Handwriting
Making handwriting automatic …so all the attention of the brain can be on the writing content
Kinetic Letters – Helping Every Child Become a Confident Writer
Our school is starting on our journey introducing a new handwriting scheme designed to give children the skills, strength, and confidence they need to write fluently and legibly from the earliest stages. It provides clear, consistent letter formation guidance across all year groups, helping children develop pride in their presentation and a strong foundation for future writing.
This approach combines child development principles with proven teaching strategies, ensuring that handwriting becomes an automatic skill, freeing pupils to focus on the content of their work.
Kinetic Letters uses a unique, story-based approach to help children remember letter formations, alongside targeted exercises to improve fine and gross motor skills. By embedding these skills early, pupils gain the confidence to express their ideas clearly and creatively in all areas of learning.
We are looking forward to seeing our children’s handwriting progress rapidly, with neat, consistent, and confident writing becoming a natural part of their everyday work.
Kinetic Letters® is a handwriting programme that children begin as soon as they start in the Reception Class.
It consists of four main threads:
- Making Bodies Strong – Developing core strength, posture, and pencil grip through fun, engaging activities.
- Learning the Letters – Teaching letter shapes and joins in a logical, easy-to-remember sequence.
- Holding the Pencil – Ensuring children develop a comfortable and efficient grip for sustained writing.
- Flow and Fluency – Building speed and consistency so handwriting becomes effortless.
It enables children to develop legible handwriting that is produced quickly and automatically. With the development of automaticity, handwriting becomes a valuable tool and not a hindrance to learning.
Kinetic Letters is based on a set of rules that have been made as simple as possible to enable fast learning.
Strength: Writing is a fine finger operation; children must have core body and arm strength to be able to control their fingers precisely.
Pencil hold: The pencil/pen grip must be comfortable to allow writing for long periods.
Letter formation: The movements to form the letters begin with whole body movements and progress through writing in sand trays to writing on whiteboards and finally writing on paper. In Kinetic Letters®, all the letters and numbers are formed by one of two monkeys, a brave one (Bounce) who goes to the top branch of the tree, and a scared one (Skip) who goes to the lower branch.
Flow and fluency: Letter movements are minimised to help a fast writing style to develop. There are no lead-in strokes (as this wastes time and effort)
For more information on Kinetic letters CLICK HERE
- The Kinetic Letters Alphabet
- Kinetic Letters Programme overview
- Pencil pick-up and checks
- Learning the Letters and their Letter Families
- Helping your Child at Home with Writing
- Parental resources
- HS8 Helping your child - learning to join letters
- HS7 Helping your child - Letter Trail wording
- HS6 Helping your child - letter family groups
- HS4 Home pack - parental instructions
- HS3 Reception parents - ABC poster and cover letter
- HS2 Parental information about Kinetic Letters
- Cranmore Handwriting Policy
- Animal positions
