Handwriting

We have three, and they are play kits rather than worksheets. Our therapy team built them as a series, and the advice on all three is the same: choose between them by what is actually challenging your child rather than by how old they are. Getting Ready to Write is the first, and it builds core, shoulder and hand strength in four stages before it gets to letters. Creative Handwriting is the second, for the child who will draw all afternoon but cannot remember which way a letter goes. Handwriting in Practice is the last, four weeks of short writing jobs for the child who can write but is still on the first line when the class has finished.

Usually because it is harder for them than it looks from the outside. Handwriting asks a child to think of a sentence, work out the spelling, form each letter and get it onto the line, all at once. Our therapy team's answer to that is to take some of it away, so the workbook in our Handwriting in Practice kit takes away some of that heavy thinking work so the only job left is the writing. It is also worth checking whether the hand runs out of energy before the task does. A child who shakes, cramps up, or keeps changing their grip and position partway through is often running out of strength rather than patience.

There is no single grip that is right at every age, and a child's grip changes as their hand gets stronger. What usually matters more than the shape of the hold is whether the hand can keep holding it. Our Getting Ready to Write kit works from the middle of the body out to the fingertips. Core strength, then upper body, then hand strength, then the letters. We do not sell pencil grips. If a grip is the only thing you are after, the stationery aisle will have them.

The things a child needs in place before letters start to make sense. Enough shoulder and hand strength to control a pencil, the pinch to hold one, being able to copy a shape, and knowing where a line starts and stops. Our Ready for School Play Kit does a lot of the prewriting work, and the fine motor kits are great for that too, working on the strength and skill through play.

Letter formation is how a letter gets made. Where the pencil starts, which way it travels, and how big the letter ends up. Our Sky, Grass, Dirt writing pad colours the page into three bands, blue for the sky, green for the grass and brown for the dirt, with a rhyme that tells a child where each letter stands, burrows or reaches. The Shape-a-Sound game has 26 alphabet cards and 100 reusable wax sticks, so a child builds the shape of the letter with their hands before they write it. And our Creative Handwriting Play Kit merges creative arts with letter formation through guided videos. These are all for the part of handwriting that is remembering the shape of the letter, which is a different job from having the strength to write it.