Learning to write is a lengthy process! We do not expect your children to be starting school being able to write their name! 

(NB - If your child has already learnt how to form some letters - please concentrate on helping them to form the lower case letters and not the capital letters.  We only teach them to use a capital letter for the first letter in their name, everything else is a lower case.)

Before children can learn to write they need to have developed good strength in their hands and the muscles that help them to write.  This begins with strengthening their whole body movements through activities such as running, climbing, riding bikes, jumping, balancing as well as the development of their fine motor skills through playing with playdough, painting, drawing, colouring pictures, building models, using tweezers to pick up objects and playing with their toys.

In preparation for starting school, please spend lots of time on activities such as these as they will help your child develop their pencil grip strength ready for learning to write when they start school. 

The following images may help understand the development of pencil grip:

At Studley Green Primary school we use a hand writing scheme called Teach Handwriting - please click on the link below to find out how you can support this at home.

https://www.teachhandwriting.co.uk/more-activities-help-develop-handwriting-skills.html

When we practise writing our letters we group them in families:

The curve family:

The straight line family:

The tunnel family:

The diagonal family:

The hook, loop and line family:

Please click on the link below to see how we form these letters and for some other activities to help:

https://www.teachhandwriting.co.uk/print-letters-beginners.html