Handwriting: an important aspect of the modern curriculum

The Happy Handwriting course

Happy Handwriting provides guidance and resources for you to teach efficient, fluent, and legible handwriting as simply as possible, and to create a clear, shared handwriting policy in school. Happy Handwriting teaches the key elements of early handwriting: letter movements, alphabet knowledge, and joins between letters, as early and thoroughly as possible.

Handwriting should be taught separately from phonics instruction. However, letter formation and knowledge of letter names contribute to phonics and literacy learning. Children who can form letters correctly and automatically, and can discuss the letters by their names, use these skills in their phonics and writing.

The teaching of correct letter movements early in children’s literacy learning is an important foundation of fluent and automatic handwriting. It is very hard to unlearn motor habits, so letter formation movements must be learnt correctly right from the start, to ensure letters can be joined up later. Children should learn the correct movement for each letter formation before paying attention to the size or spacing of letters, which will come later, in Key Stage 1.

Some children will find learning handwriting relatively easy and a few may almost seem to ‘catch’ it effortlessly. However, other children will find handwriting more challenging and mastering the complex, rounded shapes of letters and joins may need more practice and attention. Happy Handwriting builds in regular self-review of handwriting by children and assessment by teachers, so that you can use the additional resources to support children who need more guided practice. There is assessment advice and a recording sheet for handwriting assessments for each family of letter movements, and printable materials for parents or carers to support their child’s handwriting development.

Letter formation is a movement, not just a shape

The Happy Handwriting course prioritises the introduction of the correct movements to form lowercase letters (letter formation), followed by their capital formations. The letters are introduced in order of letter movement families based on the formation of the letters. The order of units has been planned to ensure that children learn the formation of letters they have already met in their phonics programme.

The Letter formation families

The four families are:

● The Curly Caterpillar family: anti-clockwise round, exemplified by the letter c o c a d g o q o e s f ● The Long Ladder family: down and off in another direction, exemplified by the letter l o i l t o u y j k ● The Robot family: down and retrace upwards, exemplified by the letter r o r n m o h b p ● The Zigzag family: straight, sharp turn, exemplified by the letter z o v w x z

Letter formation – movements

There is a letter formation movement in Happy Handwriting for each letter. The dot is the starting point and each arrow represents a directional stroke. These are set out on pages 13 and 14 of this guide. There are memory phrases to reinforce this movement, set out on page 15.

Letter formation – break letters

Happy Handwriting uses a lower-case script where most letters have an exit stroke or ‘flick’ to prepare children to join letters as soon as they feel able. In Happy Handwriting, the following letters do not join to letters following them: b, g, j, p, q, x, y, z, s. Letters which finish on the left (b, p, x), letters where a join would cause a loop (g, j, q, y) and letters with many changes of direction (s, z) do not join. Most adults use an efficient semi-joined script when they write, and Happy Handwriting prepares children to learn this as early as possible.

Letter formation for left handers

The formation of some letters is slightly different for some left-handed children, who ‘pull’ the lines right to left, whereas right-handers will ‘push’ lines left to right: the lower-case letters t and f and the capital letters A, E, F, H, J, T.

Learning the alphabet

Knowing the names of the letters allows us to talk about them and helps with phonics and spelling. Call a letter by its name, rather than the sound associated with it. If children learn the letter name when they learn the movement for the lower-case letter, they can then learn the capital letter which has the same name. Of course, it is also important to discuss the sounds associated with letters in phonics, and children have no difficulty learning both letter names and the sounds associated with the letters.

Alphabetical order of letter names is an easily learnt sequence which lasts a lifetime. It enables children to use dictionaries, encyclopaedias and glossaries – and it is one system that is not changing in this digital age! It is worth teaching your Reception children to recite the alphabet and use games to consolidate alphabetical order of letters. In Reception, Happy Handwriting does this by encouraging you to sing the classic alphabet song as often as possible, and follow the letters across the page. Additional alphabet activities are given on page 78 of this guide.

Joining letters in Key Stage 1

In Key Stage 1, Happy Handwriting teaches five main joins between letters:

1. vertical joins to letters without ascenders (for example: ai) 2. vertical joins to letters with ascenders (for example: ch) 3. horizontal joins to letters without ascenders (for example: wa) 4. horizontal joins to letters with ascenders (for example: wh) 5. joins to round letters (for example: ad).

The basis of all these joins is correct letter movements, so that is the most important goal for the Reception year.