Pedagogic Principles
This section contains a set of Pedagogic Principles that have been derived from our detailed analyses of two telling cases (Telling Case 1 – Year 3 and Telling Case 2 – Year 5-6).
For each case, we have analysed the practice in the classroom, with a particular focus on children’s engagement and also how the teacher has used digital resources to support the development of children’s narrative writing.
For a detailed account of the preliminary development of Pedagogical Principles, based on one Telling Moment from Telling Case 1, please see Dowdall and Kleine Staarman (2026, in review). The Pedagogical Principles presented here build from this account to represent a more full analyses, based on both Telling Cases.
The Pedagogical Principles are organised using 8 focus headings.
The Pedagogical Principles listed are not definitive; neither are many of them new! They relate to the specific contexts within which we worked; however, we hope that they may offer starting points for thinking about how you might wish to introduce digital resources to build children’s enjoyment and engagement in narrative writing.
Please note that the term ‘traditional pedagogies’ is used to refer to the existing pedagogies used in the classrooms, as observed in lessons, and as described by the teachers during our planning workshop. In both schools, we observed expert teaching from very experienced teachers/ literacy leads, who drew on deep understanding of how to promote children’s writing. This was based on the development of school policy over time that has been informed by the original pedagogies presented in the National Literacy Strategy; the ‘Talk for writing’ approach that developed from this; and the curriculum and assessment requirements, currently in place.
Pedagogical Principles for developing children’s writing with digital resources
- The teacher’s role remains pivotal to children’s learning, when digital resources are introduced.
- The teacher’s role may vary through the activity, from being prominent and directing, to being a participant alongside the children, in the story writing world
- The teacher’s role may compete with the digital resources for the children’s attention at times.
- Modelling and demonstration remain key to the teacher’s role, when using digital resources for writing.
- Modelling and demonstration of how to do as well as what to do when writing with digital resources, will form part of the teacher’s role.
- New pedagogical approaches for writing with digital resources are not needed.
- Existing pedagogical approaches, based on shared and guided writing activities, scaffolding and modelling, can accommodate the use of digital resources.
- Evolved approaches involving digital resources, alongside existing resources can enrich established pedagogies for writing.
- Routines for narrative writing involving digital resources need to be developed and established over time, to build familiarity with evolved pedagogical approaches.
- Play with digital resources for writing forms an essential part of the pedagogical approach, and time is needed for a playful stage of activity.
- Digital resources can contribute to the development of a rich story writing world for children to inhabit.
- The power of the story remains key to children’s engagement in a story writing world that involves digital resources.
- It is the story and being in the story writing world that capture the children’s interest.
- The story writing world with digital resources encourages talk and movement between children. It is a busy and sometimes noisy world.
- Building a story writing world can involve traditional and digital resources.
- Children orchestrate the use of a variety of digital and traditional resources for writing to complete a task.
- Children switch attention and focus between competing digital and traditional resources, as well as the teacher as resource, to complete a task.
- The introduction of digital resources to a unit of writing may challenge conventional expectations about ways of being a writer and behaving as a writer.
- Children and teachers have to attend to competing and complementary resources in the story writing world, which can present as a busy rather than calm environment for writing.
- Movement at their desks, as children shift attention to engage with digital resources alongside traditional resources, becomes part of being a writer.
- Talk, play and excitement, as children are introduced to new digital resources for writing, will become part of being a writer.
- All stages of the writing process can be supported using digital alongside analogue resources (planning, composing, transcribing, revising; not just transcription).
- Writing with digital resources can be part of a larger sustained unit of work, that is made up of micro-writing activities.
- Informal experiences playing and writing with digital resources can serve as a building block in the overall development of the writing process.
- The process of writing with digital resources can be assessed in relation to the product of the unit of work.
- Digital resources can contribute to children’s overall engagement within a story writing world to complete a writing activity.
- Children sustain interest in writing activities when digital resources are introduced as part of the process.
- The use of digital resources in a writing activity requires children’s attention to shift fluidly across various material, imagined and screen-based virtual spaces that form the story writing world.
- The use of digital resources in a writing activity requires children’s attention to shift fluidly from the teacher (and any modelling/ directing) to the resources of the story writing world, as part of the writing process.
- The use of digital resources in a writing activity can involve children’s attention shifting between their own and others’ screens, (including the teacher’s via an Interactive White Board), as part of the writing process.
- Digital resources in a unit of writing can be central to collaboration and the development of a story writing world, and community of writers within it.
- Collaboration in a story writing world involving digital resources involves more than talk; it involves looking, sharing, commenting and providing informal peer-feedback.
- Writing involving digital resources promotes collaboration via the opportunities to share socially in communities, on-screen and across screens.
- The collaboration that is afforded by the use of digital resources for narrative writing can support in-the-moment feedback from peers and the teacher.
- The collaboration that is afforded by the use of digital resources for narrative writing supports the development of an engaged community of writers.