: Time to talk, time to write: Embracing a slower writing process A school’s approach to a slower writing sequence, embracing quality over quantity sharing the importance of oracy opportunities.

A Year 1 class gather with excitement as they begin their new core text ​‘The Bog Baby’ by Jeanne Willis. They eagerly read the opening pages together, discussing the unusual character. ​“Today children we are going to describe the character,” the teacher says, ​“Can anyone think of an adjective?” The room falls silent. The children have no words to offer and without words to speak, they have no words to write.


So how do we give children the language that they need to become confident, independent writers?

“Writing floats on a sea of talk” James Britton (1976).


The EEF Guidance Report for ​‘Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1’ highlights the importance that developing children’s speaking and listening skills and wider understanding of language comes first and foremost before anything else. Recommendation 1 states ‘ Language provides the foundation of thinking and learning and should be prioritised’

At Whitefield Infant School, we introduced a clear and consistent writing sequence across school designed to give children the opportunity to talk and rehearse their ideas before writing. What began as a strategy to support the high number of EAL and SEND children, soon revealed a wider impact, boosting the confidence, progress and attainment of ALL learners, regardless of their individual starting points.

Day 1- Read


​“The text is the beating heart of the lesson” The Department for Education’s Reading Framework (2023).


Our core texts are carefully selected to expose children to a variety of writing genres, provide challenge and deepen comprehension skills, whilst being accessible to all children including those with additional needs. At the beginning of each week, teachers introduce the writing outcome, for example, a character description. Together they read and analyse examples of the writing outcome, identify key features of the genre and collect interesting vocabulary. Teachers also clearly communicate the intent and audience for the piece, helping children understand the ​“why” and purpose behind their writing.

Day 2- Speaking and Listening


On Day 2, children are provided with time to talk and orally rehearse their ideas. With support from adults, they begin to gather language, vocabulary, phrases and sentences that will prepare them for writing. For example, when preparing to write a character description, the children used play dough to create the character and orally describe it. They then created a word bank of nouns and adjectives, and collected feeling words to describe the character’s emotions in the story.

Photo of children’s Bog Babies and a written list of vocabulary to support their writing.

Day 3- Write


By this stage, the children are now fully prepared to write their first version of the writing outcome for the week. The teacher begins by modelling the character description, using the year group expectations from the ​‘Lancashire Key Learning Indicators of Performance’ for writing (KLIPs). The children then apply their knowledge, skills and vocabulary they have built up over the week to write their own version. Writing outcomes are closely aligned with their daily phonics sessions and children are supported by sound mats from the phonics programme to promote independent spelling.

Photo of teacher’s demonstration of writing and child’s writing outcome.

Day 4- Speaking and Listening


​“Repeated retrieval not only makes memories more durable but produces knowledge that can be retrieved more readily.” Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Peter C. Brown (2014).be retrieved more readily.


Repeating the same writing outcome across the next two days allows children to revisit and consolidate the knowledge, skills and vocabulary from earlier in the week. On Day 4, children have time to talk and deepen their understanding of the language already gathered. For example, when returning to a character description, the children demonstrated a deeper understanding of the character, compared to earlier in the week. They engaged in drama activities, in role as the character and took part in tasks such as sorting descriptive sentences into true and false statements to further prepare them for writing.

Day 5- Write


On the final day, children produce their second writing outcome of the week, this time with greater independence. As a class, they revisit the key features of the text type and vocabulary collected throughout the week, orally rehearsing sentences together. However, the teacher does not model the writing this time. Instead, the speaking and listening opportunities, adult support, previous teacher demonstration and writing scaffolds from earlier in the week provides children with the confidence and tools they need to write more independently.

‘The Simple View of Writing’, developed by Beringer et al. (2002) highlights that writing requires children to co-ordinate many processes within their working memory. Working memory has limited capacity which makes this challenging for some learners. By slowing down our writing sequence, prioritising time to talk and embedding all elements of ​‘The Simple View of Writing’ we have seen improvements in both progress and attainment in children’s writing. The most significant impact has been observed with children with SEND who are thriving when given time to talk and time to write. Of course, this is just one approach and our interpretation of how to put evidence into action but it proves highly successful for ALL of our pupils.

Further Reading


The Reading Framework https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-reading-framework-teaching-the-foundations-of-literacy


Improving Literacy in Key Stage 1 https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/literacy-ks‑1


Supporting resources from LPDS : Publications – Lancashire Professional Development Service


Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Peter C. Brown (2014)