How to Join Letters of the Alphabet

The final stage of teaching handwriting is learning how to join letters to form words. Our free handwriting practice worksheets and animations provide resources for teaching primary school children how to join cursive and continuous cursive letters for all bottom joins, top joins, e joins and bottom to c shaped joins.

How to Improve Handwriting the Letters of the Alphabet, Numbers & Symbols

Having mastered pre-handwriting patterns, children progress to learning how to handwrite letters, numbers and symbols. Here we explain the different font types taught in UK schools and provide animations and free handwriting practice worksheets for teaching pre-school and primary school children how to form capital, print, cursive and continuous cursive letters, numbers and symbols.

Helping Children to Improve their Handwriting

Welcome to Teach Handwriting

Teaching handwriting is more than just getting your child to practise writing the alphabet.This video tour of our web site explains what to consider when helping to teach your child handwriting. Whether your child is just starting handwriting, or they are having handwriting difficulties, the site is full of tips and ideas to help improve your child’s handwriting.  

Key Strengths Needed for Handwriting

Check whether your child is “fit for handwriting” by assessing their handwriting gross and fine motor skills. There are games and activities to strengthen  posture, bilateral coordination, sensory perception and hand & finger strength together with activity programs to help strengthen these muscles to improve handwriting and warm up exercises to relax the body ready for handwriting.

Starting Handwriting using Pre-Handwriting Patterns

By the age of 4, most children can hold a pencil. Here we provide animations and free pre-handwriting practice worksheets for teaching pre-school and primary school children how to form pre-handwriting patterns, the first stage of teaching children handwriting.

Developmental Stages of Children’s Handwriting

Here we describe how children learn to handwrite, how their pencil grips develop and how to assess their hand dominance. We provide tips on identifying and overcoming the causes of the most common handwriting difficulties, other barriers to learning and how to support children with specific learning difficulties. A summary of  how schools support handwriting development is also included here.

How to Hold a Pencil

Holding a pencil correctly, reduces the strain on your child’s hand and allows it to move freely, encouraging them to write. Here we provide a step by step guide on how to hold a pencil for both right and left handed writers, advice on correcting a poor pencil grip and activities to strengthen the muscles needed to hold a pencil.

Handwriting Resources

Handwriting games and activities to support the teaching of handwriting and other free handwriting resources can be found here, together with details of our School Training Courses and Teaching Scheme.

Sitting at a Desk

Providing the best sitting position for your child while writing, and having the correct writing paper position, can improve your child’s handwriting by making it comfortable and stress free. Here we give tips and advice on how to achieve this, for both right and left handed writers, together with activities to strengthen the muscles needed to sit correctly at a desk and handwrite freely.