Formal Letter Writing- Complete Lesson PowerPoint + Activities (Grades 3 - 6)

This resource includes everything you need to teach children grades 3 to 6 how to write a letter. It includes teaching input/ information slides for the structural and language features of letters, examples of formal and informal letters, a modelled/ shared writing task, independent writing tasks and differentiated feature checklists.

The resource is a PowerPoint presentation lesson complete with:

√ Learning objective
√ Success criteria
√ Starter activity
√ Review of relevant prior learning
√ Teaching input/ information slides
√ Example of a formal and an informal letter
√ Speaking, listening, reading and writing tasks
√ Feature checklist for letters
√ All answer slides
√ Plenary

Learning Objective:
LO: To identify the features of and write my own formal letter.

Success Criteria:
I can identify the purposes of a variety of different letters.
I can read and understand a letter of complaint.
I can describe the structure of a letter.
I can identify the language features of a letter.
I can write my own letter.

Lesson details:
Starter activity - comparing and contrasting task
Example of formal and informal letters
Speaking and listening task - mind-map of features
Teaching input - Structural features of letters:

• Sender address
• Date
• Recipient address
• Salutation
• Paragraphs
• Valediction
• Name and/ or signature
  Teaching input - language features of a letter:
  - Time order adverbials
  - Present tense, imperative verbs
  - Second person pronouns
  - Formal, impersonal language
  - Adverbs
  Modelled/ shared write task - letter writing
  Independent and differentiated consolidation writing task (formal letter writing regarding an environmental issue (3 levels)
  Differentiated feature checklists (3 levels)
  Plenary - Peer review task

PLEASE NOTE - Please look at the ‘notes’ section of the PowerPoint for additional information about each slide. These include teaching tips, ideas and further explanations.

This lesson is also suitable for being delivered remotely through online learning with some slight adaptations. It could combine very well with platforms such as Pear Deck and Nearpod.