Writing Teaching Resources
Teaching writing strategies and the writing process this school year? Explore a comprehensive collection of teacher resources for primary English teachers — all created by teachers!
Stocked with graphic organisers, writing prompts, templates, worksheets and so much more, this collection of printable and digital activities is designed to help you as you help your students become more effective communicators and unleash their creativity and imagination.
Save time on lesson planning with resources that are aligned with the Australian curriculum (including version 9!) and have been through a careful review process by an expert member of our teacher team to ensure they're ready for your classroom and your students!
Are you looking for tips and tricks to add to your teacher toolkit this school year? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including engaging activities for teaching writing inprimary school and a look at some of the different writing strategies your students will need to learn.
11 Writing Strategies Kids Should Know by the End of Primary School
We can't talk about teaching kids to write without talking about the different writing strategies that can help them do just that!
When it comes to teaching our students to become confident writers who articulate their ideas effectively, here are some of the strategies our teacher team prioritises:
1. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is something we often do in the classroom, and it's a crucial part of learning to generate the ideas that will drive students' writing as they progress through their educational journey. Kids should know how to create a list of potential topics or points related to a particular writing assignment.
With younger students, this is often done as a whole group by writing ideas and points on chart paper. In upper years, students transition over to using text-based materials to generate ideas and talking points.
2. Outlining
Before diving directly into any assignment, our students should be able to create a structured framework or outline. Teaching students how to create this outline will help them organise their thoughts and arguments for penning their essays, reports and research papers.
3. Using Graphic Organisers
Technically graphic organisers are classroom tools, so you may not think of their use as a writing strategy per se. However, learning to use these tools is another means of providing kids with the tools they need to organize their ideas and information before they sit down to write.
These organisers are particularly useful for expository writing — students can use them to outline main ideas, supporting details, and transitions.
Students can also take advantage of story maps when they are working on narrative writing to plot the key elements of a story, such as characters, setting, conflict, rising action, climax and resolution.
Graphic organisers such as the OREO strategy and hamburger paragraph are also great tools for students to use when working with opinion and persuasive texts.
4. Freewriting
Writer's block is the enemy of creativity, and it can easily frustrate young students who don't know where to begin.
When students freewrite, they write continuously without worrying about grammar or punctuation. This writing strategy can be extremely freeing — hence the name! — and helps frustrated writers move past that writer's block, generating fresh ideas.
5. Peer Editing
Learning to review and provide constructive feedback on each other's work is a great writing strategy to employ in your classroom to help students improve their writing quality and enhance their editing skills.
The strategy allows your students to learn from one another, and it arms them with an important tool they can use well into the future — calling on peers to provide a critical eye to a piece of writing.
6. Using Sensory Language
Working on descriptive writing? With this writing strategy, students engage the reader's senses through vivid and sensory language to create a more immersive experience.
7. Including Transitions and Connectives
As students become more proficient in the writing process, learning to use transitional words and phrases allows them to create smooth transitions between sentences and paragraphs. This strategy makes their writing more coherent and polished.
8. Incorporating Evidence
In persuasive, opinion and expository writing, students are taught to support their claims with evidence and examples to strengthen their arguments.
It takes some practice to train your students to use evidence in their writing, so it's often a good idea to start with something simple, like the R.A.C.E.S. strategy.
9. Crafting a Thesis Statement
In expository, opinion and persuasive writing, crafting clear and concise thesis statements that summarise the main point or argument of their essay helps students be more focused and organised in their writing.
This strategy can also have the effect of empowering students to express their ideas confidently and persuasively.
10. Incorporating Introductions and Conclusions
With this strategy, students practice crafting effective introductions and conclusions that grab the reader's attention and leave a lasting impression.
11. Following a Revision Checklist
Teaching your students to use a revision checklist is a strategy that will help them be more self-reflective, evaluating their own writing against the checklist criteria and becoming more aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
- Plus Plan
Roll to Create a Christmas Story - Writing Prompt
Roll the die to generate a fun Christmas writing activity with a roll-to-create Christmas worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Writing Prompt Dice Game - Roll-a-Story
Roll a Christmas Writing Prompt and write a fun Christmas story with our printable writing worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Writing - December Writing Prompts
Inspire your students to write creatively with a set of 30 Christmas writing prompts for kids.
- Plus Plan
Christmas STEM – Tallest Tree Challenge
Experience hands-on STEAM concepts with your students with this Christmas Tree Building STEAM project.
