Writer’s Block

Think with your hands.

Writer’s Block is a physical scaffold for thinking. Learners build words, sentences and ideas, move them, and say them aloud before they write.

Get a classroom kit ↓ Try it below

One kit for up to 15 learners, so most classes use two. No subscription needed.

Illustration: three learners at a classroom table argue over a tower of five blocks labelled water, knife, rope, tent and phone. One boy points at rope, the girl beside him disagrees and the other girl thinks. A mini whiteboard asks: What would you take to a desert island?
Learners rank what they would take to a desert island.

What is it for?

What is Writer’s Block for?

Getting ideas in. Getting ideas out. The talking in the middle is where learners sort out what they think.

Ideas in

GeographySlide 4

How earthquakes happen

The Earth’s crust is broken into huge plates. When the plates move, pressure builds up where they meet. In the end the rocks snap and the ground shakes.

Talk

What comes first?

The plates move!

Ideas out

My writing

Explain how an earthquake happens.

The plates move, so pressure builds up until the rocks snap.

From the slide to the page: pull the ideas out of the lesson, talk them into order, then write them down.

Ideas in

Thinking and understanding. Learners sort the key points, see how the parts fit together and change their minds.

  • Sort the causes of the Titanic sinking into order.
  • Group the foods, then say what each group has in common.

Ideas out

Writing and explaining. Learners put their thinking into words and use the subject’s own vocabulary.

  • Build the sentence out loud before writing it.
  • Explain the earthquake chain, one block at a time.

Try it

Put the thinking in order.

Watch the blocks move. Click any block to take a turn.

Three things you can build

Start with the parts.

Write on the blocks, put them together, then change them before anyone writes on paper.

01

Sentences

Illustration: a young boy lowers a block reading quickly into the gap in a row of blocks that reads The fox, ran, into, the woods
A word dropped into a gap.

One word on each block. Move a word, say the sentence, hear the change.

02

Groups

Illustration: three primary learners sort food blocks into four colour groups: chicken, beans and eggs; bread, rice and pasta; apple, carrot and peas; milk, cheese and yoghurt
Foods sorted into groups.

Sort ideas into groups, then say what each group has in common.

03

Sequences

Illustration: two secondary learners at a lab bench, one pointing at the third block in a line reading plates move, pressure builds, rocks snap, waves spread, ground shakes
The steps of an earthquake, in order.

One step on each block. Put them in order and explain each link.

How to use it in a lesson

Build it, say it, then write.

A line drawing of a learner writing in a book, three blocks lined up on the desk beside the page
  1. Build it.Write one part on each block and put them in order.
  2. Say it aloud.Read the blocks from left to right. Does it make sense?
  3. Change one block.Swap, add or move a block, then say what changed.
  4. Write it down.Copy the version you like best onto paper. The blocks stay on the desk.

See the thinking

Watch it get better.

The handwriting shows what a learner might be thinking as the blocks move.

A learner might think

All the thinking, as text
  1. Who is it about? The fox. What did it do?
  2. I want to show how it ran. Quickly.
  3. The fox ran into quickly the woods? That sounds wrong.
  4. ‘Quickly’ tells me how it ran. Try it next to ‘ran’.
  5. What if ‘quickly’ goes first?
  6. Now it needs a capital Q, and a comma after it.
  7. Both make sense. The second one feels faster.
  8. I will write the one that starts with ‘Quickly’.

See it in real classrooms

Hear a learner talk it through.

Real lessons, with the sound on. The blocks are on the desk and the learners do the talking.

A school in Quebec, one minute. A learner talks through the themes of a poem, sorted on blocks: death, family, sadness, lost, grief, life, love, empathy.
Writer’s Block explainerOpens YouTube Using the blocks for sentence expansionOpens YouTube

Two levels

The idea, or the sentence.

The same blocks work at two sizes. Build the shape of a whole answer, one block per step. Or build one sentence, one block per part.

The idea

Writer's Block blocks laid out as an argument, labelled Argument, Perspective, Argument and Link, each row filled with handwritten history notes
A history argument: argument, perspective, argument, link. Colegio Anglo Colombiano, Bogotá.

The sentence

A sentence built on a desk from blocks: purple blocks read Luka, arrived, late, with yellow and white blocks stacked on top reading Tired, Young, dramatically and Extremely, handwritten in dry-wipe pen
A sentence built one block at a time.

Every age, every subject

From phonics to the Krebs cycle.

The blocks hold whatever you write on them, so the thinking sets the age, not the plastic. These are real classrooms.

What does it look like in primary?

Sounds, pictures and short words on the blocks.

