Our new Transcriptional Fluency Project starts on Wednesday 18th November has been designed to help lower Key Stage 2 teachers support less confident writers. Through practical, evidence-informed strategies, teachers will explore how to build the fluency pupils need to become more confident and independent writers.
In our recent pilot, schools reported improvements in pupils’ confidence, fluency, independence and self-esteem. By strengthening transcriptional fluency, the project aims to give pupils the foundations they need to take part in writing with greater confidence and independence.
Kathy Roe, Lead Teaching & Learning Adviser Primary English shares "This is such an exciting new piece of training. Having seen the impact of the pilot first-hand, I am genuinely excited about the difference it could make for children who find writing challenging. Early findings have shown improvements in pupils' confidence, fluency, independence and self-esteem, with dictation becoming "a vehicle for confidence, self-regulation and success" when used as part of a carefully structured approach to transcriptional fluency."
For some children, getting their ideas onto the page can feel like hard work. They are trying to manage handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, working memory and self-monitoring all at once. When so much attention is needed for transcription, there is less capacity available to focus on meaning, audience and composition.
The project is based on a simple principle: before asking children to write more, we need to help them write more fluently. As handwriting and spelling become more automatic, pupils can give more of their attention to what they want to say and how they want to say it.
The focus is not simply on producing more writing. Instead, it is about creating more opportunities for successful writing while maintaining high expectations for every pupil.
