Year 3 writing overview
The grid below is an overview of the writing units in Year 3. Each unit is driven by an engaging, vocabulary-rich book (or a school trip!) that inspires a wealth of writing opportunities. Some of these books have strong thematic links to other areas of our curriculum (for example Science, History and Geography). If you would like to see how writing units are mapped across the whole school, please read our 'Whole School Writing Overview' which is available HERE. If you would like to find our more about our writing curriculum, please follow the link to our 'contacts' page and get in touch.
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Poetry: Mammoths (1 week) Stimulus: ‘Mammoths’ by Richard Edwards Purpose and Audience: create a ‘Mammoths’ poem to be shared with the whole school Key knowledge and skills:
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Poetry: Slowly, Gently, Softly (1 week) Stimulus: ‘Slowly’ by James Reeves Purpose and Audience: create an adverb poem and publish it on the school website. Key knowledge and skills:
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Poetry: My Colours (1 week) Stimulus: ‘My colours’ by Colin West ‘Give and take’ by Roger McGough Purpose and Audience: explore colours from the natural world, create a colour poem and present as a collage Key knowledge and skills:
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Fiction: Stone Age Stories (3 weeks) Stimulus: ‘Stone Age Boy’ by S. Kitamura and ‘Stig of the dump’ by C. King Purpose and Audience: create first-person narratives using the patterns and new vocabulary from known stories Key knowledge and skills:
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Fiction: Traditional tales 2 - Poland (3 weeks) Stimulus: ‘The Dragon of Krakow’ by Richard Monte Purpose and Audience: create a mini-book to be read aloud to a small group in class and to family Key knowledge and skills:
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Non-fiction: Volcano wiki (3 weeks) Stimuli: ‘DK Findout’ and ‘Simple English Wikipedia’ webpages about volcanoes Purpose and Audience: create an information webpage to contribute to the class wiki – make it available online Key knowledge and skills:
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Non-fiction: Stone Age to Iron Age (4 weeks) Stimulus: ‘Stone Age’ by Klint Janulis Purpose and Audience: write an information page and present information in a way that excites young readers Key knowledge and skills:
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Non-fiction: Why eat healthily? (4 weeks) Stimuli: Why do we eat? Why shouldn’t I eat junk food? Why bother to keep fit? Usborne books Purpose and Audience: write a lively explanation about how to keep healthy for a children’s magazine Key knowledge and skills:
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Fiction: Pugs of the Frozen North (4 weeks) Stimuli: ‘Pugs of the Frozen North’ by Philip Reeve (and the audio book version) Purpose and Audience: retell part of a known story from another point of view, and create a diary entry in role Key knowledge and skills:
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Poetry: Dragon eats school! (1 week) Stimulus: ‘The dragon who ate our school’ by Nick Toczek (wks402) Purpose and Audience: write a new verse for a known poem to be performed to an audience Key knowledge and skills:
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Non-fiction: Art Exhibition (1 week) Stimulus: class art trip Purpose and Audience: write a recount; publish it as a blog on the school website
Key knowledge and skills:
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Poetry: Sounds (1 week) Stimuli: ‘Sounds of school’ by Michaela Morgan (First Poetry Book p194) Purpose and Audience: collect sounds from around the school and present them as a poem for the science subject leader Key knowledge and skills:
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Fiction: Traditional tales 1 - China (3 weeks) Stimulus: ‘Lao Lao of Dragon Mountain’ by M. Bateson Hill Purpose and Audience: create a story to be published as class collection of stories Key knowledge and skills:
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Fiction: Step into a painting (3 weeks) Stimulus: ‘Kate and the Mona Lisa’ by James Mayhew Purpose and Audience: write a portal story linked with art focus. Read it to a small group. Key knowledge and skills:
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Non-fiction: Fantastic newspaper reports (3 weeks) Stimulus: ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ by Roald Dahl and the film adaptation directed by Wes Anderson Purpose and Audience: write persuasive letters in role as a character, and create news reports using information from the story. Key knowledge and skills:
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What writing skills and knowledge do we learn about in Year 3?
