خطّ يدوم
English · Key Stage 1 · The School
Before the pencil moves
Feet flat, bottom back in the chair, paper tilted slightly, and the pencil held in a tripod grip: thumb and first finger pinching, resting on the third. Left-handers tilt the paper the other way and sit where their elbow is free. Getting the body right first is not fussiness — a bad grip becomes painful writing later, and it is far harder to unlearn than to learn.
Every letter has a starting point
A letter is a journey, not a picture. Most lower-case letters start at the top; a, c, d, g, o and q all start the same way, with a curve back and round like a c. If a child draws the shape from the bottom it can still look right, and then joining it up later will not work. Say the movement out loud while writing it: "round, up, down".
The four families
LADDER letters (l, i, t, u, j, y) are long straight strokes. CURLY CATERPILLAR letters (c, a, d, o, s, g, q, e, f) begin with that same c curve. ONE-ARMED ROBOT letters (r, b, n, h, m, k, p) come down and back up. ZIGZAG letters (z, v, w, x) are straight diagonals. Practising by family beats practising alphabetically, because the hand is learning a movement, not an order.
The 'curly caterpillar' family all start the same way — a c-shape from just below the top, going anticlockwise: c, a, d, g, o, q, s. Practise the c-shape ten times, then add the finishing stroke for each letter. Now the 'long ladder' family, all starting at the top and going straight down: l, i, t, u, j, y. Learning by family fixes the STARTING POINT, which is what stops letters being drawn backwards.