Download Writing guide for pupils and parents

Created by Ben
Ward
- Trotts Hill Primary
School
Sentences
Many sentences contain subjects, verbs and objects.
The subject is usually the thing or person who is carrying out an action.
The object is the thing or person that is involved in an action, but does not carry it out.
In the example above, the man is the subject because he is doing something (eating a cream cake). The word 'ate' is the
verb. The cream cake is the object. Every word used within a sentence has a specific role.
Clause A clause is a
group of words
which does contain
a verb; it is part of a
sentence. There
are two kinds of
clauses:
A main clause
(makes sense on its
own) e.g.: Sue bought a new dress.
A subordinate clause (does not make sense on its own; it depends on the main clause for its meaning)
Phrase A phrase is two or more words that do not contain the subject-verb pair necessary to form a clause. A phrase is a
bunch of words that go together and are built around a single word that they develop. A phrase is a short, single piece of
information. They do not make full sense on their own. Certain phrases have specific names based on the type of word
that begins or governs the word group, such as: noun phrase, verb phrase and prepositional phrase. For instance:

The huge, angry dog is a phrase built around a noun (dog).

Carefully walked is a phrase built around a verb (walked).

Under the water is a phrase built around a preposition (under).
Types of sentences:
Statement These are sentences which state facts.
It is hot.
The butter is in the fridge.
Question These are sentences which ask for an answer.
Are you hot? Where is the butter?
Command These are sentences which give orders or requests.
Play the movie. Give me a dinosaur for my birthday.
Exclamation These are sentences which express a strong feeling of emotion.
My goodness, it’s hot!
I absolutely love this movie!
Sentences
There are two types of sentences:
‘single-clause sentence’ and ‘multi-clause sentence’.
To be a superstar writer you need to use both sentence types in your writing.
Single-clause sentence (simple sentence)
A single-clause sentence has one verb, which means there is one clause.
A main clause makes sense on its own.
The girl danced on the stage.
The boy scored a goal.
Short simple sentences are especially good to use:

In stories, echoing the action: She stopped. He ran.

In non-fiction, to introduce paragraphs or new ideas: The lion can leap up to 2 meters.
However, using lots of simple sentences can be very boring for a reader.
I went out. It was raining hard. I put up my brolly. I saw my friend Daisy. I called loudly to her.
She came over.
Use adjectives, adverbial phrases, expanded noun phrases and prepositional phrases to add detail to single-clause
sentences.
The blue balloon drifted quietly over a tall boy and his excited dog.
Multi-clause sentence (coordinating and subordinating sentences)
Multi-clause sentences are made up of one or more single-clause sentences joined by
coordinating conjunctions, e.g. and, but, or, so,
It was raining hard so I put up my brolly.
We can go out or we can stay in.
Lucy enjoys playing sports and she likes to go to the cinema.
Water fights are dangerous but children love them.


