Years 5 and 6 English · Key Stage 2 · Writing – composition

Years 5 and 6 editing: tense, agreement and register

Editing is where good writing is made. In Years 5 and 6, children assess how effective their own and others’ writing is, propose changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to improve the effect and clarify meaning, keep tense consistent, check that subjects and verbs agree, tell apart the language of speech and writing, and choose a register that suits the audience.

Editing for effect, tense, agreement and register, explained

To evaluate writing is to ask whether it does its job. Does it fit the audience and purpose? Is the order clear? Which part works best, and which part loses the reader? Children learn to assess their own work and that of classmates, often using a checklist of what the piece should include, and to give feedback that is specific and kind. Editing then follows: swapping a vague word for a precise one, adding a comma that stops a sentence from being misread (“Let’s eat, Grandma”), splitting a rambling sentence or cutting a repeated point. Reading aloud is one of the best tools, because the ear catches what the eye skips.

Consistent tense is a particular focus. A story told in the past tense should stay in the past unless the writer shifts deliberately, for example to give a character’s thoughts or for a flashback in the past perfect (“she had left the door open”). The common slip is a writer who starts in the past and drifts into the present when the story gets exciting. Children check by underlining the verbs and asking whether they tell the same time story. Progressive forms (“was running”) and perfect forms (“had finished”) are part of this too.

Subject and verb agreement means that a singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural one. Many errors come from speech, such as “we was” and “they was”, or from a longer phrase between the subject and the verb, as in “the box of pencils are on the table”, where the subject is the box. Words such as each and everyone take singular verbs. Schools respect that children’s spoken language may include local forms, and teach that in writing, apart from dialogue where the writer wants to show how someone speaks, Standard English is expected.

The last strand is register: the level of formality. Speech and informal writing use contractions, slang, question tags (“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”) and fragments, while formal writing is more precise and impersonal and avoids those. A letter to a stranger asks for something using “I would be grateful if…”, whereas a message to a friend does not. In Year 6 children also meet some very formal structures, such as the subjunctive in “If I were you”. Formal does not mean using long or showy words. It means choosing the style that fits the reader. The Year 6 grammar, punctuation and spelling test includes questions on formal and informal language, but the real test is whether your child can switch register in their own writing.

Words your child will hear

Evaluate: Judge how well a piece of writing works for its audience and purpose.
Edit: Change writing to improve its meaning, effect or accuracy.
Tense: The form of a verb that shows when something happens: past, present or future.
Subject: The person or thing that does the action of the verb, such as the dog in “the dog barked”.
Agreement: Matching the verb to the subject, as in “she was” and “they were”.
Register: How formal or informal the language is, chosen to fit the situation.
Standard English: The form of English used in formal writing and teaching, with agreed grammar and spelling.

What the National Curriculum says

In Years 5 and 6, pupils should be taught to:

Evaluate and edit by assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
Evaluate and edit by proposing changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning
Evaluate and edit by ensuring the consistent and correct use of tense throughout a piece of writing
Evaluate and edit by ensuring correct subject and verb agreement when using singular and plural, distinguishing between the language of speech and writing and choosing the appropriate register

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

Try it: editing a thank-you email

After a class trip, a child wrote this email to Ms Patel, who organised the visit at the museum: “Hi, Thanks for letting us come yesterday. Loads of the exhibits was amazing and we was gobsmacked by the dinosaur. The guide tells us how it lived, then she showed us its teeth and everybody laugh.” Edit it.

Read it aloud and decide on the audience. The reader is an adult at the museum whom the writer does not know well, so the register should be formal and polite.
Check tense. The visit was yesterday, so the whole recount should be in the past. “Tells” becomes “told” and “laugh” becomes “laughed”.
Check agreement. “Loads of the exhibits was amazing” has a plural subject, so it needs “were”. “We was” becomes “we were”.
Change register. Replace “Hi” with “Dear Ms Patel”, “Thanks” with “Thank you”, “letting us come” with “allowing our class to visit”, “loads of” with “many of” and “gobsmacked” with “astonished”. End with “Yours sincerely”.
Reread for effect and meaning. “Amazing” is fine in speech but vague, so “fascinating” is more precise. “The guide told us how it lived, then she showed us” runs two sentences together with only a comma, so join them with “and then”. Each sentence now says what the writer meant, and the tone suits the reader.

Dear Ms Patel, Thank you for allowing our class to visit the museum yesterday. Many of the exhibits were fascinating, and we were astonished by the dinosaur. The guide told us how it lived and then showed us its teeth, and everybody laughed. Yours sincerely,

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking editing just means fixing spelling and making it neat

Children have been taught that mistakes are what teachers mark, so editing means hunting for errors.

What helps: Edit in layers. First ask whether the meaning and order are right, then word choice, then punctuation and spelling. A neat copy of a weak piece is still a weak piece.

Slipping from past to present tense as the story gets exciting

Writers imagine the scene as they write and begin to tell it as if it is happening now.

What helps: Underline every verb with a pencil and check each one against the tense you chose. If you change on purpose, such as for a flashback, make sure the reader can tell.

Using “we was”, “they was” or “I done” in writing because that is how people speak

These forms are normal in some local varieties of English, so they sound right to the writer.

What helps: Do not criticise the way your family talks. Explain that writing for a wider audience uses the standard forms, and that dialogue can keep a character’s own speech. Practise saying “we were” aloud so it feels familiar.

Believing formal writing means long and impressive words

Children hear that formal is grown-up and reach for the biggest words they know.

What helps: Show that formal means polite, precise and impersonal. Compare “I want a refund” with “I would like to request a refund”, and note that the second is not longer because of difficult words but because of tone.

How to help at home

Read it aloud slowly. Ask your child to read their writing out loud, pointing at each word. They will often spot a missing word, a clumsy phrase or a tense slip without any help.
Swap and edit kindly. Exchange pieces of writing with your child and give one thing that works well and one thing to improve. Let them do the same for yours, including a deliberate mistake for them to find.
Switch the register. Take a message to a friend and rewrite it as a request to the head teacher, then do the reverse. Which words, contractions and phrases had to change?
Hunt the verbs. Highlight every verb in a diary entry or story and check the tenses. Ask why a change occurred and whether it was needed.
Spot the agreement trap. Make up sentences with a phrase between the subject and the verb, such as “The bag of apples is on the table”, and see if your child can find the true subject and choose the correct verb.

Builds on

Years 3 and 4: Planning by learning from model texts
Years 3 and 4: Drafting sentences, paragraphs and stories
Years 3 and 4: Editing, proofreading and reading aloud

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: Writing for different purposes
Key Stage 3: Organising and rhetorical devices
Key Stage 3: Drafting, editing and proofreading