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.
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Alliteration Poem Poster and Templates
Use this alliteration poem example and accompanying worksheets to teach your students how to write an alliteration poem.
- Free Plan
Bumping-Up Procedure Texts Worksheet
Download these procedural writing worksheets to get your students bumping-up some simple procedure texts.
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Simple Informative Texts - Writing Scaffold
A simple scaffolding worksheet to use when writing informative texts.
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Procedural Writing Sequencing Worksheet – How to Wash Your Dog
Use this procedural writing worksheet to teach your students about the importance of sequence in procedure texts.
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Personal Recounts Sequencing Worksheet Pack
Use this set of simple personal recounts to help students learn the structure of a recount by reading, identifying key features, and sequencing events into the correct order.
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Landscape Adjective Hunt Worksheet Pack
Use these worksheets to help your Year 2 students bring settings to life using adjectives in descriptive writing.
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Australian Animals Writing Prompts and Puppets
Use these cute Australian animal writing prompts and puppets to explore Australian animals and write a short story.
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Simple and Compound - Roll a Sentence Dice Game
Play a ‘Roll-a-Sentence’ dice game to help your students practise writing simple and compound sentences.
- Free Plan
Editing for Incomplete Sentences Worksheet
Use this complete and incomplete sentences worksheet to fine tune your students' editing skills.
- Free Plan
How Do Rocks Form? – Informative Text Sequencing Task
Help students learn about informative text structure and how rocks are formed with an engaging cut-and-paste sorting activity.
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Grammar Practice Worksheets - Vocabulary Cut and Sort
Review parts of speech and vocabulary skills with a pack of cut-and-paste grammar practice worksheets.
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Procedural Writing Prompt Task Cards
Need some procedural writing ideas? Download these task cards to use as a writing activity during your procedure writing unit.
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R-Controlled Digraphs Worksheet Pack
Practise writing and enhancing knowledge of r-controlled digraphs with this worksheet pack.
- Free Plan
Procedural Writing Activity - How to Make a Sundae
Inspire students to generate procedural writing texts with a fun, summer-themed end-of-year writing assignment and craft.
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How to Make a Paper Plane – Procedural Writing Worksheet
Explore how to make a paper plane while your students fine-tune their procedural writing skills.
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Write a Biography PowerPoint
Use this age-appropriate biography PowerPoint to teach your students about the purpose, structure and features of biographical texts.
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Five Senses Graphic Organiser
A graphic organiser to use when brainstorming sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes.
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Alphabet Handwriting Sheets - Including Non-Examples
Handwriting sheets with opportunities for students to trace, identify and write the letters of the alphabet.
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Elements of Poetry Teaching Slides
Explore the key elements of poetry with your students using this comprehensive and age-appropriate slide deck perfect for your poetry writing unit.
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Vivid Verbs Poster Pack
Teach your students to omit boring, overused verbs from their writing with a classroom set of vivid verb posters.
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Writing Lower Case Letters
Students practice writing the lower case letter next to the provided capital letter.
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Nouns Worksheet Pack
Use these noun worksheets to support students in identifying and using nouns within sentences.
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Explanation Text Poster Pack
Use this Explanation Text poster set with your students to clearly show the structure and text elements of an explanation text.
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Past Tense Verbs Worksheets
Use these past tense verbs worksheets to help your students identify and use past tense verb forms in a variety of contexts.
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Compound Sentences Interactive Game
Use this camp-themed simple and compound sentences interactive game to help students practise identifying simple and compound sentences.
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Independent and Dependent Clauses Teaching Slides
Support students to understand independent and dependent clauses through explicit instruction using this clear and engaging slide deck for Year 4 students.
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Persuasive Writing Assessment Pack Year 1
Use this task to guide Year 1 students through the complete persuasive writing process as they create a simple persuasive text about the best toy (including a criteria sheet).
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Emotive Vocabulary Worksheet Pack
Use this emotive vocabulary worksheet set to build persuasive writing skills in your early writers.
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Narrative Writing Craft Packs
Help early writers escape writer's block with this scaffolded narrative writing craft pack.
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Sentence Building Cards and Mat
Use these Sentence Building Cards with Mat to explore the main features of a simple sentence with your Prep students.
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Year 6 Compound Sentence Writing Worksheets - Conjunctions & Semicolons
Print these Year 6 Compound Sentence Writing Worksheets to help your students practise writing compound sentences using conjunctions and semicolons.
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Writing Compound-Complex Sentences Worksheet
Use a Compound-Complex Sentences Worksheet to help your upper primary students learn to use advanced sentence structures in their writing.
- Writing Worksheets
- Writing Templates
- Writing Games
- Writing Posters
- 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