Multi-clause sentences can also have one main clause and one or more
subordinate clauses. Remember:
A main clause makes sense on its own.
A subordinate clause does not make sense on its own.
These sentences are often made by using a subordinating conjunction or phrases, e.g. although,
as, because, if, since, though, when, while.
I put up my brolly because it was raining.
(Main clause) (Subordinate clause)
Josh will become the top goal scorer if he scores in the next match.
The dog ate a bone while the cat ran after a mouse.
Nouns
Noun a word used for naming an animal, a person, a place or a thing.
Common nouns are the names of everyday things, e.g. cars, bottle, trees.
Proper noun is the name of a particular person, animal, place or thing, and always begins with a capital letter, e.g. Josh, Panama, Monday.
Amy went to France on Saturday and took her camera with her.
Collective noun describes a group or collection of people or things. E.g. army, bunch, team, swarm.
Abstract noun describes things that cannot actually be seen, heard, smelt, felt or tasted. E.g. sleep, honesty, boredom, freedom, power
Pronouns
Sometimes you refer to a person or a thing not by its actual name, but by another word which stands for it. The word you use
to stand for a noun is called a pronoun (which means ‘for a noun’). We use pronouns so that we do not have to repeat the
same nouns over again.
Have a look at the following sentence: When Barnaby stroked the cat and listened to the cat purring softly, Barnaby felt calm
and peaceful. Compare it with the same sentence where some of the nouns have been replaced by pronouns: When Barnaby
stroked the cat and listened to it purring softly, he felt calm and peaceful.
Singular pronouns Singular pronouns are used to refer to one person or thing.
E.g. I, you, me, he, she, it, you, him, her, mine, yours, his, hers, its
Plural pronouns Plural pronouns are used to refer to more than one person or thing. E.g. we, they, us, them, ours, yours,
theirs
Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describes a noun.
E.g. slimy, blue, enormous, repulsive, thundering, magnificent
Adjectives can come before or after a noun; they describe somebody of something.
The burglar was wearing a black jacket, a furry hat and a large mask over his face. (The words in bold tell us more about the
noun that follows)
An adjective usually comes before a noun but sometimes it can be separated from its noun and come afterwards Ben looked
frightened; the dog was very fierce
Interrogative (‘asking’) adjectives e.g.: What? Which? They are used to ask questions about a noun.
Possessive adjectives e.g.: my, our, their, his, your Possessive adjectives show ownership.
Adjectives of number or quantity e.g. much, more, most, little, some, any, enough These answer the question: How much?
She invited five friends for breakfast; she did not have any food left
Demonstrative (‘pointing-out’) adjectives e.g.: this, that, these, those Demonstrative adjectives answer the question:
Which?
Those apples and these pears are bad; That man stole this handbag.
Verbs
A verb is a word, or a group of words, that tells you what a person or thing is being or doing. It is often called a ‘doing’
word: e.g. running, eating, sitting, walking, speaks, cried, sang
Jack always runs to school.
Clear and interesting writing is often achieved through the use of powerful verbs. Jack jumped up and rapidly pulled tins
and packets out of the cupboard.
Auxiliary verb A verb is often made up of more than one word. The actual verb-word is helped out by parts of
the special verbs: the verb to be and the verb to have. These ‘helping’ verbs are called auxiliary verbs and can
help us to form tenses.
Auxiliary verbs for ‘to be’ include: am, are, is, was, were,
Auxiliary verbs for ‘to have’ include: have, had, hasn’t, has, will have, will not have.
I have arrived (‘arrived’ is the main verb and ‘have’ is the auxiliary verb)
We are waiting (‘waiting’ is the main verb and ‘are’ is the auxiliary verb)
Adverbs
Adverbs are used to tell how something was done.
An adverb tells you more about the verb (it ‘adds’ to the verb). It nearly always answers the questions: How? When?
Where? or Why?
