When I was at primary school, we spent a long time practising handwriting. When I was a new teacher, if children were writing sentences by the end of reception, they were considered to be gifted and talented! Fast forward to today and the writing expectations placed on our little people are much harder to achieve, especially after large proportions of their lives have been spent in lockdown.
Expectations in the reception year
The Early Learning Goals, which indicate the expected standard for the end of reception, require children to:
Becoming a writer
There are so many skills at play when children are writing. Not only are they controlling a pencil, they are thinking of what they want or need to write, breaking the flow of speech into words and then sounds, then imagining what the letters look like to represent those sounds on the page, all while developing two-channelled attention to be able to listen to the teacher or what’s going on around them, and write at the same time. There’s no wonder writing is difficult!
I read an article today in the Families North Yorkshire magazine with a focus on handwriting. This magazine is great and often prompts me to write a post of my own! It’s free, too! It was not surprising to read that schools are unable to dedicate time to handwriting due to the demands of the curriculum as a whole. It’s a vicious cycle: if we can give more time to handwriting, we can help children to develop ‘neural patterns needed for learning and memory.’ If we can’t give time to handwriting, we could be delaying other skills, too.
https://issuu.com/familiesonline/docs/fam2023may-jun-issuu Accessed 12/05/2023 (Article written by Catherine Loble and Lisa Wander of www.emparenting.co.uk,)
I’ve also listened, with interest, to a couple of podcasts with a focus on Occupational Therapy and handwriting: one from ‘SEND in the experts with Georgina Durrant,’ and one from ‘The SENDcast,’ with Dale Pickles, both in discussion with Kim Griffin from www.GriffinOT.com. They’re available on Spotify and others, and I’d recommend taking time to listen, if you can.
Pencil grip
Before holding a pencil, children need to develop gross motor movements, build core strength as well as strength in the arms and shoulders, and rehearse some of the moves needed for letter formation. I know my own children have been delayed in developing core strength from gaps when parks were closed in lockdown, so this might be very common.
Next, they develop fine motor skills, working on finger strength and grip. There are lots of activities that help with these stages, but here we join the journey at the next part, when children start to manipulate a pencil or pen and reach the stage of writing letter shapes.
The grip a child uses develops over time and we can gently encourage them through these stages, never forcing a particular step but modelling it ourselves.
Letter formation
Your child’s school will have phrases they use to teach letter formation, often linked to their phonics programme. A few years ago, it was common to teach ‘cursive’ writing in reception, using lead-in strokes that start on the line. This had benefits when it came to learning to join, but made writing much more complicated to begin with. Thankfully, the DfE brought out ‘The Reading Framework’ in July 2021 and offered the guidance that schools should teach the letter shapes alone, without the lead-in strokes and joins. Hoorah!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-reading-framework-teaching-the-foundations-of-literacy (Accessed 12/05/23).
The basic moves to master are lines and circles. We can then group letters into families such as ‘ladder letters’ that start at the top and go down first, or curly caterpillar letters which start with the c shape (Kim Griffin talks about how we can give instructions that relate to movements in one of the podcasts detailed above). Knowing and learning that the pencil travels from top to bottom or left to right is useful knowledge to help to start and finish letters in the right place. This helps with joining letters, when the time comes. The image below is from Twinkl, to illustrate the family groups. I would always start with ladder letters, if given the choice, but children may start with s, a then t, as many phonics schemes teach these letters first so that reading words comes quickly. That’s great for reading but scarily tricky for writing.
There are lots of books available where children trace the letters: be careful with these. Whilst they have many benefits, they need to be used with an adult who models where to start each letter. Children won’t automatically start in the right place and so could develop habits that could be difficult to change if they get used to drawing letters in the wrong direction.
Children will learn to read and write lower case letters first but they’ll recognise capital letters from names and will soon need to write them. Capital letters are always tall and never join to the other letters; they always stand proud at the start of sentences and names.
The next visual shows the placing of some of the letters on lines and how joins might be taught in schools. The orange lines might be known as ‘power lines’ and they draw a child’s attention to where the letters sit. You can draw power lines with a highlighter and rule, taking up half the space of the line. It’s important not to rush to this stage; once children are secure with what the letters look like, and can form them without lines, they might be ready to try writing on lines.
https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/writingRepeater/index.html (Accessed 12/05/23).
One step at a time
Children will still be working on their handwriting as they move towards the end of their primary school years, then they will begin to develop their own style. As parents and carers, we can model clear letter formation when we write and praise all attempts that children write, from the very first marks on the paper (lines are part of the two-year old check) to page after page of a story.
Your child’s teacher will be able to help by providing more information about the style of lettering they teach and the phrases they use to help children to remember the movements involved in each letter. At home, take every opportunity to encourage writing, including asking your child to add something they like to the shopping list, writing cards, leaving notes, etc.
There are other blog posts needed, detailing the stage before writing letters (there are so many wonderful yet easy gross and fine-motor activities to share) and going into even more depth, but they are for another day. Hopefully, this information will be helpful to those with children who are starting to write letters. Please do click the heart below and share on social media!
Happy handwriting!
Recommended resources
Stabilo have a range of pens and pencils that promote the correct pencil grip – check carefully to be sure to buy right-handed or left-handed, if your child has shown a preference already: https://amzn.to/3Oo83qc
A range of pencil grips will be helpful to young writers: https://amzn.to/3pUtFQW
My all-time favourite pens to write with are old-school Berol felt tips! https://amzn.to/43ftHkR
Don’t forget your play dough! https://amzn.to/3BGZQpC