Sentence Construction
Subordinating Conjunctions
Subordinating conjunctions can be used to add information and extend ideas, showing reason, cause and time. Here are some exaplmes of subordinating conjunctions: so that, while, when, in order to, because, until etc...
Leo took the food because he was hungry.
We water plants so that they won't die.
Main and subordinate clauses
A complex sentence contains a main and subordinate clause.
The main clause makes sense on its own whereas the subordinate clause does not.
There is no order as to where these clauses are in a sentence, subordinate and main clauses can be at both the beginning and the end of sentences.
Although I was hungry, I didn't eat dinner.
The sun was shining as I walked to work.
Subordinating conjunctions can be used to help identify the subordinate clause as they can be found at the beginning of this clause.
We put on our coats when it is winter.
While I walked down the street, it started to rain.
Relative clause
A relative clause adds information to a sentence. It may also have been called a 'who clause' as prior to year three, the relative clauses used have generally begum with 'who'.
The young boy, who was four years old, had blond hair.
In year 3 children should start to extend their knowledge of relative clauses and start to use which, whom, whose and that.
Sam, who was lost, sat down and cried.
The fire of London, which started in Pudding Lane, spread quickly.
Vary sentence openings
Children should start to vary their sentence openings by using:
- ed, ing, ly starters
Exhausted, the tennis player sank to his knees.
Sighing, the boy finished his homework.
- When starters (time connectives) eventually, when, the next day, after that ...
After that, the boy fled.
The next day I confronted him.
- Where starters (prepositional phrases)
Beside the tree there was a fluffy rabbit.
Inside the casket there was nothing but dust.
- 'pattern of 3' (for description and action)
We finished lunch, got on the coach and sang loudly.
The boy opened the door, crept inside and closed it silently behind him.
Topic Sentences
Topic sentences are used to to summarise and begin a non-fiction paragraph. Topic sentences tell you what the paragraph is about but does not add any more information. They are like sub-headings in that they guide the reader.
Dragons live in a variety of different habitats.
Flowers come in all shapes and sizes.
Punctuation
Colon
This can be used before a list.
We will need:
-two eggs
-100g flour
-1 pint of milk
Click here to try a learning activity.
Apostrophe for contractions
A contraction is where two words are shortened into one. When this happens an apostrophe should be used to mark where the missing letters are.
Do not --- Don't
Did not --- Didn't
Should not --- Shouldn't
Speech
When using speech there are some important things that you need to remember.
- Speech marks are used to separate direct speech from the rest of the text. Speech marks can also be used here.
"He's very clever," she boasted.
- Speech verbs need to be used after the direct speech. These explain how something was said.
"Let me go!" screamed Mary.
- New line for a new speaker. When writing direct speech you must start a new line every time a new person is speaking.
"Where is she?" questioned Simon.
"That's for me to know and you to find out," teased the stranger.
Use of commas after openers
Commas should be used after: 'ed, ing, ly' starters, sentence openers and to mark dropped in phrases or causes (relative clauses).
Surprisingly, it did not rain.
Before he had time to think, the door swung open and someone knocked him off his feet.
The young girl, who had long golden hair, was no where to be seen.
Word Structure and Language
Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
Prepositions are words that describe where things are.
Next to
By the side of
In front of
During
Through
Throughout
Because of
A prepositional phrase is a phrase of sentences which includes a preposition.
I saw a man in front of the shed.
A fox exercise from the side of the road.
During dinner, I felt rather ill.
Click here to try a learning activity
Nouns
- 'Name it' - use specific nouns to create effect
'poodle' in stead of 'dog'
- Understand collective nouns and use simple nouns accurately in a sentence
a flock of sheep
- Invent collective nouns
a shaggy field of sheep
- Use more sophisticated noun phrases
'a horror film' rather than 'a film'
- Find and invent nouns formed from prefixes
in- inform super- supernatural re- recover
Adjectives
A greater range of adjectives should be used:
- for precision and impact
- for emphasis (ensuring that the adjectives are chosen carefully)
- as adjectives of degree to express a simple range of intensity
boiling, warm, tepid, cold, freezing etc...
Adverbs
- Form adverbs from adjectives using suffixes
-ly sadly completely
- Use adverbial phrases to say where and how something is happening
at the end of the lane
over the hill
- Use a range of single adverbs within sentences to show how
They plodded on silently up the hill.
Verbs
- Use powerful verbs
The snake slithered away.
- Use the past perfect form of verbs to make relationships of time and cause
He has eaten the bones as well, so there is nothing left for anyone else.
- Use future correctly
I will drive to the shops.
- Use irregular and inflected past tense accurately
She has gone away for a week.
Word families
These are a group of words that are that have links to a common word.
Children should investigate meanings and spellings of related words by adding suffixes.
help, helps, helped, helper, helping, helpful, helpfulness, helpless, helplessly etc...
National Curriculum Terminology
- Word family
- Conjunction
- Adverb
- Preposition
- Direct speech
- Inverted commas (or speech marks)
- Prefix
- Consonant
- Vowel
- Clause
- Subordinate clause
Text structure
Plan or orally rehearse
Before writing it is useful for children to plan and/or rehearse what they are going to write out loud. This enables them to have a clear direction of where their writing is heading before they start. It can help children order their thoughts and this allows their thoughts and creativity to flow more freely onto the page.
Organise material around a theme leading into use of paragraphs
Help children to understand that 'chunking' (see 'chunking' in year 2) related thoughts and ideas into paragraphs helps the reader. A new paragraph suggests a shift to something new or different.
Adverbials as sentence openers
Children should be using a variety of adverbials as sentence openers (ed-ing-ly).
Bored with waiting, jake wondered off.
Shaking, Jo felt for the switch.
Quietly she crept past the staircase.
Position of adverbials
Children should experiment with the position of adverbials in order to create differing effect. The place of an adverbial can change the meaning and effect of a sentence.
Slowly, we walked home.
We walked slowly home.
We walked home slowly.
Connectives
Consolidate and develop the use of connectives for different text types. When writing, children should consider what connectives are appropriate for the type of text that they are writing.
Tenses and Writing Perspectives
Children should consistently use tenses as well as the first and third person.
Pronouns
Pronouns should be used:
- to help sentences flow and to join them up coherently
- understand that nouns and pronouns within sentences must relate to each other clearly
- understand how over-use of pronouns can confuse readers and lead to ambiguity
Text Organisation
Children should organise their writing by using:
- headings
- titles
- subtitles
- paragraphs
- fact boxes etc...
The Reader
When writing children should think about the reader and what effect their writing may have on them. This may effect their use of vocabulary, punctuation and other literary techniques.
Language Effects
Specific and Technical Vocabulary
Children should use more specific and technical vocabulary to add detail.
A few dragons of this variety can breathe on any creature and turn it to stone immediately.
Drops of rain pounded on the corrugated, tin roof.
Boastful Language
Use boastful language to interest the reader.
- magnificent
- unbelievable
- extraordinary
- exceptional
Similes
Use as/like similes, extending them to add more detail and specificity.
...like a boat bouncing on stormy waves
...like a cat purring loudly
Personification
Use personification to give non-human things with thoughts and feelings.
The trees bowed over backwards, looking up to the sky.
The unlit doorway beckoned her on.
Powerful Speech Verbs
Speech verbs should be chosen carefully to reflect what the character is feeling.
- sighed
- shouted
- whispered
- yelled
- shouted
- joked etc...
Exclamations
Exclamations are introduces in year 3.
- Oh dear!
- Hey!
- Ow!
- Well I never!
Some exclamation begin with 'what' or 'how'.
- What a beautiful day!
- How stupid is he!
- What a quiet little girl!
Questions
Questions can be used to intrigue the reader. Using a question in the title of a piece of writing can act as a 'hook' and encourage the reader to continue reading.
Yetis - do they exist?
Would you recognise an ogre if you saw one?
They can also be used effectively in:
- persuasive texts.
What do you think?
Would you want your pet to be treated like this?
- instrucational texts
How do you trap a troll?
- a story
What was it?
Alliteration
Use alliteration to create sound effects.
The wild wind whipped the shoreline.
Notice onomatopoeia when reading
Onomatopoeic words echo sounds associated with their meaning. Children are expected to be able to identify these when reading.
- clang
- hiss
- crash
- bang
- pop
