A guide to helping your child write sentences Writing a simple sentence Think of a simple sentence with a maximum of 5 words. Ensure that the words in the sentence follow a regular pattern of spelling or are key words (see sheet attached), for example: The man has a dog. I went to the shop. The big cat is black. The dog went to sleep. Tell your child the sentence. Hold up your hand and spread your fingers. Say the sentence, pointing to a finger for each word, as shown below. The gaps between the fingers are the “finger spaces” we leave between words. Ask how many words there are in the sentence. Ask your child what we need to start our sentence with (capital letter). Point to your first finger and ask your child how we write that word. Then ask them to write it down. Draw their attention to the gap between the fingers to remind them to leave a finger space, then ask them how we write the second word. Continue for the rest of the words, and ask your child what we need to remember at the end of our sentence. I went to the shop. LJK

Reminding children to use finger spaces Put your fingers together so there are no spaces. Ask your child if this is how we should write our words.(No finger spaces between words.) Open your fingers again and ask what the spaces between the fingers are (finger spaces). After every word your child writes, point to the gap between your fingers and get them to say it is a finger space that is needed. Incorrect spellings If your child has made a mistake with a spelling, but you can still read what it says (it is a phonically plausible attempt at spelling the word), do not correct it at this stage. Our priority is getting your child to hear the sounds in words an write them down, even if the spelling is not correct. Writing a sentence requires your child to use a lot of different skills at the same time. We will correct spelling at a later stage in your child’s development. The most important things to concentrate on at the moment are: Starting the sentence with a capital letter. Sounding out every word carefully and writing down the sounds they can hear. Remembering spaces between words. Using a full stop at the end of a sentence. Making it a bit more interesting Children love to use different coloured pens to write with. Try getting your child to write the same sentence again using a different colour pen. Let your child use a different colour pen for every word. This makes it easy to read the words, even when they forget to use finger spaces. LJK

Ideas of CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant)words to use in your sentences sun, bun, fun dog, log, fog hat, cat, mat bed, red, fan, pan, man pig, dig, big box, fox ten, hen, pen Ideas of CVCC/CCVC words to use belt, tent, sink. milk, lamp, frog, flat, plug, sink, drip, drop Tricky words Igonotothe heshemewebe wasyoutheyaremy her High Frequency words theandatosaidinhe Iofitwasyoutheyon sheisforathisbut LJK