Making great literacy lessons easy. Why join Plazoom?
Login
The blog that's packed with advice, tips and inspiration for improving literacy across the curriculum (tell your colleagues!)
Tricky words are often the most useful for children's reading and writing – so here's how to make them memorable
Read Story
To help children learn about sentence types, here are some top tips for identifying and using commands...
Perfectly punctuating dialogue is something that can trip up even experienced editors – but this quick guide should help pupils get it...
Understanding what makes a good compound sentence is an essential skill to help young writers make progress
Support children towards greater depth writing by teaching the responsible use of powerful language
Building a brilliant vocabulary can be an exciting process of exploration and discovery - so let's present it that way to our pupils...
When it comes to growing children's vocabularies, exposure to challenging texts is only part of the picture...
Help every Key Stage 2 student learn when away from school with these tips, activity ideas and more...
With around 10,000 new children's titles published every year, how can teachers choose the best for their classroom?
Ensure children's writing holds firm by building a deep understanding of how ideas can be joined together
Discover how this simple planning technique can help children with inspiration, sequencing and more...
Try these smart spelling strategies to boost children's skills and confidence, every time they write
Support children as they get their facts straight, with this guide to presenting information clearly and accurately
Inspire sophisticated stories with these cross-curricular creative writing tips to get children's imaginations active...
Make sure you are fully prepared to show your best side, should the inspectors decide to investigate writing in your school...
The ability to use speech clearly and with confidence is crucial for successful literacy outcomes
Waiting for 'the call'? Make sure you're ready to demonstrate intent, implementation and impact for your school's reading curriculum...
From limericks to sonnets and everything in between - poetry has so much to offer for primary school...
Revisit the features required for an effective first person recount
Brush up your subject knowledge with this comprehensive guide to vocabulary categories
A rich vocabulary is a key marker of successful academic outcomes - so how can teachers help every child develop one?
Use these strategies to give children the tools they need to create powerful settings for their descriptive writing
Teach children the key features and conventions of an important - but potentially tricky - writing genre
Try this simple and effective strategy for helping young children write more powerful stories
Suddenly found yourself in Year 1? This back-to-basics 'how to teach phonics' teacher guide will help you support pupils in their first...
Try these tips for teaching children to spot rhetorical devices in others' poetry – and use them in their poems
Careful story planning doesn't mean children have to squash their creativity – quite the opposite, in fact...
Well-formed, clear handwriting doesn't just look good - it's an indicator of improved outcomes, well beyond the end of KS2...
Celebrate World Book Day, the annual event championing reading for pleasure, with these easy, no-stress activity ideas and resources...
Follow this advice to make sure you are encouraging every pupil to produce their very best written work possible
Sound advice to make sure the KS1 Teacher Assessment Framework is working for you and your pupils – as well as those pesky Powers That...
Using a sophisticated range of sentence structures is an important element of greater depth writing
Few things have a more positive impact on children's outcomes than how often they read for pleasure - so here's how to encourage it...
Pupils may be more used to pinging a DM than penning a missive – but they still need the skills required for the latter...
Nine simple strategies to support pupils in mastering CEWs, SSWs and other non-standard spelling challenges!
Take the stress out of planning with tips and resources to make life easier...
Explore how a simple game can help children make leaps of literacy progress...
Can primary school children really make sense of the Bard? Absolutely...
Give every student the skills they need to become a master speller, from day one!
Give your Key Stage 2 students the key skills they need to get the most out of any text...
With a little time and a healthy dash of creativity, your classroom walls can become invaluable learning tools...
Just follow these tips and 'Bingo!' – learning is fun once again...
Draw on your pupils' imaginations to help them paint a picture with their words
Open the door to more-fluent writing from your pupils
Can you afford to miss out? Read on to discover the best persuasive writing technique tips ever, absolutely free!
Help children move towards greater depth, with this guide to understanding and teaching the key cohesive device that is the adverbial phrase
Every student learns best when they're really enjoying what they're doing - and that includes learning about irregular verbs, the past...
Take pupils FROM confusion TO confidence in nine easy steps
Ensure success in those end of KS2 assessments, with resources and strategies for better text analysis
Help pupils in Year 4 and onwards to identify, use and understand the different ways we can modify a noun...
Successful writers know how to create convincing and memorable characters - and here's how they do it...
Improve reading comprehension skills and develop more sophisticated writing by exploring etymology with your pupils...
A secure understanding of how to use different tenses is essential if children are to make good progress in writing
Help children write at greater depth, with language choices that really grab readers' attention
As non-fiction text types go, news articles provide opportunities to develop a whole range of key writing skills...
It's a tough word to spell – but a hugely useful rhetorical device for the greater depth writing toolkit in KS1 and KS2
If you were hoping to improve your teaching, understanding this often perplexing verb mood would be a great place to start...
It’s a term children first meet in Year 2 – and understanding it will take their writing to the next level...
Simple strategies to expand pupils' understanding – and your own!
Teach possession and contraction well from the start, and you could prevent a lifetime of punctuation mark confusion for your pupils...
Encourage children to add sophisticated shimmer to their writing, with truly thoughtful and creative vocabulary choices
End children’s confusion over words that sound the same but have a different meaning, with these clever strategies for Years 2-6
No matter how convenient it is to tap out a text, the epistolary art is still a valuable skill for children to learn to improve writing...
Adding rhetorical flourishes will help children achieve greater depth writing – but only if they know why they’re doing it...
Use these smart strategies to turn a challenging grammar topic into something that’s, well, relatively simple!
The effective use of descriptive language is key for greater depth writing – so here's how to help pupils bring their ideas to life with...
It’s a notoriously (and perhaps surprisingly) challenging topic – but it's time to take the fear out of teaching fronted adverbials...
By the end of Year 5, children need to be able to identify and use modal verbs - but can you?
Just a few small changes to the daily home education routine can really help keep children engaged whilst learning away from the...
Year1
Year2
Year3
Year4
Year5
Year6
Click 'Upgrade now' to activate your subscription. An invoice will appear on your accounts page and be sent by email. Once paid, the benefits of your full account will be unlocked within five days.