Intent To improve pupil’s perseverance with and fluency in writing by: narrowing the achievement gap between boys and girls; learning through movement and multisensory experiences; using a physical programme to develop concentration and motor skills; and motivating targets and personal challenges.
How does Kinetic Letters help learning?
Automaticity – Formation, orientation and placement of letters becomes automatic which frees up space in the working memory.
Achievement – Fast, legible and fluent handwriting underpins success in every curriculum area.
Confidence – Good handwriting creates a positive initial judgement.
Creativity – When handwriting is automatic, the brain can concentrate on content.
Reading – Writing and reading are reciprocal skills, so improvement in one, helps the other.
Phonics and Spelling – legible handwriting means children can read and correct spelling.
Kinetic Letters focuses on the four main areas of learning:
Making bodies stronger (through the posture used when sitting)
Learning the letters
Holding the pencil
Flow and fluency
Implementation
A systematic and energising whole-school approach is used to ensure teaching is consistent across school.
We implement kinetic letters lessons at least three times a week in a whole class approach.
Children who require more support will have extra handwriting intervention sessions.
Children will be reminded of handwriting, posture and how to hold the pencil throughout all of their learning.
Kinetic Letters font will be used on SMARTs, by teachers when modelling and on displays within classrooms (as much as possible) to embed the handwriting approach.
The sequence of teaching
The sequence of teaching for each letter group or “letter family” is as below.