  • Blocks with handwritten sounds on their panels, sh, or, s, w, ee, t, p, stacked to build words
    PhonicsWords built sound by sound. A primary classroom.
  • A food chain in purple blocks: producer, consumer and prey, predator and prey, and predator, each word above a photo of a plant or animal
    ScienceA food chain, built in blocks.

What does it look like in secondary?

Themes, arguments and whole processes, up to age 18.

  • Two rows of blocks on a desk beside an annotated poem: green blocks read death, sadness, lost, grief; purple blocks below read family, life, love, empathy
    EnglishA poem’s themes sorted by colour, with the lines that carry them. A school in Quebec.
  • Columns of blocks against a classroom wall, headed Trade, Resources, Territory and Health, each block holding a handwritten note on Elizabethan exploration: silk, spices, tobacco, gold, the East India Company
    HistoryWhat exploration brought England, sorted into columns. Leventhorpe School, a secondary school.
  • Purple, white and yellow blocks laid flat in a grid, each naming a food or nutrient with a note on what it does: pasta, rice, protein for growth and repair, lipid, fatty acids and glycerol
    ScienceFoods sorted by what they do in the body. A secondary science lesson.
  • A tower of white blocks in two columns: the ways to separate a mixture, distillation, filtration, centrifugation, evaporation, sedimentation, decantation and sieving, each beside a number from 1 to 7
    ScienceSeparating mixtures, in order. A school in Quebec.
  • Purple blocks built into a stepped structure on a lab bench, every block labelled with a stage or product of the Krebs cycle: Krebs, mitochondrial matrix, acetyl CoA, 6C, 5C, 4C, NADH, reduced FAD, CO2
    Biology, ages 17 to 18The Krebs cycle, every stage and product on a block. An upper secondary class.
Illustration: one Writer's Block kit, about a hundred blocks in purple, white, green and yellow stacks, a short row of five blocks, a small box of mini whiteboards and a bundle of dry-wipe pens
One kit: the blocks, the mini whiteboards in their box, and dry-wipe pens.

What is in a kit

How many kits do I need?

Most classes use two kits (£420). A class of 30 may want three. Learners build in small groups, and kits move easily between classrooms, so a school can share them.

  • 112 blocks in purple, yellow, green and white. Enough for up to 15 learners.
  • A mini whiteboard for each block. It slots in, learners write on it and wipe it clean. Each one is the size of a business card, so they store widthwise in a business-card box.
  • Dry-wipe pens, so every group can write straight away.
  • An eBook for the teacher.
  • Card inserts, if you want them. Printable cards that slot into the panels, for when you would rather print than write. Sold separately.

Your first lesson, in ten minutes.

  1. Write one idea on each block: the point, the reason, the evidence.
  2. Hand them out jumbled. Learners put them in order and say why.
  3. Check it holds together. Then they write it.
  • Illustration: a fingertip pushes a printed card showing a sun and the word sun into the window of a green block
    Slot in a printed card
  • Illustration: a hand finishes writing the word because on a block's white panel with a dry-wipe pen
    Write on it
  • Illustration: a cloth wipes a block's panel clean, half of the word however already gone
    Wipe it clean
  • Illustration: six blocks stacked in a wall: sun, rain and soil on the bottom row, roots and leaves above, plant on top
    Stack and build

Buy

Choose your blocks.

One kit is enough for up to 15 learners building at once, so most classes use two. Buying for a year group or the whole school costs less per learner. Choose an option to see its price and share it with your school.

Choose a Writer's Block option

Kits move between classes, so many schools share one set across year groups.

Your choiceOne kit£210 + £9 delivery = £219

Suggested for 1 kit: 1 kit, £210 + £9 delivery = £219.

An estimate, with UK delivery at £9 per kit.

Tear-off printable card inserts beside Writer's Block pieces

Printable card inserts £25

Print words or pictures, tear off the cards and slot them into the blocks.

Ask for the free Word templateWe email it to you, free, with or without an order.
UK delivery is £9 per kit.Outside the UK? Ask for a delivery quote.

Pay by card

Buy one kit by card in our online store.

Pay by card in the store →

Pay by invoice or purchase order

Enter the school details and we will email an invoice for your finance team to pay by bank transfer.

Not the one who pays? Send this page to your bursar or business manager. The prices and both ways to pay are all here. No VAT to add.

or email it

Does it help writing?

What teachers see.

When the structure is on the desk, learners can see what they are about to write and fix it before they write it. Teachers tell us the writing gets longer and better organised.

Karen Sivyer reported that 26 of 27 learners improved over 12 weeks. She saw gains in writing, punctuation, fluency and interest in reading and writing.

Karen Sivyer, primary teacher. Cambridge Hub impact study.

“The blocks are really clever, simple, and effective. Two of the biggest and most important skills are communication and collaboration, both of which are developed and encouraged by using the blocks.”

