The use of writing frames and planning tools to improve structure and increase depth in writing

Knowing how to structure ideas is hard for many learners, especially those with literacy difficulties. Scaffolding a task before they begin to work on it can help learners to develop the depth of their writing.   What does it mean? Scaffolding support for pupils that find writing difficult increases the opportunity for them to become successful writers and have the confidence to put their own ideas into words. The scaffold is managed by the teacher and can be adapted for different pupils. The scaffold can then be reduced as the pupil’s confidence grows – for example, providing a pupil with sentence starters to answer comprehension questions and subsequently reducing the number of words given until they complete the answers unaided. Scaffolds support several different types of learners: those with anxiety and fear of the blank page, learners with organisation issues and those with literacy difficulties including dyslexia and dyspraxia. Writing can become distilled do