Writing in Year 3 (age 7–8)
In Year 3, your child will continue to develop across the different strands of writing: imagination and ideas, audience and purpose, handwriting or typing, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Read on to discover the National Curriculum expectations for writing in Year 3, and to find out how you can support your child at home.
How to help at home
There are lots of ways you can help your Year 3 child with writing. Here are our top ideas.
1. Read to your child
While children do learn new language and ideas from speaking and listening, the type of language we use in writing is often very different from that in speech. Reading regularly to your child, especially longer chapter books that they might not be able to yet read independently, is a great way to support their writing.
While your child will have some favourite books and types of book that they’ll want to listen to again and again, try to make sure they get to hear a range of different types of books, including fiction and non-fiction. This is useful for their writing because it models lots of language styles.
For books to read with your child, take a look at our free eBook library .
2. Have your child to read to you
Making time to hear your child read isn’t just good for their reading. Seeing words in print helps them to understand the words, to spell them, and to see how grammar and punctuation are used to make meaning.
When you read, occasionally talk about why the author has decided to include something and how they written it. For example:
‘I wonder why the author has chosen to describe the castle as “gloomy”? I wonder what that tells us about what might happen there?’
3. Try some real-world writing
Writing for a real purpose can be a great way to fit in some practice. Writing cards, shopping lists, or letters/emails to relatives can be motivating real life reasons for writing, and can show children how useful it is to be able to write well.
Your child might enjoy keeping a diary or writing short stories based on books they have read or toys they enjoy playing with. Be sure to encourage your child to write about what most interests them, as this is the best way to keep them enthusiastic.
4. Tell stories aloud
Giving your child the opportunity to tell stories orally is a great way to get them used to structuring their ideas and using adventurous language. If they’re not sure where to start, see if they can retell a story that they already know well, like The Magic Paintbrush or Rumpelstiltskin .
If your child finds it useful to plan out their story first, try our free Story mountain to make a great plot with a beginning, middle, and end. Your child might also enjoy reciting poetry – see if your child can memorise and perform ‘Who has seen the wind?’ with our Perform a poem activity sheet .
Activity: Story mountain
Complete the story mountain to plan your story with a beginning, middle, and end.
Activity: Perform a poem
Read the poem, talk about what it means, and perform it to an audience.
5. Find story inspiration
You can find fun story ideas anywhere! Why not raid your kitchen cupboards or hunt through the attic to find lost treasures? Anything from an old hat to a telescope will do the trick. What could the object be used for? Who might be looking for it? What secrets could it hold? Suggest different genres such as mystery or science fiction and discuss how the item might be used in this kind of story.
Real-world facts can also be a great source of inspiration. For example, did you know a jumping flea can accelerate faster than a space rocket taking off into orbit? What crazy story can your child make out of this fact? Newspapers and news websites can be great for finding these sorts of ideas.
Activity: Story idea generator
Mix together a genre, character, and setting to think up an imaginative story idea.
Activity: Character profile
Come up with lots of interesting details about the lead character in your story.
6. Draw your ideas first
If your child isn’t sure where to start with a story or even a piece of non-fiction, it can sometimes be helpful to sketch out their ideas first. For instance, can they draw a picture of a dastardly villain or a brave hero? How about a scary woodland or an enchanted castle?
Your child might also find it useful to draw maps or diagrams. What are all the different areas of their fantasy landscape called? How is the baddie’s base organised?
What your child will learn
In Year 3 (age 7–8), your child will work towards being able to:
- Discussing writing similar to that which they are planning to write in order to understand and learn from its structure, vocabulary and grammar
- Discussing and recording their ideas.
- Composing and rehearsing sentences orally (including dialogue), progressively building a varied and rich vocabulary and an increasing range of sentence structures
- Organising paragraphs around a theme
- In narratives, creating settings, characters and plot
- In non-narrative material, using simple organisational devices (for example, headings and sub-headings).
- Assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggesting improvements
- Proposing changes to grammar and vocabulary to improve consistency, including the accurate use of pronouns in sentences .
- Proof-read for spelling and punctuation errors.
Handwriting, spelling, grammar, and punctuation are all important aspects of writing too. You can find out more about them on our dedicated pages:
Handwriting in Year 3 (age 7-8)
Find out more about handwriting in Year 3 at Primary School.
Find out more
Spelling in Year 3 (age 7-8)
Find out more about spelling in Year 3 at Primary School.
Grammar and punctuation in Year 3 (age 7-8)
Find out more about grammar and punctuation in Year 3 at Primary School.
- Age 5–6 (Year 1)
- Age 6–7 (Year 2)
- Age 7–8 (Year 3)
- Age 8–9 (Year 4)
- Age 9–10 (Year 5)
- Age 10–11 (Year 6)
- Year 1 (age 5–6)
- Year 2 (age 6–7)
- Year 3 (age 7–8)
- Year 4 (age 8–9)
- Year 5 (age 9–10)
- Year 6 (age 10–11)
- Grammar glossary
- Grammar books
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This Year 3 Narrative Writing Adventure Story is an excellent introduction to writing engaging stories with a purpose. Included is a brilliant imaginative writing example, for a great source of inspiration. You could also use this as something to dissect and analyse as a class, to help compile a list of some features of good imaginative writing.
