Learning to handwrite does not start with pen and paper but through play (non-pencil activities), as children explore shape and motion (how the body moves) through their senses – touch, sight and body awareness. Play is such an important element of your child’s physical, emotional, social and academic development.

Pre-handwriting patterns are the first stage in supporting a child to handwriting success. They help the child to learn the shapes and directional pushes and pulls required to form letters. All letters are a combination of these shapes and lines.

Young children can start to learn these patterns through their play, long before they are ready to pick up a pencil, moving toys back and forth across the floor or whirling them around in the air. To a child it is just play and fun, but you are doing something far more powerful and constructive by helping them to develop the motor memory patterns and directional movement skills they will need for handwriting.

Later, as their coordination and gross motor skills develop, they make more controlled and varied movement patterns in their play. Changing directions, speed and size are all prerequisite skills needed for learning pre-handwriting patterns.

Once again ‘The writing framework’ acknowledges that:

“On joining reception, some children may need teaching and practice in using and manoeuvring their thumb, wrist and shoulder muscles in the way they need for handwriting. Initially, handwriting lessons could include learning the movements needed to form letters, practising these movements at a range of sizes…”

Department of Education; The writing framework: July 2025; page 24; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-writing-framework

It is through play that you can really engage a child in learning how to correctly form these movements, or what we refer to as Pre-handwriting Patterns, that have always been an important foundation stone in our Foundation Stage Teach Handwriting Scheme (https://www.teachhandwriting.co.uk/handwriting-teaching-manuals.html#hs-fs ) and strongly promoted on our website 😦 https://www.teachhandwriting.co.uk/index.html ) and blog (https://teachhandwriting.blog/ ) since 2012.  

Our non-pencil – ‘Big to Small’ activities are an easy fun way to start developing these skills early on through play: https://teachhandwriting.co.uk/big-to-small.html