These Narrative Writing Prompts for Early Years Students

Use these narrative writing prompts for early years students to encourage your students to create, sequence ideas, build vocabulary and begin shaping their own stories. Coming up with ideas can be tough, especially for students just starting out, that’s where these prompts help by giving them an accessible starting point.

This resource set features 18 early‑years‑friendly narrative prompts, each with:

• A colourful visual stimulus
• Guiding oral language questions
• Planning templates for ideas
• Both printable worksheets and digital slides for flexible use

This structure helps young learners picture their story and organise their thinking in a way that feels achievable.

Ways to Use These Narrative Writing Prompts in Your Classroom

Here are a few simple ways to build lessons around these prompts:

1. Explore the Images Together – Display the digital slides on your interactive whiteboard and invite students to share what they notice. Discuss the guiding questions to build oral language and vocabulary.
2. Plan Through Talking, Drawing or Writing – Have students record their ideas on the planning sheets. Early years learners may prefer drawing characters, settings or key moments before adding words.
3. Independent Writing Time – Support students as they expand their ideas into a short narrative. Some students may write a few sentences, others a full page — both are great outcomes at this stage.
4. Share With a Partner – Encourage students to share their stories with a classmate. This reinforces the idea that stories are created for an audience.

Download Your Early Years Writing Prompts

Use the Download button above to access the PDF version or the editable Google Slides file. Google users can make their own copy before editing.

This set fits neatly into early years English lessons and can be used multiple times throughout the year to build confidence and creativity in young writers.

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a teacher in Michigan and Teach Starter Collaborator.

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