- Plus Plan
Glorious Grammar Volume 1 - Worksheet Book
50 activities in one booklet which all revolve around learning grammar in the classroom.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Worksheet – Sentence Editing
Edit and correct capitalisation, punctuation, spelling and spacing errors with a set of Christmas Fix the Sentence worksheets.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Around the World Mini Book - Mexico
Introduce your students to Mexico's Christmas traditions and decorations with a printable Christmas Around the World Mini Book.
- Plus Plan
How to Decorate a Christmas Tree - Year 1 Procedural Writing Activity
Practise sequencing and writing procedural texts with an interactive ‘How to Decorate a Christmas Tree’ slide deck and differentiated writing prompts for Year 1 students.
- Plus Plan
Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences Worksheets
Use this set of five grammar worksheets to teach about the structures of simple, compound and complex sentences.
- Plus Plan
Year 3 and Year 4 English Worksheets - Christmas Printables
Add some Christmas spirit to your December grammar lessons with a printable pack of Christmas-themed Year 3 and Year 4 English worksheets.
- Plus Plan
18 Editing Worksheets - Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation
Twenty editing worksheets for spelling, grammar and punctuation.
- Free Plan
Writing the Alphabet Chart - Tracing
A chart to assist students when learning how to form letters.
- Free Plan
Dear Santa Letter Templates
Use a printable Dear Santa Letter template to write fun letters to Santa during your writing classes.
- Plus Plan
Exploring Persuasive Texts PowerPoint - Year 1 and Year 2
A 35 slide editable PowerPoint template to use when teaching your students about the structure and language features of persuasive texts.
- Plus Plan
Santa Letter Template
Write a letter to Santa with a printable letter to Santa Template.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Character Writing and Craft Templates
Choose between four adorable Christmas writing templates for your Early Years students.
- Free Plan
Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives Cut and Paste Worksheet
Have some fun identifying parts of speech by sorting school-themed nouns, verbs, and adjectives with a cut-and-paste worksheet.
- Plus Plan
Limericks for Kids - Poem Template
A 3-page limerick template and instructions for students to use when learning how to write a limerick.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Around the World – Brazil Mini Book
Introduce your students to Brazil’s Christmas traditions and decorations with a printable Christmas Around the World Mini Book.
- Free Plan
Editing Passage Task Cards for Year 3
A set of 20 editing passage task cards with answers.
- Plus Plan
Persuasive Text Writing Prompts - Complete Set
A set of 5 persuasive writing prompts, covering a variety of topics.
- Plus Plan
Forms of Poetry Posters with Annotations
A set of 9 annotated posters to use when introducing structured forms of poetry.
- Plus Plan
Christmas Task Cards - Past, Present and Future Tense Practise
Practice identifying past, present, and future tense verbs with a set of Christmas Verb Tense Task Cards!
- Plus Plan
Upper Primary Handwriting Sheets
Fifteen handwriting sheets for upper primary.
- Plus Plan
Glorious Grammar (Early Years) Volume 1 – Worksheet Book
A workbook packed with 50 grammar activities for younger years.
- Plus Plan
Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences PowerPoint
A 23 slide editable PowerPoint template which introduces the attributes of simple, compound and complex sentences.
- Free Plan
Editing Passage Task Cards - Year 4
A set of 20 editing passage task cards with answers.
- Plus Plan
Auto-Fill Customisable Spelling Activity Worksheets
Save time making custom spelling lists and spelling practise worksheets with an editable auto-fill spelling worksheet pack.
- Plus Plan
Nouns, Proper Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs and Conjunctions Posters
Enhance student understanding of the 8 parts of speech with these colourful, informative and easily-referenced grammar wall posters.
- Free Plan
Writing Numbers 0-20 - Tracing
A worksheet to assist students when learning how to form numbers.
- Free Plan
Writing a Haiku Poem Worksheet
A 2 page worksheet for students to use when learning how to write a haiku poem.
- Plus Plan
Narrative Prompts Posters
A set of 20 posters to display as narrative story prompts for students.
- Writing Worksheets
- Writing Templates
- Writing Posters
- Writing Games
- Writing Teaching Presentations
- Writing Labels, Signs & Decorations
- Writing Word Walls
- Writing Projects
- Writing for Preschool/Kindergarten
- Writing for Foundation Year
- Writing for Year 1
- Writing for Year 2
- Writing for Year 3
- Writing for Year 4
- Writing for Year 5
- Writing for Year 6
- Writing for Year 7