Happy Handwriting - Teacher's Guide 1

Contents Handwriting: an important aspect of the modern curriculum

4

The Happy Handwriting course

6

Writing a school handwriting policy

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Handwriting in the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1

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The teaching focus for each week (Year 1)

11

Lower-case letter formations

12

Capital letter formations

13

Memory phrases

14

Teaching handwriting in Year 1

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Teaching the lessons

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Routine activities in Happy Handwriting: Year 1

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Assessing handwriting in Year 1

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Revising and assessing the Curly Caterpillar family

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Units 1–4

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Revising and assessing the Long Ladder family

27

Units 5–8

28

Revising and assessing the Robot family

32

Units 9–11

33

Revising and assessing the Zigzag family

36

Units 12–18

37

Introducing and assessing initial joins

44

Year 1: Assessment sheet for initial joins

45

Units 19–30

46

Automatic Practice sheets

58

Additional Practice sheets

61

Learning letter names and alphabetical order

76

Capital Letter Practice sheet

77

Number Practice sheet

78

Writing guidelines

79

Key principles of Happy Handwriting: • •

• • • •

• •

•

• •

Happy Handwriting sees handwriting as ‘language by hand’ and recognises that efficient, automatic letter generation contributes to the quality of what children write.

Happy Handwriting teaches a simple, modern cursive font with exit strokes (or flicks) from the very start, to prepare your children for efficient joined handwriting. You can use this font to prepare materials or displays for children.

Happy Handwriting is a planned, cumulative programme of skills teaching, which involves regular review and assessment so that teaching can be adjusted to meet children’s needs.

Happy Handwriting teaches the correct letter movement for each letter right from the start.

This is the most effective way to develop a ‘hand habit’ that prepares for joined handwriting.

In Year 1, Happy Handwriting revises correct letter movement (lower case and capital), emphasises the relative proportions of letters and introduces the very first joins.

If children learn the correct letter movement as a ‘hand habit’ it will become automatic, so that they do not need to allocate cognitive attention to it. In reading, we aim for all children to learn sound–symbol correspondences to the point where they are automatic; in writing, we want children to produce letter movements automatically. This takes practice, so Happy Handwriting provides the materials to practise handwriting ‘little and often’ and encourages parents and carers to do small amounts of practice at home.

Happy Handwriting teaches the efficient joins between letters as early as possible.

Adult handwriting joins letters for efficient writing, but adult handwriting does not join every letter. Happy Handwriting teaches joined handwriting using the efficient joins but does not join ‘break’ letters, as that reduces writing efficiency.

Happy Handwriting teaches letter names and alphabetical order so that you can talk about lower-case and capital letters, talk about spelling and introduce children to resources like dictionaries.

Happy Handwriting introduces proofreading to older writers, to build good writing habits.

Happy Handwriting promotes the efficient use of resources to maximise teaching time and support teachers’ preparation and assessment.

Happy Handwriting

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The Happy Handwriting course Happy Handwriting provides guidance and resources for you to teach efficient, fluent and legible handwriting as simply as possible, and to create a clear, shared handwriting policy in school. Happy Handwriting teaches the key elements of early handwriting: letter movements, alphabet knowledge, and joins between letters, as early and thoroughly as possible.

Handwriting should be taught separately from phonics instruction. However, letter formation and knowledge of letter names contribute to phonics and literacy learning. Children who can form letters correctly and automatically, and can discuss the letters by their names, use these skills in their phonics and writing.

The teaching of correct letter movements early in children’s literacy learning is an important foundation of fluent and automatic handwriting. It is very hard to unlearn motor habits, so letter formation movements must be learned correctly right from the start, to ensure letters can be joined up later. Children should learn the correct movement for each letter formation before paying attention to the size or spacing of letters.

Some children will find learning handwriting relatively easy and a few may almost seem to ‘catch’ it effortlessly. However, other children will find handwriting more challenging and mastering the complex, rounded shapes of letters and joins may need more practice and attention. Happy Handwriting builds in regular self-review of handwriting by children and assessment by teachers, so that you can use the additional resources to support children who need more guided practice. There is assessment advice and a recording sheet for handwriting assessments for each family of letter movements, and printable materials for parents and carers to support their child’s handwriting development.

Letter formation is a movement, not just a shape The Happy Handwriting course prioritises the introduction of the correct movements to form lowercase letters (letter formation), followed by their capital formations. The letters are introduced in order of letter movement families, based on the formation of the letters. However, the order of introduction in Happy Handwriting supports most phonics schemes, so that handwriting practice includes known GPCs and reinforces the phonological knowledge they are developing.

The letter formation families The four families are: ●

●

●

●

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The Curly Caterpillar family: anti-clockwise round, exemplified by the letter c o cadgoq o esf The Long Ladder family: down and off in another direction, exemplified by the letter l o ilt o uyjk The Robot family: down and retrace upwards, exemplified by the letter r o rnm o hbp The Zigzag family: straight, sharp turn, exemplified by the letter z o vwxz

Happy Handwriting

Letter formation – movements There is a letter formation movement in Happy Handwriting for each letter. The dot is the starting point and each arrow represents a directional stroke. These are set out on pages 12 and 13 of this guide. There is a memory phrase to reinforce each movement, set out on page 14. After this the relative heights of letters are the next priority. We recommend plain paper to start with, then use of four writing guidelines.

