Some ideas to help children develop
confidence in Writing
1
Develop the fine motor skills needed to hold a pencil and form letters
Activities that help children to develop their fine motor skills include:



2
Playing with Lego or other construction toys
Cutting and shaping playdough or threading activities using small beads
Junk modelling and cutting and sticking activities that involve using scissors and glue sticks.
Encourage painting, drawing and colouring
For those that are reluctant to draw or pick up a pencil, use the internet to find colouring sheets that match
their interests (e.g. Cbeebies and cartoon characters)
3
Ensure children practise using a comfortable pencil grip
For example:
Children need to avoid using ‘Palmer’ type grips:
4
Let children see you writing and give them real life opportunities to write
With the increasing use of smart phones and computers to send emails and texts, children see fewer and fewer
examples of adults writing using a paper and pen. Help them to see writing as a meaningful and useful skill by:





Using a family notice board to write hand written messages
Writing messages for your child on post-it notes and scrap paper
Make lists together, such as a shopping list (even if you order online)
On special occasions, write a menu for tea time and make place setting labels to practise names
Send real letters, cards and postcards.
As you write, allow your child to hear you ‘compose’ out loud, so that they come to understand that what we write
often sounds different to the way we speak and that writing can take different forms, such as lists, letters, notes,
instructions, labels etc.
5
Accept children’s mark making as a pre-writing stage
"I like your picture? Tell me all about it?"
“Tell me about your writing”
As they play, children’s early independent writing can often look like wavy lines or marks on a page. Encourage them
to explain their marks. Be wary that some children can be easily put off writing if their early efforts are not
recognised and celebrated.
6
Practise writing letters and familiar words
As children become more confident and interested in writing, encourage them to:


Practise individual letters, using correct letter formation
Practise writing their own name and the names of family members
Please remember to focus on practising lower case letters first. In their early writing, it is not uncommon for children
to place capital letters within words, rather than using them appropriately, and this can be a hard habit to break.
7
Practise applying children’s developing phonics skills
Apply their developing knowledge of letters and sounds to writing words and simple sentences:
This can involve:




‘Sounding out’ short regular words and writing the sounds correctly in sequence
Writing and spelling irregular words, such as ‘the’, ‘was’ or ‘said’.
Copying words and then progressing to using ‘look, cover, write, check’, so that children begin to write words
correctly from memory.
Composing and writing simple sentences. The aim is to develop children’s ability to say the sentence that
they would like to write, remember that sentence and then attempt to write each word that they need, in
sequence. It is helpful to encourage them to check their work as they write, by re-reading their sentence after
each new word; this will prompt them to remember which word comes next and also spot if they have missed
out a word.
As their writing develops, you can remind them to use the ‘writing skills’ that they learn in school. We use visual
prompts to help them to remember them: