Teaching handwriting

Handwriting style: once our children have mastered a good pencil grip, and have appropriate shoulder, elbow and wrist dexterity, we teach our children cursive handwriting.

At All Saints' our children are taught that:

• All letters start from the line (i.e. the bottom);
• All numbers start from the top

This starts in Early Years where our staff help our children in developing physically and establishing a good pencil grip.

You can see how we teach our children to form letters below.

Handwriting is a key skill which we teach at All Saints'.

We aim for our children to know the importance of clear and neat handwriting in order to communicate meaning effectively.

General Principles

To write legibly in both joined and printed styles with increasing fluency and speed by:

• Having a correct ‘froggy’ (tripod) pencil grip.

• Knowing that all letters start from the bottom.

• Knowing that most letters return to the line except v, w, o and r which finish at the top.

• Forming all letters correctly (properly closed ‘a’s for instance).

• Knowing the size and orientation of all letters.