How to Teach Story Writing Ages 4-7

How to Teach Story Writing Ages 4-7 is a practical manual for teachers, to be used directly in the classroom. The book begins with a series of language games, designed to warm up creativity and strengthen the imagination. This is followed by a series of creative story workshops, based on the writer's own experience both as a teacher and poet running workshops in schools. These workshops focus on growing the roots of story writing through story telling and reading, and begin with the importance of learning a few well-known tales. There are ideas for drama, role-play and art, and a few model stories are provided for story telling. Other workshops explore simple ideas for creating new stories, based around simple familiar patterns. The book also offers advice on how to organize an effective workshop for younger children, and demonstrates how to teach story writing in a dynamic, creative and imaginative way in relationship with the KS1 national literacy framework.

Workshops include the story of our lives; stories that make a circle; stories about problems; days of the week tales; humbug, stuff and nonsense stories; quests; repetitive tales; wishing stories; warning stories; and cooking the story soup.

New to this edition



CD containing bank of downloadable models and some whole stories to complement extracts used in the book

Expanded creative contexts around each story

Drama exercises

Reading as a reader exercises

Reading as a writer exercises drawing on classic literature

Shared writing projects

Additional advice on teacher feedback and pupil to pupil feedback

Children developing story telling

References to the PNS will be removed and new pedagogical features with teacher hints and tips will be added throughout

Increased emphasis on reflective practice

Appendices updated to reference new UK government focus on phonics.

Pie Corbett is a freelance writer and poet. He has worked as English Inspector in Gloucestershire, as an OFSTED Inspector, and has run training nationally for the NLT. He is the author of a wide range of training materials and resources for teachers, and has advised the government on both primary and KS3 literacy initiatives, especially on the teaching of writing.

He has authored over forty books including the current Writers’ Workshop editions, the Writing Models series as well as Jumpstart! Literacy, Jumpstart! Poetry and Jumpstart! Storymaking.