Handwriting is of fundamental importance. It is one of the key foundational skills, therefore handwriting is taught daily in Reception through the use of Kinetic Letters. Starting in the Early Years, children are supported to develop their pencil grip and to take part in mark making activities. Across their Reception journey, there are opportunities for the children to write for a range of purposes such as: labels for pictures/models, captions, lists, instructions, speech bubbles, simple phrases/sentences and stories.

 At Wednesbury Oak, we understand that it is crucial to ensure that these skills become automatic for children, as this enables them to free up their working memory for  greater focus on the composition of their writing as they progress through school.

Handwriting is a physical activity that involves movement and recognition skills that need to be learnt and become part of the automatic cognitive skill set of the pupil.  To achieve this, we follow the Kinetic Letters handwriting program.

The four threads of the Kinetic Letters program:

• Making bodies stronger
• Holding the pencil (for speed, comfort and legibility)
• Learning the letters
• Flow and fluency  

The key principles of the program are:

• • Building physical strength underpins handwriting and concentration. This knowledge informs the working positions that children use for writing and the strengthening targets they work on.
  • Pupils are not expected to do anything before they are developmentally ready for it.
  • The different components of writing are mastered individually before being used in combination.
  • Letters are learnt as movements, not as visual shapes, and movement remains central to developing automaticity in letter formation, flow and fluency.
  • Posture is important in developing the correct position for handwriting and so children are taught how to organise their working position and paper position to enable comfortable and fluent writing from the start.
  • Correct pencil hold is taught from the start (ie as soon as a tri-pod grip is developmentally appropriate).

By the end of KS1, the aim is that some children will be using some of the strokes needed to join letters; teaching this will start in Year 2. Handwriting sessions are taught to the whole class, with differentiated targets where needed. Additional handwriting and fine and gross motor skills interventions may take place for some children.