Table of Contents

Part 1: Developing the Talk-for-Writing Approach

1 The centrality of story and the origins of Talk for Writing

2 Aladdin’s Cave: The ‘Talk for Writing and Learning’ classroom

3 Telling your first story

4 Imitation: Creating the bank of story ideas

5 Imitation: Helping the children become storytellers

6 Innovation

7 Invention: Moving from imitation to independent invention

8 Invention: Ideas for inventions and the movement from telling to writing

Part 2: Involving Families

9 Why involving parents matters

10 The storytelling process as the key to family involvement

Appendix 1: Sentence, spelling and story games

Appendix 2: The early years story bank

Appendix 3: A dozen picture books ideal for retelling

About the Author

Pie Corbett is a leading literacy expert, inspirational trainer, poet and author of over 250 books, including the bestselling Talk for Writing across the Curriculum: How to teach non-fiction writing 5-12 years. A former primary headteacher and Ofsted inspector, he is widely known for developing the transformational Talk for Writing approach. In 2009, it was adopted nationally as part of the Primary Literacy Framework.

Julia Strong now works with Pie Corbett developing Talk for Writing. After 25 years of teaching, she became Deputy Director of the National Literacy Trust and the Director of the National Reading Campaign. There she focused on building school communities that read, including Early Reading Connects, and family involvement in reading. She is the author of a number of best-selling books, including Talk for Writing Across the Curriculum (Open University press, 2011) with Pie Corbett.