Boost Creative Writing-Planning Sheets to Support Writers (Especially Sen Pupils) in Years 1-2

Boost Creative Writing (5–7 Year Olds) addresses the Year 1 and Year 2 Programmes of Study for writing composition in the National Curriculum for England.

The activities provide additional reinforcement of key skills for lower ability writers and a structured framework to enable them to talk about their writing.

Lower ability pupils and unconfident writers need extra support to help them to become confident writers. The structured planning sheets in Boost Creative Writing provide lower ability pupils with non-prescriptive writing scaffolds, giving them the support they need.

The sheets cover a range of writing genres, from stories and poems to book reviews and newspaper reports.

These series of planning sheets aim to provide a structured resource which gives plenty of scope for exploring and collecting ideas in the different writing genres: adventure, fantasy, recount, letter, poetry etc. They generate discussion within a defined framework and then aid pupils to write more descriptive stories and compose longer pieces of writing.

Reluctant writers or those writers who struggle with the organization of their ideas can express themselves with more self-assurance by using these planning sheets. Confident writers can also benefit by delving into them to gain further ideas.

Some sheets can be written on directly but many are designed as a prop to refer to when writing. Vocabulary sheets are incorporated with some stories to help the flow of ideas.

Story mountain and mind map templates are included to assist narrative and descriptive writing and to cater for different learning styles. Visual learners have lots of imaginative ideas but might struggle with the sequence of events or the bare skeleton of the story so can benefit from using the story mountain approach. Logical systematic learners can sequence ideas but might struggle to develop them creatively and can benefit from using the mind map templates to expand descriptive writing.

Judy Arden (formerly Judith Thornby), the author of this book, has specialized in the field of learning support since 1997 when she gained a diploma in specific learning difficulties. Judith is especially interested in promoting creative writing skills with children who are reluctant writers or who struggle with the organization of their ideas. These series of planning sheets generate discussion and aid in structuring composition in the different writing genres. They also can be used to give further ideas to confident writers as well.