Letter formation for left-handers The formation of some letters is slightly different for some left-handed children, who ‘pull’ the lines right to left, where right handers will ‘push’ lines left to right: the lower-case letters t and f and the capital letters A, E, F, H, J and T.

Letter formation – break letters Happy Handwriting uses a lower-case script where most letters have an exit stroke or ‘flick’ to prepare children to join letters as soon as they feel able. In Happy Handwriting, the following letters do not join to letters following them: b, g, j, p, q, x, y, z, s. Most adults use an efficient semi-joined script when they write, and Happy Handwriting prepares children to learn this as early as possible.

Joining letters in Key Stage 1 Happy Handwriting sets ambitious writing goals and introduces the five main joins between letters towards the end of Year 1: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

diagonal joins to letters without ascenders (for example: ai) diagonal joins to letters with ascenders (for example: ch) horizontal joins to letters without ascenders (for example: wa) horizontal joins to letters with ascenders (for example: wh) joins to round (anti-clockwise) letters (for example: ad).

The basis of all these joins is correct letter movements, which are the key goal for Year 1. If some of your Year 1 children are not able to make all the letter movements correctly, you may prefer not to introduce them to letter joins in Units 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28. Instead, use the Additional Practice sheets in the printable materials to support these children to form letters correctly and help them to learn letter orientation.

Learning the alphabet Knowing the names of the letters allows us to talk about them and helps with phonics and spelling. Call a letter by its name, rather than the sound associated with it. If children learn the letter name when they learn the movement for the lower-case letter, they can then learn the capital letter that has the same name. Of course, it is also important to discuss the sounds associated with letters in phonics, and children have no difficulty learning both letter names and the sounds associated with that letter.

Alphabetical order of letter names is an easily learned sequence which lasts a lifetime. It enables children to use dictionaries and alphabetical order – and it is one system that is not changing in this digital age! It is worth teaching children in Key Stage 1 to recite the alphabet and use games to consolidate the alphabetical order of letters. Happy Handwriting does this by encouraging you to sing the classic alphabet song as often as possible, follow the letters across the page of the Practice Book and do the additional alphabet activities on page 76 of this guide.

Happy Handwriting

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Handwriting in the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1 The National Curriculum’s English programmes of study for writing at Key Stage 1 include: • •

transcription (spelling and handwriting) composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing).

Competence in these two dimensions depends on fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy handwriting. The English programmes of study state that pupils need to be taught to: • • • • •

sit correctly at a table, holding a pencil comfortably and correctly begin to form lower-case letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the right place form capital letters form digits 0–9 understand which letters belong to which handwriting ‘families’ (i.e. letters that are formed in similar ways) and to practise these.

Non-statutory notes and guidance in the National Curriculum The programme of study notes that handwriting requires ‘frequent and discrete, direct teaching’.

The guidance states that: ‘Pupils should be able to form letters correctly and confidently. The size of the writing implement (pencil, pen) should not be too large for a young pupil’s hand. Whatever is being used should allow the pupil to hold it easily and correctly so that bad habits are avoided. Lefthanded pupils should receive specific teaching to meet their needs.’

Teaching priorities for Happy Handwriting in Year 1 Happy Handwriting (Year 1) builds on handwriting skills developed in Reception and sets ambitious goals for children in Year 1. If children can learn automatic handwriting early, it will help them to write across the curriculum. The Year 1 priorities are: • • • •

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to consolidate the correct letter movements for lower-case letters, capital letters and numbers, starting and finishing in the right place to develop control of letters with ascenders and descenders and the relative size of letters to use the names and alphabetical order of the letters in the alphabet to order items to introduce the first joins children will use for efficient handwriting.

Happy Handwriting

The teaching focus for each week (Year 1) Term 1

Revision of lower-case letters and capitals

Alphabet activities

1

cad

Alphabet song

2

goq

3

esf

Follow the alphabet on the relevant Practice Book page

4

Curly Caterpillar capitals (formation and relative height)

5

ilt

6

uy

7

jk

8

Long Ladder capitals (formation and relative height)

9

rnm

10

hbp

Term 2

Revision of lower-case letters, capitals and digits

Alphabet activities

11

Robot capitals (formation and relative height)

Alphabet song

12

vw

Write in missing letters

13

xz

14

Zigzag capitals (formation and relative height)

Card games to be used in class (to learn the place of each letter in alphabet)

15

Formation of digits

16

sh th

17

ck qu

18

ll ss zz ff

Card games (in the printable materials) to be used in class

Joining letters 19

Practising ai

20

Introducing joins: joining ai

Term 3

Alphabet activities

21

Practising ch

Write in missing letters

22

Joining ch

23

Practising wa

Card games to be used in class

24

Joining wa

25

Practising wh

26

Joining wh

27

Practising ad

28

Joining ad

29

Mixed capitals and lower-case letters

30

Self-assessment

Happy Handwriting

Use the Alphabet Lists (in the printable materials) to make alphabetical lists

11

Lower-case letter formations

abcde fghijk lmnop qrstu vwxyz Happy Handwriting: Lower-case letter formations

© HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2021

Capital letter formations

ABCDE FGHIJK LMNOP QRSTU VWXYZ Happy Handwriting: Capital letter formations

© HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 2021