Real Writing Year 3 - Unit 16
Ada Lovelace, by Jo Franklin
Curriculum links: History (Computing)
Writing Unit overview
This writing unit for Year 3 is built around an original model text by Jo Franklin - a biographical recount of the life and achievements of Ada Lovelace. The example biography text is available as a PDF in three versions (plain, illustrated and annotated); annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint presentations are also included.
In this two-week unit, pupils will read a biographical recount, describing the life of computing pioneer Ada Lovelace. They will have an opportunity to learn technical vocabulary related to logic and computing. It will culminate in them writing their own version of a biography of Ada Lovelace
Key curriculum skills
Two fully-resourced lessons are included for the following Year 3 English objectives, which can form part of the unit or be taught discretely:
1. Vocabulary - To explore word families based on common words
Pupils will: revisit root words; create word family trees; sort words into word families; use their knowledge of root words to work out word meanings.
2. Grammar - To extend sentences using a range of conjunctions, adverbials and prepositions
Pupils will: revisit conjunctions, adverbials and prepositions; understand that we can extend sentences by using some or all of them; identify how sentences have been extended; extend sentences.
Additional objectives to teach or revisit:
The correct use of past and present tense
the use of apostrophes for singular possession and for contraction.
Additional year 3 curriculum teaching points
the use of conjunctions, adverbials and prepositions to express time, place and cause
using sentences that include more than one clause
the use of paragraphs organised around a theme
the inclusion of organisational features such as headings and subheadings
Year 3 vocabulary
Tier two words: complex, translate
Tier three words: algorithm, analytical, calculate, computer, logic, program, programmer, mathematician, reasoning
Year 3 / 4 statutory spelling words: build, early, famous, possible, woman, women
What is a word family?
Word families are groups of words that are related to each other in a combination of having the same root word (with prefixes, suffixes or other words added to make compound words like superman), grammar and meaning. Words that change when written in the past and present tense (for example understand and understood) are also part of the same word family. A word root is a basic word with no prefix or suffix added. The words play, playful, playing and replay are all part of the same word family as they all have the same word root (play) and are related in meaning.
What are conjunctions?
A conjunction links words, phrases or clauses and is a type of cohesive device. They can be co-ordinating or subordinating and are used to form multi-clause sentences.
A co-ordinating conjunction joins clauses, and other phrases or words that are of the same importance in a sentence. Examples include and, but, or, nor and yet.
A subordinating conjunction introduces a subordinate clause. Examples include, when, if, because, although, while, until and since.
What is an adverb?
Adverbs are words that modify verbs but can also modify adjectives, other adverbs or whole sentences. They can give the answers to the following questions within a sentence: How ...? When ...?, Where…?, How often…? or How much ...? Adverbs can, but do not always, end with the suffix -ly. We can change adjectives to adverbs by adding the suffix -ly. Examples of adverbs are below
- gently
- happily
- loudly
- finally
- now
- always
- soon
What is a preposition?
A preposition comes before a noun, pronoun or noun phrase and can link these to another part of a sentence. They can show position or direction, timing or show the relationship between parts of a sentence.
- The plane flew above the clouds.
This preposition shows position.
- Dinner is at 6pm.
This preposition shows timing.
- We learnt about the Romans.
This preposition shows relationship, ‘what’ they have learnt.