Adaptive teaching adjusts support while teaching to meet pupil needs while keeping the same goal for the whole class. This often means building scaffolding to meet the needs of lower-ability pupils. Below are some scaffolding suggestions for primary writing.
Word banks
Provide useful words and phrases for the genre and subject. These can be grouped into word types, such as adjectives and verbs, or listed.
Sentence starters
Give a list of common sentence starters for the subject being written about. The more of the sentence you give, the more support you are providing.
Model texts
Before writing, share and explore a model text. Examine its purpose, structure and language features with the class so that the pupils know what they are expected to produce. During writing, example texts that are of the same genre but a different subject can also be made available for reference.
Picture prompts
Show pictures as prompts before the planning stage. Encourage pupils to come up with vocabulary they might use in their writing while looking at the pictures. A series of pictures may be shown if writing a narrative.
Planning templates
Provide planning templates to help pupils to structure their writing. Some pupils may also find it helpful to be given suggested vocabulary to use in each section of their writing.
Planning partners
Place pupils into mixed-ability pairs for the planning stage of their writing. Sharing ideas in the planning stages gives less able writers a head start.
Writing partners
Shared writing sessions with mixed-ability partners can boost the confidence of lower ability pupils, making future independent writing sessions more successful.
Oral rehearsal
Give pupils the opportunity to orally rehearse sentences before writing them down.
Slow writing
A great way for pupils to rehearse writing before producing an independent text. Go through each sentence or paragraph of a text with the class, giving each pupil time to write their own version before moving on to the next sentence or paragraph. This acts as a practise before pupils write their own version independently.
