Embedding SPaG into high

quality English teaching

David Waugh
9 May, 2017
th
A short chapter
 QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER TODAY

• What are the implications of the emphasis on

grammar in the curriculum for trainees and teachers?
• How can we embed SPaG in a meaningful way
through writing, reading and oracy?
• How can we teach rather than simply test spelling,
punctuation and grammar?
 Which year group?
• noun, noun phrase
• statement, question, exclamation,
command
• compound, adjective, verb
• suffix
• tense (past, present)
• apostrophe, comma
YEAR TERMINOLOGY FOR PUPILS
1 letter, capital letter
word, singular, plural
sentence
punctuation, full stop, question mark, exclamation mark
2 noun, noun phrase
statement, question, exclamation, command,
compound, adjective, verb,
suffix
tense (past, present)
apostrophe, comma
3 adverb, preposition, conjunction
word family, prefix
clause, subordinate clause
direct speech
consonant, consonant letter vowel, vowel letter
inverted commas (or ‘speech marks’)
4 determiner
pronoun, possessive pronoun,
adverbial
5 modal verb, relative pronoun
relative clause
parenthesis, bracket, dash cohesion, ambiguity
6 subject, object
active, passive
synonym, antonym
ellipsis, hyphen, colon, semi-colon, bullet points
Grammar for Writing (DfEE, 2000, p.7)

“,,,the purpose of teaching grammar is not

simply the naming of parts of speech, nor is it to
provide arbitrary rules for ‘correct’ English. It is
about making children aware of key grammatical
principles and their effects, to increase the
range of choices open to them when they
write.”
 Which do we learn first: the game or
the terminology of the game?
direct free kick offside
corner

dive penalty

indirect free kick

tackle

cross yellow card

defend
 Which do we learn first: the language or the
terminology of the language?
direct speech apostrophe
ellipsis

subordinate pronoun
clause

indirect speech
preposition

adjective adverb

fronted adverbial
What does Alex know about grammar?
 Waugh (2015)
…there is an intrinsic value in understanding
more about our language and being able to
create a language for discussing it with the
children you teach. If you make learning about
grammar integral to children’s reading and
writing rather than separating it into discrete
lessons, you will enable them to reflect upon
their language usage and that of others.
 Podrobs
Look at the sentences below and place
podrobs in the spaces.
• Dave ran ______ towards the goal.
• Craig laughed _________ when he heard
the joke.
 How I develop trainees’ understanding of
word classes…
• What is it?
Which one is it?
What is it doing?
How is the one on the right different from
the others?
What is it doing now?
How is it doing it?
Where is it doing it?
Now describe what you can see.
 Sentence Countdown
the are do about and Nouns Verbs Adjectives
up me got a had
down their to my dad 1       be 1       good
1       time
people said her big your 2       person 2       have 2       new
3       year 3       do 3       first
in what when put he 4       way 4       say 4       last
5       day 5       get 5       long
there it’s could i out 6       thing 6       make 6       great
7       man 7       go 7       little
see house of this looked 8       know 8       own
8       world
old it have very too 9       life 9       take 9       other
10      hand 10      see 10      old
was went look by you 11      part 11      come 11      right
12      child 12      think 12      big
be don’t day they like
13      eye 13      look 13      high
14      woman 14      want 14      different
come made on some will 15      give 15      small
15      place
time she so into i’m 16      work 16      use 16      large
17      week 17      find 17      next
is not back if for 18      case 18      tell 18      early
19      point 19      ask 19      young
then from help at were 20      work 20      important
20      government
21      company 21      seem 21      few
children mrs his go him 22      feel 22      public
22      number
called but little mr here 23      group 23      try 23      bad
24      problem 24      leave 24      same
that as get off with 25      fact 25      call 25      able
no just asked all mum
now saw we one came
make can them oh an
Look at the cover
What questions
are you asking?

I wrote this book.

Do you think I
agree with the
opinion
expressed in the
title?
 CHAPTER ONE 
It’s not a proper game if she plays

 
“It’s not a proper game if she plays!” Adam
Stevens stood with his foot on the ball and
his hands on his hips.
“Go on, let her,” said Ryan Jones.
Lauren Morris looked longingly towards the football
pitch, where about twenty boys had stopped their
game when she had asked to play.
“Even if she wasn’t a girl, she’s too small and she’d get
hurt,” said Faisal Ahmed, who was eleven.
“She’s bigger than me,” piped up Sam Bell.
“Everyone’s bigger than you, Belly!” chorused about
five people together.
 
