Years 3 and 4 English · Key Stage 2 · Writing – composition

Years 3 and 4 editing, proofreading and reading aloud

Writers rarely get things right first time. In Years 3 and 4 children learn to judge how well their own writing and other people’s writing works, and to suggest improvements. They change grammar and vocabulary to make writing consistent, including using pronouns accurately, then proofread for spelling and punctuation mistakes. Finally they read their writing aloud to a group or the class with clear expression, so that the meaning comes across.

Editing, proofreading and reading aloud, explained

Evaluating and editing means looking at a piece of writing and asking whether it does its job. Does the story hold together? Would a reader understand the instructions? Is the opening interesting? Children are taught to judge their own writing and a partner’s, and to suggest specific improvements rather than simply saying it is good. A comment like “I couldn’t tell who was speaking here” is useful, and a comment like “nice” is not. Teachers model this on a shared piece of writing, thinking aloud as they change words, add detail or cut a sentence.

A key part of editing is checking that the grammar and vocabulary are consistent. One common problem is tense: a story that starts in the past and slips into the present part way through. Another is pronouns. Pronouns such as he, she, it and they stop the same noun being repeated again and again (“Maya found the puppy. Maya picked up the puppy.”), but they only work if it is clear who or what they refer to. In “Maya told her mum that she was cold”, the reader cannot tell who was cold. Children learn to spot both problems, repetition and confusion, and to fix them.

Proofreading is a separate job, done after the content has been improved. Here the child checks spelling and punctuation: capital letters, full stops, question marks, apostrophes and inverted commas. Strategies include reading slowly with a finger or pencil under each word, checking words they are unsure of in a dictionary, and reading in a quiet voice, so the eye cannot skip ahead. It is much easier to see mistakes after a break, because writers tend to read what they meant to write rather than what is on the page.

The curriculum also asks children to check that their writing makes sense in the same way that they check what they read. Reading aloud is the quickest test. A missing word, an unfinished sentence or a sentence that runs on for too long is often obvious to the ear before it is obvious to the eye.

Finally, children read their writing aloud to a group or the whole class, using appropriate intonation and controlling their tone and volume so that the meaning is clear. That means pausing at full stops, lifting the voice for a question, varying the pace for exciting or quiet moments, and speaking up so the back of the room can hear. Knowing that the writing will be read aloud is also a good reason to edit it well.

Words your child will hear

Evaluate: Judge how well a piece of writing does its job.
Edit: Change writing to improve it: add, remove, move or replace words and sentences.
Proofread: Check writing for spelling and punctuation mistakes.
Pronoun: A word that stands in for a noun, such as he, she, it or they.
Consistent: Staying the same throughout, for example keeping to the same tense.
Intonation: The rise and fall of your voice as you speak or read.
Tone: The feeling in the voice or the writing, such as cheerful or serious.

What the National Curriculum says

In Years 3 and 4, pupils should be taught to:

Evaluate and edit by assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggesting improvements
Evaluate and edit by proposing changes to grammar and vocabulary to improve consistency, including the accurate use of pronouns in sentences
Proofread for spelling and punctuation errors
Read their own writing aloud to a group or the whole class, using appropriate intonation and controlling the tone and volume so that the meaning is clear

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

A worked example: editing and proofreading a paragraph

Improve this draft: “Maya found a puppy in the garden. Maya picked up the puppy and Maya carried the puppy inside. She told her mum that she was cold. Her mum wraps the puppy in a towel and they sat by the fire untill it stopped shivering”

Read it aloud and ask whether it makes sense. The second sentence sounds clumsy because Maya and the puppy are each repeated, so both appear three times in the first two sentences.
Fix the repetition with pronouns, keeping them clear: “She picked it up and carried it inside.” Here “she” can only be Maya and “it” can only be the puppy.
Fix the unclear pronoun. In “She told her mum that she was cold”, the second “she” could mean Maya or her mum, and the writer meant the puppy. Replace the second pronoun: “She told her mum that the puppy was cold.” Later, “until it stopped shivering” is clearer as “until the puppy stopped shivering”, because “it” comes straight after “the fire”.
Make the tense consistent. The story is in the past, so “wraps” becomes “wrapped”.
Proofread the spelling and punctuation. “Untill” should be “until”, and the last sentence needs a full stop. Read it aloud again to check.

“Maya found a puppy in the garden. She picked it up and carried it inside. She told her mum that the puppy was cold. Her mum wrapped it in a towel and they sat by the fire until the puppy stopped shivering.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking editing means copying work out neatly

Many children have only met the idea of a “best copy”, so they believe improving writing means tidying it.

What helps: Explain that editing means changing the words. Mark the draft itself with additions, crossings out and arrows, and talk about what each change improves.

Only looking for spelling mistakes

Spelling errors are the easiest to see and the most commonly marked, so children assume they are the only thing to check.

What helps: Ask three questions in order: does it make sense, can it be improved, are the spelling and punctuation correct? Reading aloud helps with the first two.

Using pronouns without checking who they refer to

The writer knows who “he” is, so the problem is invisible to them. A reader sees two or three possible people.

What helps: For each he, she, it or they, ask your child to point to the noun it replaces. If there are two possibilities, use the name again.

Reading aloud too fast and in a flat voice

Nerves speed children up, and they are concentrating so hard on the words that they forget the audience.

What helps: Practise at home. Mark the pauses with a slash, slow down and look up at the end of each sentence. Try one sentence with a different tone each time.

How to help at home

Be the audience. Ask your child to read a piece of their writing aloud to you. Say one thing that works well and ask one question about something unclear. Resist correcting everything.
Sleep on it. Where possible, leave a piece of writing overnight and read it again fresh. Mistakes are far easier to spot after a break.
Find the five mistakes. Write a short paragraph yourself with five deliberate errors, such as a missing full stop, a wrong tense or an unclear pronoun. Your child finds them with a pencil, then swaps and writes one for you.
Try different voices. Choose a few lines from a favourite book and read them aloud in different ways: excited, worried, whispering, announcing. Talk about how the meaning changes with the voice.

Builds on

Leads on to

Years 5 and 6: Planning for audience and purpose
Years 5 and 6: Drafting: grammar, narrative and précis
Years 5 and 6: Cohesion and organisational devices
Years 5 and 6: Editing for effect, tense, agreement and register
Years 5 and 6: Proofreading and performing writing