Handwriting Workshop For Reception Parents

The aims of this session are: To give you some ideas of fun activities that will help develop fine motor skills. To explain how we teach handwriting at school. To go through the teaching sequence we use at school.

Firstly, lets think about what the children need to help them become good writers: good hand to eye coordination dexterity finger strength and the correct pencil grip. So how can we encourage these skills?

Fun activities to try .... threading cutting colouring

More fun activities... drawing chalking building sorting

In fact, anything fun that needs fingers and concentration! rolling squeezing moulding cooking In fact, anything fun that needs fingers and concentration!

So how do fun activities help my child?

How do we teach handwriting at school? Well, we do lots of fun activities for starters !!! These are carefully planned, indoors and out, every day.

are the first things we teach. Posture and Grip are the first things we teach. Children should sit comfortably with their feet both flat on the floor.

The pencil should be picked up between the thumb and first finger and fall back towards the hand. The top of the pencil should be pointing towards their shoulder. The pencil should not be gripped tightly.

How do you hold a pencil? Try writing your name... Like this?

Now hold a pencil like this. Try writing your name... How does it feel?

Now hold a pencil like this. Try writing your name... How does it feel?

Now hold a pencil like this. Try writing your name... How does it feel?

It is very important that we teach children how to hold a pencil correctly; a good pencil grip will help them become proficient writers so much more easily.

Golden Rules Children must always be allowed to use the hand which they feel most comfortable with. For left handers the paper should be turned slightly to the right. For right handers the paper should be turned slightly to the left.    

Try sitting straight and having your paper straight on the table. Try writing your name again; how does it feel?

Left handed writing is harder. This is because you have to push the pencil across the paper rather than pull it. You will also accidentally hide what you have already written with your hand, which makes spacing more difficult.

c o a d g q Teaching Sequence We teach the flicks for joining right from the start. Lower case letters are taught in families that share the same movement pattern: c o a d g q Anti clockwise motion (start at the top and curve down and round). Keep your pencil on until you have finished the whole letter!  

l i t j k u y v w x z Straight line down from the top. Keep your pencil on until you have finished the whole letter!   v w x z   Downwards motion (left to right). Keep your pencil on for ‘v’ ‘w’ and ‘z’ but you need one ‘lift off’ for the ‘x’.  

m r n b p h e s f Down, up and over motion.     Down, up and over motion. Keep your pencil on until you have finished the whole letter!   e s f Anti clockwise motion. Keep your pencil on for ‘e’ and ‘s’ but you need one ‘lift off’ for the ‘f’.  

We also teach the children how to form CAPITAL LETTERS, but these are only to start their name, for the word ‘I’ and then to start a sentence. We also teach the children how to form their numbers as this is just as important. A B C I 2 3

We also teach the letter shapes from individual children’s names and of course we teach the letter shapes as they come up in our Jolly Phonics lessons too!

These are usually quite large movements to begin with. The first stage is writing inside open letters: These are usually quite large movements to begin with. The next stage is to overwrite or trace letters: a a

Then children try and continue from an example with a starting dot: We then introduce lines as they gain control: aa aa

Time for you to have a go now! If you want to see how hard it is for children, try writing with your other hand!

Where next? ascender descender In Year 1 we then move on to tramlines and teach the children about ascenders and descenders:

a d g These are short letters. These letters are tall.   These letters are tall. And these letters have tails.

Then we move on to joining patterns, but we make sure that there are finger spaces to mimic real writing. And finally we start to teach the different joins.

Learning to write is one of the most complicated things your child will ever learn! Be patient with them, give lots of encouragement, but above all make sure any activity you do together is FUN!