Paragraphs and planning | Year 3

💡Understand

A PARAGRAPH groups sentences about the same idea together. Before writing, it helps to PLAN (jot down your main ideas), then DRAFT (write it out), then EDIT (make it better) and PROOFREAD (check for mistakes) — this whole process is called the writing process.

“Plan: beginning (wake up), middle (the adventure), end (coming home). Draft: write it out. Edit: add more exciting words. Proofread: check spelling and punctuation.”

Following this order — plan, draft, edit, proofread — helps writing turn out much better than just writing everything in one go with no plan at all.

🔍Spot it

Which stage of the writing process is this?

Question 1

Jotting down three quick bullet points before starting to write.

💡 Jotting down ideas before writing is the planning stage.

Question 2

Reading your finished writing to check for spelling mistakes.

💡 Checking for mistakes after writing is the proofreading stage.

Question 3

Changing a boring word to a more exciting one in your writing.

💡 Making your writing better (not just fixing mistakes) is editing.

🧠Think about it

Why might starting a new paragraph every time your writing moves to a new idea help your reader?

✍️Try it

Where should a new paragraph start?

Sentence 1: Ben woke up early. Sentence 2: He ate breakfast. Sentence 3: Later that day, he went to his friend's house to play football.

Question 1

Where would it make sense to start a new paragraph?

💡 Look for where the topic shifts from morning routine to a different activity.

📝Practise

Identify the stage of the writing process, or where a paragraph should break.

Question 1

Writing your first full version of a story. What stage is this?

Question 2

Checking that every sentence has a capital letter and full stop. What stage is this?

Question 3

What should you do BEFORE you start drafting?

Question 4

In one word, what do we call a group of sentences about the same idea?

💡 It's the first word in this lesson's title.

Question 5

Rewriting a plain sentence to use more interesting vocabulary. What stage is this?

Question 6

What is usually the correct order of the writing process?

🎯Apply

Read the passage, then answer the questions below.

Paragraph 1: Maya loved exploring the woods near her house every weekend. Paragraph 2: One Saturday, she discovered a hidden stream she had never seen before.

Question 1

Why does the writing switch to a new paragraph for the second idea?

💡 Compare the general statement in paragraph 1 to the specific event in paragraph 2.

Question 2

What did Maya discover in paragraph 2?

Question 3

When did Maya discover the stream? (one word)

💡 It's stated at the start of paragraph 2.

🏆Challenge

Can you plan (just jot 3 quick ideas) for a short story about finding a mysterious object?

🔄Review

A quick mastery check — 3 questions.

Question 1

Fixing a missing full stop is part of which stage?

Question 2

Why do paragraph breaks help a reader?

Question 3

What comes first in the writing process?