children effectively.” (EEF, 2018, p.18)
Next Steps for Your Setting
How might you integrate these “everyday moments” into your provision to show children that writing is useful and connected to real life?
Would you like to explore this further? You can find more strategies on the Early Years Evidence Store or explore further reading below:
