Year 4 English articles

Mystery text explained for parents, including examples of how children might work on crime stories in KS2 and suggestions of great mystery story books for children aged 8 to 12.

Syllables explained for parents, including details of how primary-school children are taught to identify syllables to help them with spelling and reading and understanding poetry.

Following a reading scheme at school can transform children from non-readers to bookworms in a surprisingly short space of time, but how are they developed and tested to help your child progress?

Traditional tales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks play an important part in early literacy. We explain how these well-known stories are used to help develop reading comprehension and early writing skills, and explain how you can help your child's learning with fairy tales at home.

Your child's KS2 poetry classes might include analysis of kennings, two-word phrases characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry. We explain what this literary device is and how your child might read and write kennings in the primary-school classroom.

Understand and use embedded clauses with confidence with our plain-English parents' guide, including examples and details of how this aspect of sentence construction is taught in Key Stage 2 grammar.

Expand vocabulary, develop spelling skills, learn about homophones, anagrams and synonyms and compose huge numbers of silly sentences... all while having a great time. Whether your child is 3 or 13, our favourite word board games and literacy card games offer fast-paced fun for the whole family.

Make the most of family outings by choosing one of our parent-recommended museums. For fun, story-telling, literary inspiration and creative opportunities visit the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

With a return to greater emphasis on handwriting in primary schools, could a special pen or pencil help your child master the art of neat writing? Handwriting tutor Michelle van Rooyen explains what handwriting pencils and pens are available.

Help your child form each letter of the alphabet correctly with our step-by-step and stroke-by-stroke videos, with experts from the National Handwriting Association. In this video we look at the Zig-zag monster letter family: z, x, v, w, y and k.

Help your child form each letter of the alphabet correctly with our step-by-step and stroke-by-stroke videos, with experts from the National Handwriting Association. Here we look at the Curly caterpillar family: c, a, d, g, q, o, e, s and f.

The letters of the alphabet can be divided into ‘movement groups’, based on the movement made to start writing the letter. Each group has a lead letter (L for Long ladder letters, C for Curly caterpillar letters, R for One-armed robot letters and Z for Zig-zag monster letters) and our handwriting advice video outlines the different letter families and how to practise writing them.

Make sure your child holds their pencil correctly every time they pick it up with this quick trick, as outlined in our video by National Handwriting Association Occupational Paediatric Therapist Catherine Elsey.

From anti-clockwise circles to letter formation, find out about your child's handwriting journey and how you can support them at home in TheSchoolRun's video, featuring experts from the National handwriting Association.

From eighteen months to five years, TheSchoolRun's handwriting video explains how children's pencil grasp changes over time, how to establish good handwriting habits early on and what to expect in every stage.

Children who hold their pencil or pen in the ideal handwriting position, the dynamic tripod grip, can write comfortably for longer. The National Handwriting Association's Catherine Elsey explains how to help your child establish a confident tripod grip and how it helps avoid hand pain.

Right-handed handwriting tips and advice from the experts, with practical examples of the best way to position paper correctly and hold the pencil with a tripod grasp. Experts from the National Handwriting Association feature in TheSchoolRun's new handwriting video series.

Left-handed handwriting tips and advice from the experts, with practical examples of the best way to position paper correctly and how to hold your wrist in the optimal position for writing. TheSchoolRun's new handwriting videos feature experts from the National Handwriting Association.

If your child is in Y6 in 2025, read on for the most up-to-date SATs information for parents.