Handwriting

At Christ the King, we follow the Red Rose Letters and Sounds Programme, providing a synthetic approach to the teaching of phonics, from Foundation Stage, through KS1 and into KS2 if appropriate. 

As soon as our children enter our Foundation Stage (EYFS), provision is carefully planned to support our children to further develop and strengthen their fine motor skills required for writing. This includes lots of activities to get children using their pincer grip. This includes using tweezers, screws and bolts, malleable materials (playdough), threading, cutting and sticking tasks. 

As the children begin to form letters during the Foundation Stage, they are taught to form each letter (grapheme) using the letter formation from Red Rose Letters and Sounds. This is further developed in Year 1, where the children aim to form all letters in a print style.  

It is recommended that when teaching letter formation, a phrase is used in order to embed the directionality. Adults who teach letter formation are encouraged to use the same approach as children learn effectively through repetition. The letter formation used at Christ the King can be seen below.