Closing the Writing Gap

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When children eventually return to school, there is a selection of handy worksheets here, covering wellbeing and helping them deal with the change.

CLOSE THE WRITING GAP - The Confident Teacher 7 STEPS to CLOSE THE WRITING GAP - The Confident Teacher

A good education certainly involves more than ‘the three Rs’, but any less is surely a marker of a failing system. In affluent, ‘educated’ England, 7.1 million adults are functionally illiterate. But Alex Quigley’s motivation for writing this book is not rooted in statistics. His father “left school unable to write confidently, along with all the limitations, challenges and missed opportunities” that represented, and – driven by that experience – Quigley decries our propensity for platitudes and abstract rhetoric about raising standards. Do our pupils need support for bolster their writing development? In my last blog, I posed the question about whether there was a hidden problem with the damage wrought by the pandemic on pupils who have joined secondary school. The evidence of a dip in national date at both Key Stage 2 and Key Stage … I hope the revolution it has started in my classroom is repeated everywhere Closing the writing gap by Alex Quigley Ittrains teachers to be an expert in how pupils learn towrite,from the big picture of planning, editing and revising yourwriting, to the vital importance of grammar and spelling withaccuracy.​ Slow writing’ first came to my attention when The Learning Spy began writing about them. I have used them regularly and find they are great for developing ‘the ear’ for writing and allowing children to learn how to craft sentences.The ability to reflect upon and manipulate the sound structure of words. In writing, this difficulty will show in spelling. But when a child struggles to spell it can impede their writing significantly, affecting fluency, vocabulary and confidence. Some children will only write words they know they can spell and this means much writing will not reflect their verbal ability. With all the effort of trying to spell and write, a child’s working memory may be taken up with concentrating on this rather than the content of their writing. Freeing up the cognitive load could really help with the fluency of their writing, liberating them to be creative and relaxed. For assessment purposes, under this climate, a teacher can really see their potential. It expertly articulates the problems caused by gaps in vocabulary, reading and writing and outlines how solutions such as teacher training and planning throughout the curriculum can lead to success. Included in this mix are learners with additional needs and spikyprofiles, making it tremendously challenging for a teacher to maximise writing potential for all in their class. But what is likely to be even more revolutionary in my classroom is the following chapter on sentence construction. Referencing a swathe of research I am definitely going to go away and study, this short treatise alone makes the book worth the investment. From it, I realised that I have not been explicit enough in my teaching of syntax and how important it is in closing the gap for my weaker writers. With the goal of giving every teacher the knowledge and skill to teach writing with confidence, it makes sense of the history and ‘science’ of writing, synthesising the debates and presenting a wealth of usable evidence about how children develop most efficiently as successful writers.

Closing the Writing Gap by Alex Quigley | Perlego [PDF] Closing the Writing Gap by Alex Quigley | Perlego

For a teacher, distinguishing between developing an ear for writing as Wyse describes, and letting pupils know that writing is difficult and a craft as Heller suggests, provides a real challenge, especially when the curriculum asks for ‘greater depth’ alongside ‘fronted adverbials’. This is further complicated when looking at children with ‘spiky’ profiles. Those who shine in some areas dull as soon as pen reaches paper; the sparkle is lost and the assessment process may mask their true academic potential. So how can we attempt to close the attainment gap for these children? Your first chance to see the new ‘Closing The Writing Gap’ book in action. This is the must-see course companion to the final book of ‘The Gap’ trilogy by renowned writer, teacher and TES columnist, Alex Quigley. It is crucial that busy teachers are supported with timely and accessible resources to support their work. As a result, to go alongside my new book, ‘Closing the Writing Gap’, I have produced a small number of tools that I hope will help translate the insights from the book into action. Closing the Writing Gap is a clarion call to take the three Rs seriously, and among them, to prioritise writing specifically on the grounds that it “will either unleash or circumscribe the talents of our pupils”.

What's Inside A Real Writing Resource?

Where do we start with practical strategies for teaching writing? The secret to a practical, and pragmatic, approach to teaching writing is to seize the countless small opportunities to integrate it into our existing practice. Read this… ‘Liz Truss culpa de su caída política al ‘establishment’ económico del Reino Unido La ex primera ministra conservadora defiende su rebaja de impuestos y asegura que “nunca se le dio una oportunidad real” de impulsarla El modo más fácil en política de admitir errores sin admitir culpa es asegurar que todo fue un …