Grammar Starters in Year 5
Monks Risborough CE Primary School
“Children understand how to improve their writing in a more concrete way because they have already had a chance to practise it in short bursts”. “I’m going to try those embedded commas in my writing. I think they will really add to what I’m doing”. |
School Context:
Monks Risborough CE Primary School is a one form entry school with approximately 206 pupils on role from Year R through to Year 6. The majority of pupils at the school are White British and very few have EAL needs. The number of children receiving the Pupil Premium is below average, as is the number of children with Special Educational Needs.
The school is located in a small village on the edge of a middle sized town and benefits from a rural setting. Use is made of neighbouring Whiteleaf Hill for a variety of lessons across the curriculum throughout the year. A lack of cultural diversity within the school population and the largely rural setting mean that children do not always have a developed awareness of multiculturalism or urbanisation and this is an area that the school works hard to tackle.
Focus Group
Work has focused on Year 5 within the school as this is the year group within which I teach. This made it an ideal location for testing out new methods of grammar teaching.
The children are of broadly average ability with a small number of children requiring additional support in literacy and a slightly larger number of children working above age related expectations.
Activities undertaken
As part of the Bucks Grammar Project I have focused on two main areas – the continuation of grammar teaching embedded within lessons and the introduction of “grammar starters” as a precursor to other writing.
Grammar starters have been designed as short 5-10 minute activities that take place at the start of the lesson. They have generally been used once or twice a week and focus on a single, specific area of grammar. Some starters have been used to “plug gaps” in the children’s writing – for example the use of adverbs in sentences to improve detail and increase clarity. At other times they have been used to introduce a new concept as part of writing development. Some grammar starters use specific grammar terminology, others deliberately do not. They have ranged from hiding a bear to reinforce work on prepositions to being given words and being challenged to use them to make exciting or unusual sentences. Generally there is no written outcome to a grammar starter beyond jottings on individual whiteboards where this is appropriate.
Grammar teaching within lessons has continued throughout the Bucks Grammar Project period. The nature of the grammar focused on has varied but has included, for example, identifying alliteration and rhetoric in advertising. Here children were shown a selection of adverts and asked to find things in them that persuaded them that the product was useful. From that starting point the different techniques used by the advertisers were classified and later, used in the children’s own work. During work on The Highway Man, children were asked to identify descriptive phrases in the first verse. These were then classified into similes and metaphors and the effect of each discussed. Children were then challenged to turn a particular metaphor into a simile and consider its effect. Later in the unit, children wrote their own versions of The Highway Man as a story narrative, creating and using metaphors and similes to enhance their writing.
Evaluation of impact on progress / writing
It is currently too early to draw firm conclusions on the impact on children’s writing. The class are certainly more excited about adding new things to their writing and trying out different grammar techniques. They are also beginning to think more carefully about the clarity and quality of the writing they produce. Some of the more average ability children are beginning to incorporate new grammar techniques into their writing without prompting. The majority of children are better at recognising particular grammar features than in previous years. Assessment levels have so far risen as might be expected for this point in the academic year and a truer picture will be obtainable in the Spring Term.
Quotes from children
“I’m going to try those embedded commas in my writing. I think they will really add to what I’m doing”.
“The poet said coal-black road because that adjective is really interesting. He’s used two words because it lets you know how black the road is, that it is really dark, not just a little bit black”.
“I wouldn’t use a simile there! It messes up the rhythm and doesn’t sound right. In my poem I am going to use a metaphor because I just think it will be a bit more exciting”.
“No one would write ‘Jacob has a jumper and it is blue’. It sounds wrong. You need an apostrophe in there, then the sentence will be shorter and sound more normal”.
Quotes from teachers
“Children understand how to improve their writing in a more concrete way because they have already had a chance to practise it in short bursts”.
Next steps
Ideas for grammar starters to be disseminated to all staff.
Training for staff on how to use grammar starters effectively.
Monks Risborough CE Primary School is a one form entry school with approximately 206 pupils on role from Year R through to Year 6. The majority of pupils at the school are White British and very few have EAL needs. The number of children receiving the Pupil Premium is below average, as is the number of children with Special Educational Needs.
The school is located in a small village on the edge of a middle sized town and benefits from a rural setting. Use is made of neighbouring Whiteleaf Hill for a variety of lessons across the curriculum throughout the year. A lack of cultural diversity within the school population and the largely rural setting mean that children do not always have a developed awareness of multiculturalism or urbanisation and this is an area that the school works hard to tackle.
Focus Group
Work has focused on Year 5 within the school as this is the year group within which I teach. This made it an ideal location for testing out new methods of grammar teaching.
The children are of broadly average ability with a small number of children requiring additional support in literacy and a slightly larger number of children working above age related expectations.
Activities undertaken
As part of the Bucks Grammar Project I have focused on two main areas – the continuation of grammar teaching embedded within lessons and the introduction of “grammar starters” as a precursor to other writing.
Grammar starters have been designed as short 5-10 minute activities that take place at the start of the lesson. They have generally been used once or twice a week and focus on a single, specific area of grammar. Some starters have been used to “plug gaps” in the children’s writing – for example the use of adverbs in sentences to improve detail and increase clarity. At other times they have been used to introduce a new concept as part of writing development. Some grammar starters use specific grammar terminology, others deliberately do not. They have ranged from hiding a bear to reinforce work on prepositions to being given words and being challenged to use them to make exciting or unusual sentences. Generally there is no written outcome to a grammar starter beyond jottings on individual whiteboards where this is appropriate.
Grammar teaching within lessons has continued throughout the Bucks Grammar Project period. The nature of the grammar focused on has varied but has included, for example, identifying alliteration and rhetoric in advertising. Here children were shown a selection of adverts and asked to find things in them that persuaded them that the product was useful. From that starting point the different techniques used by the advertisers were classified and later, used in the children’s own work. During work on The Highway Man, children were asked to identify descriptive phrases in the first verse. These were then classified into similes and metaphors and the effect of each discussed. Children were then challenged to turn a particular metaphor into a simile and consider its effect. Later in the unit, children wrote their own versions of The Highway Man as a story narrative, creating and using metaphors and similes to enhance their writing.
Evaluation of impact on progress / writing
It is currently too early to draw firm conclusions on the impact on children’s writing. The class are certainly more excited about adding new things to their writing and trying out different grammar techniques. They are also beginning to think more carefully about the clarity and quality of the writing they produce. Some of the more average ability children are beginning to incorporate new grammar techniques into their writing without prompting. The majority of children are better at recognising particular grammar features than in previous years. Assessment levels have so far risen as might be expected for this point in the academic year and a truer picture will be obtainable in the Spring Term.
Quotes from children
“I’m going to try those embedded commas in my writing. I think they will really add to what I’m doing”.
“The poet said coal-black road because that adjective is really interesting. He’s used two words because it lets you know how black the road is, that it is really dark, not just a little bit black”.
“I wouldn’t use a simile there! It messes up the rhythm and doesn’t sound right. In my poem I am going to use a metaphor because I just think it will be a bit more exciting”.
“No one would write ‘Jacob has a jumper and it is blue’. It sounds wrong. You need an apostrophe in there, then the sentence will be shorter and sound more normal”.
Quotes from teachers
“Children understand how to improve their writing in a more concrete way because they have already had a chance to practise it in short bursts”.
Next steps
Ideas for grammar starters to be disseminated to all staff.
Training for staff on how to use grammar starters effectively.