Handwriting
At Thorpe Lea, we teach all children from Year 1 upwards, a cursive script as a way of promoting excellent handwriting and presentation across the school. A cursive script is a continuous script where every letter starts on the line. The alphabet below demonstrates this:
We use a programme called LetterJoin to help teach children how to write cursively through a combination of interactive animations and practical worksheets. As with most learning, every child's writing develops at a slightly different pace but we have set out the following goals for each child's handwriting development.
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By the end of Reception - the majority of children should be able to form all 26 letters of the alphabet correctly. This will follow the Read, Write Inc approach and focuses on letters without lead in and lead outs. |
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By the end of Year 1 - the majority of children should be able to form individual letters in our cursive script. |
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By the end of Year 2 - the majority of children should be joining their writing using our cursive script. |
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By the end of Year 4 - the majority of children should be ready to use a pen throughout Years 5 & 6 |
As with any skill, handwriting develops more rapidly with regular practice. With our Letter Join subscription, children can access this at home and practice on a computer, tablet or can print out sheets to use. Please ask your child's class teacher for their log in.
When children achieve the expected standard in handwriting, they are awarded a pen license in celebration assembly. From that point on, they are free to write in pen should they wish to do so.