Lauren longed to play football. She had taken months to pluck up the
courage to ask the boys if she could join in with their daily game after
school, and now she seemed likely to be rejected. She was sure she
would be good at soccer. She had watched endless videos of matches,
and she spent hours practising her ball skills in her tiny back yard and
in the passageway behind her house, and on the wasteland next to an
old, disused factory near her house.
 
She had often watched the boys from a distance and she was certain
that she was more skilful than most of them. The trouble was, she
had never played in a game. She could dribble in and out of the
obstacle courses she set up for herself using plastic bottles and drinks
cans, and she could trap and volley the ball as she bounced it off the
brick wall of the old factory. What she did not know was if she could
use her skills when other people were trying to take the ball from her.
 
The boys began to get restless. They wanted to get on with their
game and Lauren’s request had stopped them.
“Why shouldn’t she play?” asked Mark Langley. “Just because she’s a
girl, it doesn’t mean she’s no good.”
 How does Lauren feel?
short phrases adjectives

synonyms similes
 Punctuation matters
• Thank you! Your donation just helped
someone. Get a job!
• My hobbies are cooking my family and my
dog.
• Gate in constant use illegally. Parked cars will
be clamped.
• He has trouble-making friends.
• He has trouble making friends.
 For children and teachers
• Discuss language in speech and in texts
• Shared writing
• Sentence-combining
• Share real examples
• Make limited use of exercises
• Try feature searches
• Make collections
• Play games!
 A model for teaching grammar in context

• Firstly, be clear about what you want the children to

learn. Remember that there is no point teaching
grammatical meta-language unless you can explain
how it will make a difference to their writing.

• Check your own subject knowledge and make sure

that you feel confident about this.
 Consider when to introduce the terms

• This may be through discrete teaching, through an investigation, or

through interactive grammar games to find patterns, word play or games.

• Shared and guided reading: identify examples of the particular

grammatical feature you are focusing on in the high quality texts you are
reading with the class.

• Make sure you have identified examples beforehand and can talk about
them. Use the correct terminology to make this explicit.
 Consider when to introduce the terms (continued)

• Invite children to find examples for themselves and to make up some of their
own. Remember to remind them of the purpose of the task – they are
developing this skill because it opens up all kinds of possibilities for their
writing.

• Model writing before asking children to write themselves. Make explicit the
choices that writers have made and help children to know the choices
available to them when writing for themselves.

• Invite the children to use these in the context of an appropriate piece of

writing. Encourage the children to be adventurous and to play with language
and word choice.

• Review the writing as part of the plenary and not just through ‘distance’
marking.
 Implications of research findings on writing
We need:
• explicit teaching of the process of writing and strategies which emphasise
the different stages, such as planning, drafting and sharing ideas.
• emphasis on self-evaluation and developing pupils’ capability to assess
their own work through revising and editing.
• work on summarising texts in writing (such as through précis) and
combining sentences.
• modelling of specific skills to support pupils, but where the support is
deliberately faded out so that there is a gradual shift in responsibility from
the teacher to the pupil so that they become independent writers.
• engaging pre-writing activities which help them to develop a range of
strategies. This could be by helping them work out what they already
know, or to research an unfamiliar topic, or arrange their ideas visually or
thematically.
Higgins (2015)
If writing evolves…
…use of language devices
evolves…
Mistakes are valuable
The results can be impressive!
A Y5 child’s writing
The simple view of Compositional
writing processes

Good composition; poor Good composition; Good

G
transcription o transcription
o
d
Transcriptional Poor Good Transcriptional
skills skills
P
o
Poor composition; Poor o Poor composition; Good
transcription r transcription

Compositional
processes
Why is this important for teachers?
• They need to have a positive attitude to writing if
they are to teach it successfully
• They need to understand the process of writing
so that they understand the challenges children
face
• They need to develop their own confidence in
writing
• They need to understand the language of
writing.
 Cremin and Baker (2014)
• “A stronger community of writers can be
built in the classroom if teachers and support
staff are able to connect to and share their
writing lives and enable children to recognise
and celebrate the diversity of their own
writing practices” (p.5).
 Out of the mouths of children…
“Anyone can write – unless they haven’t got a
pen!”
(Child in National Writing Project)

“People who have got pensions write because it

will give them something to do before they die.”
(Child in National Writing Project)
A novel written with 45 children
 Writing with and for children
• We can all write – we just need a reason
• By writing, we develop our understanding of
the process
• By writing, we develop our understanding of
how language works
• By writing, we become more confident
teachers of writing
 Try this: write about your life in 6 words
• Head in books, feet in flowers.

• Trust me, I did my best.

• Best selling author? Instead there's this.

• Wasted my whole life getting comfortable.

