Children’s writing develops best when they are engaged in authentic written language tasks for a variety of purposes that are clear to them.
To enable children to become independent learners adults must allow children to make decisions and take responsibility for their learning. We therefore need to plan situations and activities which facilitate this and also capitalise on opportunities which arise during the day.
Children are surrounded by print – the boxes holding their toys,
TV advertisements, supermarket products, road signs, books and magazines at home. As they meet these many different varieties of print they come to realise that the meaning is constant and that writing has distinctive structures.
When they begin to produce their own forms of writing they demonstrate their understanding that the marks on paper stand for separate words and that they can be read.
We must plan time for modelled, shared, guided and independent writing and make time to talk about what is to be done and how to do it.