Handwriting

Handwriting is a key skill which needs to be automated in order to allow for efficient writing.

 Setting up the page

To start with purchase the correct book for your child’s age. Ask your child’s teacher if you are unsure.

Using the red and blue lines appropriate for your child’s age you should shade in the middle line in blue.

After this draw a cat at the end of the line draw a cat to show where head, body and tail letters go.

If your child is left handed it can be useful to draw this on the right hand side of the page instead.

Watch the video to see how to set up the page for writing.

Learning the letter formations

The letters can be divided into 5 different groups which have similar formation patterns.

Rain letters

The rain letters are all formed by starting at the top and going straight down the page, like a rain drops.

Rain letters are i, l, j,t,f.

Watch the video which shows you how to form the letters and the correct language explaining head, body and tail letters.

Clever c letters

The second group of letters to learn are the clever c letters. These are all formed from the base of letter c.

These letters are c,o,a,g,d,q.

Watch the video to see how the letters are formed and the language of head, body and tail. This is a really critical letter formation to get right.

 Pirate r letters

Pirate letters all go down, up and around.

These are the letters r,h,n,m,k,b,p.

Watch the video to learn the formation plus where to place the letters on the line.

Make sure the letter p is placed in the correct place, this is commonly incorrectly placed.

 Smiley Letters

The smiley letters go down, around and up.

These include the letters y,u,v,w.

Watch the video how to place and form the letters correctly.

Other letters

The final group of letters is e, s, x, z. These all fit inside the blue lines and are just body letters.

The next step

Once you can spell all the letters in their groups, a true test of correct formation is to write the alphabet from a-z without a visual prompt. Doing this the child has to move between different formations. Get them to explain the formation and head/tail/ body parts for each letter as they write.