1. Welcome At Milford School we aim to help
children to develop a love of the
English language through the
spoken and written word.
We believe that literacy
provides the key to unlock all
other areas of the curriculum
enabling children to reach
their goals as they embark on
their learning journey.

2. Workshop aims To Investigate the development of gross and
fine motor skills and the early stages of mark
making
To find out about the early strategies used to
support children when learning to write
To appreciate the difficulties children face in learning to write
To find out about writing in Key Stage 1
To see some of the resources used to support Early Years and Key Stage 1 writing
To enjoy, discuss and take home some ideas to support your child at home

3. Think big! For handwriting children need to be well co-ordinated
through their whole body, not just their hands and fingers.
Gross Motor Skills develop core, arm, leg strength and coordination
climbing
jumping
balancing
skipping
batting
swinging
throwing/catching
skywriting
writing on backs
water/paintbrushes
chalks outside
BIG painting/drawing
Fine Motor Skills which help develop hand and finger muscles
sewing
threading
tap a shape
jigsaws
playdough
lego/building
drawing
colouring
cutting/sticking
patterns
painting
letter shapes
Think big!

4. Pencil grip development
years

5. The most important thing is for them to enjoy writing.
Early Writing
Encourage your child to print the letters first BUT avoid over use of capitals. Your child will need to master writing letters in print form before they can move on to retracing lines which are essential for
letters like
a, d, h, y etc.
The most important thing is for them to enjoy writing.
scribbles
letter like forms
random letter strings
key words
invented spelling

6. Supporting children with their writing
Children are encouraged to write as part of their purposeful play.
They don’t need a pencil to write!
Children write in a variety of role play situations that match their interests and stimulate talking.
They experiment with writing by making marks, personal writing symbols and conventional script.
They are given lots of praise and encouragement to have a go.
We support the children’s writing by encouraging them to hear the sound at the beginning of the word in their writing.
Then they progress in hearing other sounds in words in their writing.

7. Examples of print

8. Children learn to form their letters in the following formation groups:
Long Ladders
i l t j u y
Curly Caterpillars
c o a d g q e f s
One-armed Robots
h n m r b p k
Zigzag Monsters
v w x z

9. Writing in Key Stage 1 cursive pre-cursive
As your child becomes more fluent at printing letters, we will encourage them to retrace lines to form letters correctly.
Our aim is for your child to eventually join their letters together (cursive writing) as they move through Key Stage 1.
pre-cursive
cursive

10. Writing in Key Stage 1
As children become more confident forming letters we move on to the skills required to produce clear and accurate sentences. Children are encouraged to use capital letters, full stops and finger spaces between words.

11. Composition
In Key Stage 1 we also focus on what the children are writing.
Children are encouraged to write fiction and non fiction pieces.
In Year 1 we work on familiar stories and use actions to help
the children remember key words for their writing.

12. Year 2 In Year 2 we aim to make children confident and
creative writers.
We introduce superheroes to help them remember
ways to ‘trap their reader!’
Violet Vocab Captain Connective
Dr. Punctuation Incredible Opener
Year 2

13. Spellings
The majority of children will phonetically spell words in key stage 1 and on into key stage 2.
Spellings homework is started in year 1 and
continues into year 2 using the look, say,
cover, write, check method.
Our main aim is for children to spell key words correctly and reinforce spelling the sounds learnt in phonics lessons.

14. Ideas and activities to help your child at home
Use different writing materials: chalk outside, sparkly pens, water and paint brushes.
Write lists, letters, birthday cards.
Give lots of praise and enjoy your child’s attempts at
writing and spelling.
When you write with your child try to use lower case (not
capitals) except at the beginning of a sentence or name.
Look at words together when you’re out shopping, on
television or reading together.
Talk about using WOW words to describe things.
Count out the words in a sentence with your child.
Encourage your child to use capital letters, full stops and finger spaces.

15. Finally…
Once your child begins to write fluently then the whole curriculum opens up to them with a wealth of opportunities to express themselves.
End of year expectations (Handwriting)
Early Years (Year R)
Use a pencil and hold it effectively to form recognisable
letters, most of which are correctly formed.
Year 1
Correctly form all lower case letters (starting and finishing in the right place).
Correctly form all capital letters.
Year 2
Clear letter formation, with ascenders and descenders distinguished.
Upper and lower case letters used correctly.

16. Thank you for coming along to our workshop.
We hope you have found this
workshop useful. Are there
any questions?
Now for the FUN part!!
Please complete the short questionnaire so that we can ensure that the workshop was both useful and relevant.