• Worry about tomorrow, rarely enjoy today!

• Lifetime partner, love, laughs - what now?

• I'm just happy to be here!

Every subject can involve writing
 Higgins, 2015
• Evidence (Graham et al. 2012) indicates it is important to
expose pupils to a variety of forms of writing and to practise
these so that they learn to write for a variety of purposes and
master different genres of writing (e.g. description, narration,
persuasion or argumentation, information and explanatory
texts).
• Seeing examples of good writing in these different forms and
being given positive feedback when they develop key features
is essential.
• Teach explicit strategies. For example, in descriptive writing
one approach which has been shown to be effective is to link
written descriptions with the senses: What did you see? How
did it look? What sounds did you hear? What did you touch?
How did it feel? What could you smell? What did you taste?
 Grammar and writing
• Myhill, Lines and Watson (2011) examined ways of developing children’s
writing and discovered that actively engaging children with grammar through
writing was more effective than teaching grammar as a separate topic. They
found that children were less likely to see the purpose of grammatical
knowledge when it was taught out of the context of actual writing, and
asserted that children can become more aware to the infinite possibilities of
the English language through studying how language works, and that this can
enable them to evaluate others’ language use. They suggest that:
• ‘… a writing curriculum which draws attention to the grammar of writing in
an embedded and purposeful way at relevant points in the learning is a
more positive way forward. In this way, young writers are introduced to what
we have called ‘a repertoire of infinite possibilities’, explicitly showing them
how different ways of shaping sentences or texts, and … different choices of
words can generate different possibilities for meaning-making’

(Myhill et al, 2012, p.3)

 Terminology
Horton and Bingle (2014, p.17) argue that terminology should
be introduced when children are exploring and using language:

• “You would not teach children to swim without introducing

terms such as breast stroke, front crawl and sculling in order
to communicate precise meaning and it is more than likely
that you would do this whilst swimming. It is no different
from teaching children about language: terms such as
adverbial, subordinate clause and collective noun can all be
used effectively whilst engaged in a writing activity. The
use of a metalanguage will give children the tools with
which to discuss choices and manipulate language
confidently and powerfully”.
 70 words Y3-4 should learn (draft NC)
accident, advertise, approve, benefit, behave, bicycle, breath,
breathe, building, calendar, certain, concentrate, chocolate,
congratulate, conscience, continue, decorate, describe, dictionary,
difficult, discover, disturb, early, earn, earth, educate, excite,
experience, experiment, explore, extreme, February, grammar, guide,
guard, half, heart, immediate, improve, increase, independent, injure,
inquire, interest, island, junior, knowledge, library, material, medicine,
mention, multiply, murmur, nephew, occasion, often, opposite,
paragraph, particular, peculiar, position, possess, produce, professor,
promise, property, prove, punctuate, quality, quantity, quarrel,
quarter, recite, recover, register, regular, reign, remember, sentence,
separate, sew, situate, strength, sufficient, sure, surprise, surround,
thought, though, weary
 70 words Y3-4 should learn (draft NC)
accident, advertise, approve, benefit, behave, bicycle, breath,
breathe, building, calendar, certain, concentrate, chocolate,
congratulate, conscience, continue, decorate, describe, dictionary,
difficult, discover, disturb, early, earn, earth, educate, excite,
experience, experiment, explore, extreme, February, grammar, guide,
guard, half, heart, immediate, improve, increase, independent, injure,
inquire, interest, island, junior, knowledge, library, material, medicine,
mention, multiply, murmur, nephew, occasion, often, opposite,
paragraph, particular, peculiar, position, possess, produce, professor,
promise, property, prove, punctuate, quality, quantity, quarrel,
quarter, recite, recover, register, regular, reign, remember, sentence,
separate, sew, situate, strength, sufficient, sure, surprise, surround,
thought, though, weary
 Spelling rules – OK?
• Tell your neighbour a spelling rule.

• Who said i before e except after c?

• Now name another spelling rule.

