ABSTRACT
Most of the Key Stage 1 and 2 units in this book are text based in the sense that the starting point is a text type. Children’s writing is developed from their text and sentence level work on these texts; they ‘read like writers’ in order that they can ‘write like readers’. In this chapter we examine one of the most important aspects of learning to write: the differences between speech and writing. This is so important that we believe it should form the basis of a unit in which language itself is the focus. During this unit, children engage with some of the most fascinating elements of the English language and explicitly consider the implications for their own writing. They analyse their own informal and formal speech, comparing it to writing. They consider accent and dialect and the need to write in Standard English. They also focus on a key issue in terms of their development as writers: the differences between spoken and written language.
