Following up on my previous post where I was extolling the virtues of Writing Conferences, this post is aimed at explaining what they are and how they are invaluable in the primary classroom.

So what is a Writing Conference? I will firstly describe how you would work with a child on a one-to-one basis. It involves sitting beside a child who has his work in front of him. I recommend that children who are still spelling High Frequency words incorrectly also have to hand an A to Z spelling card displaying these. You are welcome to print-off the one I have created for use in the classroom.

Have a quick glance at the work and decide on a particular teaching focus. For instance if you see the child has not included full-stops, then this may well be the primary focus.

Ask the child to begin reading his work aloud to you. How much you ask him to read depends on the standard of the piece of work and the number of errors. Restricting it to the first four sentences provides a good focus for beginning the discussion.

At this point it is a good idea to offer genuine praise for something the child has done well. Not only are you reinforcing good features, but you are establishing a positive tone which is vital.

To address the issue of missing punctuation where the sentences are there, but just not delineated, ask the child to just read the first sentence again. Hopefully he will be able to do this. Then you ask, "Has this sentence got the two things a sentence needs?" namely a full stop (or alternative punctuation mark) and capital letter. This gets the child to think for himself. If he says not, ask him to add these. Ask the child to repeat the same thing with the next few sentences, remembering to praise. Should the child not be able to identify the end of the first sentence, you could use the strategy of reading the sentence aloud yourself but tag on a few words of the next so that it doesn't make sense. This can help even young children to find the end of the sentence.

Where a child has missed punctuation altogether by using too many 'ands', you can read the whole passage quickly without pausing for breath, at the same time stressing all the 'ands' too so that afterwards you can ask if there was a word that the child had used a lot. Once the child identifies it as 'and', follow up with, "How many 'ands' should you have in a sentence?" and then discuss ways that they can be removed. Ask the child to make the changes.

Having established the correct punctuation, turn your attention to other things like incorrect tenses, inadequate use of adjectives or poor grammar. Instead of telling the child you have the wrong tense ask, "Do we say, 'They was going to the park?'" Hopefully the child will know what it should be and make the necessary correction himself.

Other common errors include capital letters in the wrong place. Point to the line where the error is and say, "Can you see a capital letter that is in the wrong place along this line?" or "Somewhere along this line there is a capital letter missing. Can you find it?" Only resort to showing them if they fail to find the error.

Through your careful questioning you are getting the child to do the thinking. Similarly, where high frequency words are spelt incorrectly, indicate the error in accordance with your normal marking policy and then ask the child to find the word on the A to Z card. With young children show them a small range of words on the card and say, "Your word is one of these. Which one do you think it is?"

You will need to make a judgment as to how far to continue with the same approach through the work. If the piece is so full of errors that it isn't feasible to discuss them all, then focus on a section of the writing. It is quality that counts, not quantity, while skills are being developed.

You will probably have come across the child who writes pages of repetitive sentences, for the purpose of making it seem they have been working hard. The child needs to be told to restrict the amount that he or she writes before showing you.

Focus on achieving good quality, well punctuated, grammatical sentences. Obviously when you have a class, you will only be able to conference for short periods with each child, the rest of the work being conventionally marked. Aim to conference with all types of writing whether it is in literacy lessons or cross-curricular work as children need to transfer their skills to other subjects. Don't be in a hurry to begin new work every day. By returning to work from the previous day, it gives further opportunities to provide feedback.

This consistent approach will bear dividends, but remember to enthuse when children do things right and make a point of stopping the class to listen to lovely work. Extolling the virtues of good work is inspirational to others. "Listen to these wonderful adjectives.... Has anyone else used two adjectives to describe the characters clothes?" This will get others to look critically at their own work so they can share the praise. Ask peers to pick out good features of a child's work or even send the child to a colleague's class to show their good work.

Praise, not criticism, and the careful use of leading questions is the key to talking to children about their writing. I have never used marks or grades and the points made in the 'Feedback and Marking' article for Scottish schools referred to yesterday would seem to advise of the negative effect that these tend to have.

If you accept poor quality work, you will get poor work. The children need to know you have high expectations and that you appreciate their efforts. So many times I have heard teachers say 'My children just don't put in their full-stops.' If you let them get away with it, then they probably won't bother to include punctuation.

Eventually, when you have taught the strategies, children will be able to self-correct independently. I don't claim that it is easy. Getting round to seeing everyone is the most difficult thing. The fact is you can't do a full-writing conference with each child in a large class but you can do a partial one. After conferencing you can ask a child to make corrections while you move on to the next child, but don't forget to look back to check that changes have been made.

Ah, but what about creativity you may ask? You may be thinking that surely it is better to have wonderful creative language and forget about spelling or punctuation. Well I believe you can have the best of both worlds, even with children who are not high-fliers, but in my future posts I will be discussing further ways of promote wonderful writing.

Don't forget to share these techniques to your Teaching Assistant who by working in a similar way alongside you can use your written comments on a piece of work as a focus for helping children who need further input and feedback.

So if you think what I have said makes sense, you may like to give it a try. I know it can help children to become confident, motivated writers.