This Year 3 Narrative Writing Adventure Story is an excellent introduction to writing engaging stories with a purpose. Included is a brilliant imaginative writing example, for a great source of inspiration. You could also use this as something to dissect and analyse as a class, to help compile a list of some features of good imaginative writing.
Browse imaginative writing unit year 3 resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources.
This short story ideas PowerPoint is great for finding writing ideas for your Year 3 and 4 students. The PowerPoint features lots of slides with short story ideas that include small activities like describing a setting, understanding a character's point of view and asking questions about their stories to help bring their writing to life. wOW ...
This PowerPoint is great for finding narrative writing ideas for Year 3 and Year 4 children. Show more Related Searches year 3 creative writing year 4 creative writing creative writing year 3 creative writing year 4 writing year 3 descriptive writing Ratings & Reviews Curriculum Links Make a Request learni8298 - Verified member since 2019
BBC Teach: KS2 English Royal Shakespeare Company Year 3 English Creative writing learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers.
This Year 3 Narrative Writing Adventure Story is an excellent introduction to writing engaging stories with a purpose. Included is a brilliant imaginative writing example, for a great source of inspiration. You could also use this as something to dissect and analyse as a class, to help compile a list of some features of good imaginative writing.
Creative Writing Year 3 (Ages 7 - 8) A Parent Guide to Year 3 English. 4.8 (17 reviews) Year 3 Creative Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents. 4.7 (6 reviews) Year 3 Editing Guide and Checklist. Fairy Tales Character Limit Challenge (Ages 7 - 11) 4.5 (2 reviews) Creative Writing Lucky Dip.
How can I help my year 3 child with creative writing? Now that your child's in year 3 (age 7 - 8) and has got the basics of SPaG down, they can start to get really creative with their writing. Encourage them to use their imagination and write about things they are passionate about. In year 3, they'll be learning lots of new adjectives and ...
Use our narrative writing year 3 checklist to help your children learn the importance of the editing stage, and ensure they're producing their very best work! ... Narrative writing is a brilliant opportunity for children to get imaginative, and develop their creative thinking. This not only helps their literacy and communication skills, but ...
This Year 3 Narrative Writing Adventure Story is an excellent introduction to writing engaging stories with a purpose. Included is a brilliant imaginative writing example, for a great source of inspiration. You could also use this as something to dissect and analyse as a class, to help compile a list of some features of good imaginative writing.
Use our narrative writing year 3 checklist to help your children learn the importance of the editing stage, and ensure they're producing their very best work! ... Narrative writing is a brilliant opportunity for children to get imaginative, and develop their creative thinking. This not only helps their literacy and communication skills, but ...
Create imaginative texts based on characters, settings and events from students’ own and other cultures including through the use of visual features ... Developing Narrative Writing Skills Unit Plan - Year 3 and Year 4. Design updates to Powerpoint templates. Minor changes made to some lessons. Stephanie (Teach Starter)
What your child will learn. In Year 3 (age 7-8), your child will work towards being able to: Plan their writing by: Discussing writing similar to that which they are planning to write in order to understand and learn from its structure, vocabulary and grammar. Discussing and recording their ideas.
This collection of imaginative writing resources provides you with everything you need to teach the purpose, structure and language features of imaginative... Imaginative Writing Teaching Resources for Year 3 | Teach Starter
Creative writing, also known as imaginative writing, is writing that expresses the writer's thoughts and feelings in an imaginative, often unique, and poetic way. Creative writing can exist many different forms, but what unites them all is that the writer is free to use their own ideas and imagination.
A Sentence A Day Worksheets - Year 3 4.9 (16 Reviews) Twist the Text Writing: The Little Red Riding Hood Collection Writing Challenge Cards 5.0 (1 Review) Character Description Examples - Writing Frames 5.0 (94 Reviews) Comic Book Templates 4.9 (51 Reviews) 3-6 100 Days of School Writing Challenge Cards 5.0 (4 Reviews)
teaching resource Narrative Writing Bump It Up Wall - Year 3 Updated: 07 Sep 2023 A visual display for your classroom to help students 'bump up' their narrative writing. Editable: Word Non-Editable: PDF Curriculum: AUS V8, AUS V9 Year: 3 Download Loading... Get inspired! Tag #TeachStarter on Instagram for a chance to be featured!
The Year 3 NAPLAN interactive narrative writing sample is a fun, swashbuckling way for children to see what is expected of them in their tests. ... Plan, create, edit and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive written and multimodal texts, using visual features, appropriate form and layout, with ideas grouped in simple paragraphs ...
In this video, you will learn how to write an imaginative narrative, or fantasy story! In Episode 1, we answer the question, "What is an imaginative narrativ...