Most adverbs in English end in –ly and come from adjectives:
E.g. soft – softly; slow – slowly.
e.g. quietly, enthusiastically, quickly, miserably, nervously
The old man climbed slowly and painfully up the winding stairs.
Adverb or Adjective?
Some words can be either adverbs or adjectives depending on what they do in a sentence, e.g. fast, hard, late.
If they answer the questions: How? When? Where? or Why? – they are adverbs.
If they answer the question: “What is it like?” - they are adjectives, and will be telling you more about a specific noun.
Life is hard. (adjective)
Kim works hard. (adverb)
The train arrived early. (adverb)
I took an early train. (adjective)
Prepositions
Prepositions are words which show the relationship of one thing to another.
e.g. after, before, on, under, inside, outside
After walking for miles she rested on a small hill.
Tom jumped over the cat.
The monkey is in the tree.
Other examples of prepositions include: up, across, into, past, under, below, above.
Determiners
Determiners are words that come before a noun. They introduce the noun and give the reader important information
about it.
Articles An article is always used with and gives some information about a noun. There are three articles: a, an and the
the chair; a table; an elephant
*There is sometimes confusion about whether to use a or an. The sound of a word’s first letter helps us to know which
to use: If a word begins with a vowel sound, you should use an; if a word begins with a consonant sound, you should use
a.
Demonstratives There are four demonstratives: this, that, these and those.
For these words to act as demonstratives, they must be in front of a noun.
That porridge was delicious.
Those people were so rude! (Those is a determiner)
Possessive Determiners My, your, his, her, its, our and their, before a noun are possessive determiners.
My writing is neater that yours.
His class are so lazy.
Her singing was more tuneful than his.
Their team beat ours.
Quantifier Determiners How many or how much of something. Numbers before a noun are quantifier determiners.
I ate six biscuits.
The flat’s on the sixth floor.
There were 2,000 ants.
Sometimes determiners use the word ‘of’ before the noun.
Most of the crowd thought it was a goal.
He ate some of the food.
Punctuation
Superstar writers use a range of punctuation accurately and
purposefully. However, if you do
not use them correctly your sentences will not make sense. So be careful!
Full Stop . Signals the end of a sentence.
I think dogs are great.
Inverted Commas “ ” Shows the exact words someone has spoken.
Harry said “There’s going to be trouble”.
Exclamation Mark ! Emphasises some special meaning in a sentence. It can show surprise, joy,
anger, danger and more.
What an amazing goal!
Question Mark ? Marks the end of a sentence that is a question.
Do you like chocolate?
Apostrophe ’ 1. To show who owns what (possession).
This is Josh’s bag.
2. To fill in for missing letters (apostrophes of contraction).
James couldn’t (could not) find his watch.
Hyphen - Used to join two or more words into a new, compound word.
ice-cream, go-kart.
Comma , Used to separate single terms in a list.
The school shop will now sell: glue sticks, rulers, pens and notebooks.
Semi-colon (;) Used to separate phrases or clauses in a list.
Future Park has many fascinating attractions: a water dome heated entirely by solar power; sculptures made from recycled
materials; a wind-powered fairground and a totally organic garden.
Ellipsis (...) Used to show there is a long pause or at the end of the sentence to create suspense.
“The sight was awesome… truly amazing.”
Mr Daily gritted his teeth, gripped the scalpel tightly in his right hand and slowly advanced…
’It’s gone…’ The voice trailed off, as she realised the implication of the loss.
Dash (-) Used to add an afterthought.
My great aunt was evil and - there’s no polite way to put this - smelly.
To show interruption:
“The girl is my – “
“Sister,” interrupted Miles, “She looks just like you.”
To show repetition:
“You-you monster!” cried the frightened woman.
“St-st-stop!” stammered the boy.
Bullet • A bullet ( • ) is a symbol used to introduce items in a list.



Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
For example:
Bulleted items – known as "bullet points" – may be short phrases, single sentences, or of paragraph length. Bulleted items are not
usually terminated with a full stop but you can punctuate the last item with a full stop. It is correct to terminate a bullet point with a
full stop if the text within that item consists of one 'full' sentence or more.
Further Punctuation
Comma ,
Used to separate single terms in a list.
The school shop will now sell: glue sticks, rulers, pens and notebooks.
To indicate contrast:
The snake was brown, not green, and it was quite small.
Where the phrase (embedded clause) could be in brackets:
The recipe, which we hadn't tried before, is very easy to follow.
Where the phrase adds relevant information:
Mr Hardy, aged 68, ran his first marathon five years ago.
To mark a subordinate clause:
If at first you don't succeed, try again.
Though the snake was small, I still feared for my life.
Even though it was pouring down with rain, we still went to the park.
Introductory or opening phrases:
In general, sixty-eight is quite old to run a marathon.
On the whole, snakes only attack when riled.
Conjunctive verbs:
Unfortunately, the bear was already in a bad mood and, furthermore, pink wasn't its colour.
Semi-colon (;)
To connect two independent clauses that share the same theme.
I went to see a movie with friends this week; we went to see the film for Sarah’s birthday.
To act as a conjunction between two clauses of equal weight.
Florence was very keen on swimming; her sister preferred cycling.
Brackets ( )
Used to add extra information.
Liam’s teacher (Miss Richens) always dressed in style.
To clarify information:
Jamie's bike was red (bright red) with a yellow stripe.
For asides and comments:
The bear was pink (I kid you not).
To give extra details:
His first book (The Colour Of Magic) was written in 1989.
Colon :
Used to introduce a list:
The following are all mammals: cow, dog, human.
Before a summary:
To summarise: we found the camp, set up our tent and then the bears attacked.
Before a line of speech:
Tom asked: “May I have another cupcake?”
Before a statement of fact:
There are only three kinds of people: the good, the bad and the ugly.
Types of Conjunctions
To be a superstar writer, you need to make links between your sentences and your paragraphs, so your writing
flows.
Sometimes you need to help your reader see the connections between your
sentences and paragraphs, and you do this by using conjunctions. Conjunctions are words or phrases that link
clauses and sentences or introduce new paragraphs.
Superstars can use a range of conjunctions accurately.
Adding detail conjunctions
– To add extra information
 and
 also
 as well as
 furthermore
 in addition
cause and effect conjunctions
– To add explanations
 because
 so
 consequently
 therefore
 as a result
Illustrating conjunctions
– To support
 for example
 such as
Listing conjunctions
– To show time passing
 next
 then
 firstly, secondly, thirdly…
 finally
 after
 before
Time conjunctions
– To use in stories
 The next day
 A few days later
 That afternoon
 The following Monday
 Suddenly
 Then
 Meanwhile
Contrasting conjunctions
– To show a different idea
 but
 however
 although
 alternatively
 on the other hand
Synonyms
These are words that have a similar meaning to another word. We use synonyms to make our writing more interesting.
Bad - awful, terrible, horrible
Happy - content, joyful, pleased
Look - watch, stare, glaze
Walk - stroll, crawl, tread
Antonyms
These are words with the opposite meaning to another word.
The antonym of up is down
The antonym of tall is short
The antonym of add is subtract
Word groups/ families
These are groups of words that have a common feature or pattern - they have some of the same combinations of letters in them and a similar sound.
at, cat, hat, and fat are a family of words with the "at" sound and letter combination in common.
bike, hike, like, spike and strike are a family of words with the "ike" sound and letter combination in common.
blame, came, fame, flame and game are a family of words with the "ame" sound and letter combination in common.
Prefix
Prefixes are added to the beginning of an existing word in order to create a new word with a different meaning.
Adding ‘un’ to happy – unhappy
Adding ‘dis’ to appear – disappear
Adding ‘re’ to try – retry
Suffix
Suffixes are added to the end of an existing word to create a new word with a different meaning.
Adding ‘ish’ to child – childish
Adding ‘able’ to like – likeable
Adding ‘ion’ to act – action
Root words
Root words are words that have a meaning of their own but can be added to either with a prefix (before the root) or a suffix (after the root) to
change the meaning of the word. Root words can often be helpful in finding out what a word means or where it is ‘derived’ from.
help is a root word, It can grow into: helps, helpful, helped, helping, helpless, unhelpful
Singular
A singular noun names one person, place or thing (a single item). One bike, One mango, One dress, One fly, One turkey, One half
Plural
More than one person, place or thing. Most nouns are made into plurals by adding –s:
Three bikes
Some nouns ending in –o are made into plurals by adding –es:
Two mangoes
Most nouns ending in hissing, shushing or buzzing sounds are made into plurals by adding –es: Ten dresses
For words ending in a vowel and then –y, just add –s:
Eight turkeys
For words ending in a consonant and then –y, change -y to -i
and add –es:
Five flies
Most nouns ending in -f or-fe change to -ves in the plural:
Six halves
Speech Punctuation
There are two ways of telling a reader what a character says:
Indirect Speech
This is also known as reported speech, when you don’t use the speakers’ exact words but report what they said.
Here you do not need speech marks.
The doctor told me how he saved her life.
The teacher threatened to give me extra homework if I did not improve my work.
Alice said that she liked watching rugby on T.V.
Direct Speech
You can use the speaker’s actual words inside inverted commas “ “ or ‘ ‘.
The most common punctuation is a comma. Here the comma is used at the end of the spoken words INSIDE the
speech marks.
‘We are going to have a wonderful time,’ he announced.
If the speaker continues talking, you need another comma before the next
spoken words.
‘We are going to have a wonderful time,’ he announced, ‘and everyone will take part!’
If you start the sentences with the speaker and speech verb, the commas comes before the inverted comma and
the speech begins with a capital letter.
Flora said, ‘You don’t have to go.’
Full stops, exclamation marks and question marks must be placed inside the inverted commas.
‘I’m not going!’ she yelled.
And finally: new speaker = new line.
‘I’m not going’ she yelled.
‘Why not?’ asked Mr Parker.
Active and Passive Voice
Active Voice
A sentence using the ACTIVE verb is one where the subject of the sentence carries out the action described by the verb and the object of the
sentence has the action done to it.
Subject
Verb
Object
The mouse frightened the cat.
Passive Voice
A sentence using the PASSIVE verb is one where the subject of the sentence has the action described done to it. If the object is included in the
sentence, it is usually at the end with the word by used before it.
Object
Verb
Subject
The cat was frightened by the mouse.
Simile
Similes create an image in the reader’s mind by comparing a subject (object, person etc.) to something else. The
comparison is often made by using words ‘as’ or ‘like’ and the comparisons are frequently exaggerated.
Her eyes sparkled like sunlight on the water.
He was as tall as the Empire State Building.
Metaphor
Metaphors describe a subject by writing as if it really is something else.
A metaphor can sound stronger than a simile.
The twins were a hurricane leaving a trail of destruction behind them.
A river of tears streamed down the old woman’s face.
Onomatopoeia
An onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the natural sound of a noun. It creates a sound effect that mimics the
thing described, making the
description more expressive and interesting.
Crash
Bang
Clap
Ripped
Swish
Flush
Pop
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of each or most of the words in a sentence.
Anxious ants avoid anteater’s advances.
The wild winds whisk to the west.
Personification
Personification is when you give human qualities to an inanimate object or an animal.
Lightening danced across the sky.
The wind howled in the night.
My alarm clock yells at me every morning.