Handwriting
As soon as our children enter our Foundation Stage (EYFS), provision is carefully planned to support our children to further develop and strengthen their fine motor skills required for writing. This includes lots of activities to get children using their pincer grip. This includes using tweezers, screws and bolts, malleable materials (playdough), threading, cutting and sticking tasks.
Our children are then supported in developing the correct pencil grip for writing (please see the modelled video below for your reference).
As the children begin to first form letters during the Foundation Stage, they are taught to form each letter (grapheme) using the patter for letter formation from Red Rose Letters and Sounds (see the documents below).
This is further developed in Year 1, where the children aim to form all letters in a cursive style with ascenders and descenders. As they progress in Year 2, they are taught how to join letters, which is practised and developed further in Key Stage 2.
In Years 3 and 4, the aim is to improve the legibility, consistency and quality of the children’s handwriting across the curriculum.
The focus is on building stamina in Years 5 and 6, and on maintaining fluency and legibility in joined handwriting when writing at speed.
Letter Join is used at Sherwood to support the teaching of handwriting in school, and to provide further opportunities for practise at home.