Professor Anne Bamford OBE, Strategic Director for Education, Culture and Skills, City of London. Cambridge Hub impact study.

“For the children, the fact that they are building and not writing is beneficial.”

Karen Sivyer, primary teacher, Year 4 research project, 12 weeks.

“Students were clearly able to coherently organize their thought processes by interacting with the physicality of these blocks.”

Dr Steve Connolly, Department of Education, University of Bedfordshire (one-term English case study).

“Connecting ideas with the blocks provides a bridge between their understanding, reading and writing and fills in the gap.”

Alison Samuel, primary teacher (four weeks’ use).

These are teachers’ reports and researchers’ views, not a trial. We have no controlled study of the blocks and writing yet, and we say so.

A learner's handwritten note on lined paper: I found the blocks helpful because if we did not have these blocks we would not have done that much writing
A learner’s own verdict: “I found the blocks helpful because if we did not have these blocks we would not have done that much writing.”

Questions

Before you buy.

Anything else, email paul@structural-learning.com.

How much does it cost?

One kit is £210 for up to 15 learners, so most classes use two (£420). UK delivery is £9 per kit and printable card inserts are £25. Five kits are £945 (10% off) and ten kits are £1,785 (15% off). There is no subscription.

How long does delivery take?

We post every kit ourselves and confirm a delivery date when you order. If you need it by a particular day, say so on the invoice form.

Can we pay by purchase order or invoice?

Yes. Use the invoice form above, with your PO number if you have one. We send an invoice to your finance team, who pay by bank transfer.

What is in a kit?

112 blocks in purple, yellow, green and white, a mini whiteboard for each block, dry-wipe pens and an eBook for the teacher. The mini whiteboards slot into the blocks, and learners write on them and wipe them clean. Each is the size of a business card, so they store widthwise in a business-card box. One kit is enough for up to 15 learners, so most classes use two, and a class of 30 may want three.

What about storage and lost blocks?

The blocks click together, so a kit stacks neatly on a shelf. If blocks go missing, email us and we will tell you what we can send.

Is it too young for secondary, up to age 18?

No. The blocks hold whatever is written on them, so the thinking sets the level: an essay on Mr Birling at ages 14 to 15, a history argument at ages 12 to 13, a map of the Krebs cycle at ages 17 to 18. Try the demo above on English, ages 14 to 15.

How does it fit with the Thinking Framework and the free planner?

The blocks are the “build it” route in both. The Thinking Framework names the thinking a task needs, and the free lesson planner suggests a block build to match. You can use the blocks without either.

Do we need a subscription?

No. The kit is yours and works on its own, with no app, no account and no licence.

Can we try the idea before we buy?

Yes. Write one idea on each of five sticky notes and ask a class to put them in order. The blocks make it quicker, tidier and reusable, but the thinking is the same.

The Structural Learning platform

It all comes to life on the platform.

Build It activities are in the lesson planner, so the blocks learners hold match the lesson on the board.

Plan a lesson free

Free to start.

Training

Learn it with your staff.

A hands-on staff session on the blocks, on its own or as one of four in a training programme.

  • A story told in green and yellow blocks on a round library table, each block with a drawing and a sentence opener: Once upon a time, After some time, Then it, Finally. Dry-wipe pens and a stack of mini whiteboards sit beside it
    The Legacy School, Bangalore
  • Yellow blocks standing on classroom tables, each holding one handwritten idea from the history of New France, such as founding of Quebec and population doubles
    Quebec, Canada
  • A grid of twelve blocks in yellow, purple and green, each holding a printed line drawing of a famous landmark, with a hand resting beside it and spare mini whiteboards on the table
    Landmarks, sorted in picture blocks.

A training programme

One focus for the whole staff.

Each focus stands on its own, so a school can start with the one it needs. Together they make a whole-school programme for primary and secondary, so you can add the others when you are ready.

  1. The Thinking FrameworkThe Thinking Framework

    A shared language for thinking, for every teacher in the room.

    This focus

  2. Map ItMap It

    Graphic organisers that make learners' thinking visible on the page.

    This focus

  3. Say ItSay It

    Oracy: talk routines that give every learner a voice.

    This focus

  4. Build ItBuild It

    Learners build sentences and ideas with Writer's Block, then write them.

    This focus

Cover of the research summary Why we think with our hands Research summary, PDFWhy we think with our handsSix findings on gesture and hands-on learning, each with its study. Free to download.

Buying for more than one class?

Talk it through with Paul.

Twenty minutes on a Google Meet. Tell me where writing gets stuck in your school and I will tell you whether the blocks would help, and say so if I think they would not. I reply to every request myself.

Request a conversation

Three quick questions. I reply by email with a time, or with a better next step if a call is not the one.

Request a conversation →
or

Email me directly
paul@structural-learning.com