How to use... Catch-up Writing Roots

Posted on: 21/11/2024

Written byDonny Morrison

Senior Consultant & Senior Writer

In this instalment of our ‘How to use…’ series, we explore the wider offer of Literacy Tree by having a look at the Catch-up Writing Roots.

What is the purpose of the Catch-up Writing Roots?

The Catch-up Writing Roots can be found in the planning section of the website and currently there is one for Year 2 onwards. As the name suggests, these Writing Roots are ideal for supporting children as writers to revisit and recall skills taught from previous years group, embedding them in purposeful pieces of writing before gradually bringing the skills up to pitch or near-pitch.

Although these were initially written for schools returning from lockdown as a way to support children review skills, they still remain incredibly relevant and many schools have decided to place them at the start of the year. After the summer holidays, children still need a writing planning sequence that gives them ample opportunities to recall previously taught skills and terminology. Children need opportunities to revise the building blocks of writing in a creative, engaging and purposeful way. These Catch-up Writing Roots are the perfect way to ease children back into the craft of writing.

How do the Catch-up Writing Roots work?

Catch-up Writing Roots have exactly the same layout as the standard year group Writing Roots. There are a few big differences however. Firstly, on the cover page, there are curriculum statements from the year group children are currently in and from the preceding year group. These are colour-coded so that when teachers look at the skills pitch of each lesson (the LOs and SC), they can see at a glance which lessons draw more heavily on from the preceding year group’s curriculum and which from the current.

The preceding year group curriculum coverage is in magenta and the at-pitch curriculum coverage is in teal. Each Catch-up Writing Root starts with lessons which draw more heavily on the magenta LOs and SC and, as the Writing Root progresses the LOs and SC become more teal, gradually bringing lessons up to pitch for those year groups.

Like standard Writing Roots, these sequences of lessons build from short writes, to long writes and finish with extended writes where children have several sessions to comfortably complete one piece of writing. Skills and vocabulary thread through the sequence and are mostly revisiting again and knitted together in the extended write.

What books do the Catch-up Writing Roots cover and what are the outcomes?

As previously mentioned, there are Catch-up Writing Roots for Year 2 to Year 6 and an interesting, engaging array of novels, authors and illustrators are on offer. See below for more details…

Year 2 Lights on Cotton Rock by David Litchfield

A beautifully illustrated story about Heather, a girl who dreams of meeting aliens and going on adventures to outer space. She goes to Cotton Rock to look at the stars and one day her dreams all come true. This Writing Root begins with children discovering a mysterious rucksack in the classroom filled with clues about the story and the main character. Children will label the items and make lists of the objects that Heather has taken with her into the woods, then go on to create their own spaceships using various materials and writing descriptions of their creations. They will write diary entries in role as Heather and in role as the friendly alien she meets as well as writing a Welcome Home Banner in role as Heather’s family for when she returns from space. Children will examine the circular shape of this story and go on to create their own extended narrative following this pattern.

Year 3 Starbird by Sharon King-Chai

In this three week Catch-Up Writing Root for Starbird - a fable written and illustrated by Sharon King-Chai - the children arrive to class to find a silver feather tied to which is an ornate beribboned gift tag. They write a gift tag in the style of an ode before beginning to share the story. After inferring the characters’ feelings to write a short section of dialogue, the rest of the fable is read in stages and interpreted through activities such as creating a wanted poster, a diary entry, writing a song and eventually creating an own version fable.

Year 4 Town is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz and Sydney Smith

In this Catch-Up Wriitng Root for Town is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz and Sydney Smith, the children explore a story of a young boy growing up in a mining community in the 1950s. Children arrive to class to find several objects/clues around the text including a postcard; a shell; a piece of charcoal; a clocking-on card. They use these to make inferences before going on to write an instant poem. After making front page predictions around the illustration and title, the children share the story and – amongst other things - write predictions, make comparisons, create a

section of dialogue and create a book jacket complete with blurb and tagline. They then plan and write a narrative sequel, drawing upon the language and structures used by the author so as to emulate the style.