 Work out spelling rules for each of the
following:
• Which letters don’t you find at the end of
English words?
• Plurals for words ending with y
• Making words ending with s into plurals
• Deciding which word endings add –es in the
plural
 Y5-6 spelling list
accommodate criticise individual relevant
accompany curiosity interfere restaurant
according definite interrupt rhyme
achieve desperate language rhythm
aggressive determined leisure sacrifice
amateur develop lightning secretary
ancient dictionary marvellous shoulder
apparent disastrous mischievous signature
appreciate embarrass muscle sincerely
attached environment necessary soldier
available equipped neighbour stomach
average especially nuisance sufficient
awkward exaggerate occupy suggest
bargain excellent occur symbol
bruise existence opportunity system
category explanation parliament temperature
cemetery familiar persuade thorough
committee foreign physical twelfth
communicate forty prejudice variety
community frequently privilege vegetable
competition government profession vehicle
conscience guarantee programme yacht
conscious harass pronunciation  
controversy hindrance queue  
convenience identity recognise  
correspond immediate recommend  
 Y5-6 spelling list
accommodate criticise individual relevant
accompany curiosity interfere restaurant
according occupies
definite interrupt rhyme
achieve desperate language rhythm
aggressive
????????
amateur
determined
develop
leisure
lightning
occupiedsacrifice
secretary
ancient dictionary marvellous shoulder
apparent disastrous mischievous signature
appreciate embarrass muscle sincerely
attached environment necessary soldier
preoccupation
available equipped neighbour occupying
stomach
average Especially nuisance sufficient
awkward exaggerate occupy suggest

bargain
preoccupied excellent occur symbol
bruise existence opportunity system
category explanation parliament temperature
cemetery familiar persuade thorough
committee foreign physical twelfth
communicate forty prejudice variety
community frequently privilege vegetable
preoccupy
competition government profession
occupation
vehicle
conscience guarantee programme yacht
conscious harass pronunciation  
controversy hindrance
unoccupied
queue  
convenience identity recognise  
occupational
correspond immediate recommend  
 What should we do?
• Discuss words and their meanings and origins.
• Talk about morphemes and how words are put together.
• Make collections of words, for example, homonyms, antonyms,
synonyms, loan words, homographs and homophones.
• Read to children regularly from a range of genres and be prepared
to discuss authors’ use of language.
• Discuss phrasing, words and punctuation in the whole texts.
• Make use of children’s writing as a resource for discussing grammar
and punctuation.
• Develop a vocabulary for discussing writing and don’t be afraid to
use correct terminology – if children can differentiate between a
diplodocus and a brontosaurus, they can distinguish between an
adjective and an adverb!
• Use shared and guided writing to model and to discuss ways
in which language can be presented.
• Don’t over-use exercises. Use exercises to reinforce and check
learning rather than to teach, and explain how applying their
new learning will improve the writing children are doing.
• Make use of investigations into spelling patterns etc. to help
develop and reinforce learning.
• Talk with children about why it is useful to develop a good
knowledge about language.
• Develop your own knowledge and understanding of language
and show that your enthusiastic
• Read about language. (e.g. Bryson, Crystal and websites which
offer simple guidance on such issues as using apostrophes and
the etymology of our words).
 Conclusions
• Children’s grammatical understanding can be developed through
reading and writing, if you make use of modelling and discussion
• You can engage children’s interest in grammar by providing
meaningful activities
• The teacher’s role in developing grammar through writing
includes modelling the writing process, talking about writing,
prompting discussions and guiding children’s writing.
• Children can be helped to understand appropriate grammatical
terminology through meaningful activities which involve a range
of language features and which lead naturally to discussion of
grammatical terminology.
 QUESTIONS
• Which terms do you think are essential for
children’s language and literacy development?
• Which terms, if any, do you consider
unnecessary?
• How can teachers develop children’s
understanding of language through reading to
them without detracting from their enjoyment?
• How can teachers’ modelling of writing
facilitate children’s understanding of language?
 Reading
•Bushnell, A and Waugh, D (2017) Inviting Writing Across the Curriculum. London: Sage.
•Cremin, T and Baker, S (2014) Teachers As Writers; a PETAA occasional research paper.
PETAA, Sydney.
•Department for Education (2012). What is the research evidence on writing? Research
report DFE-RR238. London: Department for Education.
https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RR238.pdf
•Graham, S., McKeown, D., Kiuhara, S., & Harris, K. R. (2012). A meta-analysis of writing
instruction for students in the elementary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology,
104(4), 879.
•Higgins, S (2015) ‘Research-based approaches to teaching writing’ in Waugh, D, Bushnell,
A and Neaum, S (eds) Beyond Early Writing. Northwich: Critical Publishing
•Horton, S and Bingle, B (2014) Lessons in Teaching Grammar in Primary Schools. London:
Sage.
•Myhill, D.A., Jones, S.M., Lines, H. & Watson, A. (2012) Re-Thinking Grammar: The Impact
Of Embedded Grammar Teaching On Students’ Writing And Students’ Metalinguistic
Understanding. Research Papers in Education 27, 2, pp. 139-166.
•Myhill, D, Lines, H & Watson, A (2011) Making Meaning with Grammar: a repertoire of
possibilities. University of Exeter.