Research School Network: Handwriting readiness in the EYFS (Part 1) Early Years Series


Handwriting readiness in the EYFS (Part 1)

Early Years Series

by Lincolnshire Research School
on the

Jo Glew

Jo Glew

Early Years Lead (she/​her)

Since gaining QTS I have worked for 15 years in Primary Education, across EYFS and Key Stage One. My passion is phonics and reading, and I have lead phonics for 14 years in my school, mentoring, coaching and monitoring teaching and intervention to ensure the best possible outcomes for all children, especially disadvantaged children.

Read more aboutJo Glew

When we consider the challenges around developing early writing over the first few terms in reception, many of our new starters, often our disadvantaged learners, have particular barriers in this complex area of learning.

Baselining Children in Early Writing


As highlighted in the EEF’s Literacy Development: Evidence Review (2019), orthographic awareness begins with developing an understanding that written words differ from pictures at around the age of 3 – 4 as a result of being exposed to a literacy-rich environment — for example, seeing writing on signs or cereal boxes’. The EEF’s Guidance Report Preparing for Literacy’ states that some young children will arrive with good concepts about print, but not all will, so this should be explicitly taught’ to support the early development of both reading and writing.

When thinking about the earliest stages of writing we need to begin by considering how we can assess where children are on their writing journey. Trivette, Hamby, Dunst, and Gorman (2013) conducted a meta-analysis of 49 experimental studies examining the writing skills of children aged from one to five, from which they concluded the development of emergent writing skills occurs in a highly predictable sequence. From this, they developed 13 levels of prewriting and emergent writing (see figure 1), which can be a useful tool for practitioners when determining the individual starting points of children in their class.

Mark making
Trivette, Hamby, Dunst, and Gorman (2013)

The relevant statements for pre-writing skills from Development Matters: Non-statutory Curriculum Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage (see figure 2), and tools such as the Highland Council’s pre-handwriting developmental continuum (see figure 3) can also prove useful in identifying skills children need to develop prior to the commencement of handwriting instruction.

Handwriting

Asking a child in reception class in their first week or two in September to draw a picture and write about it or write their name can act as a simple initial diagnostic or baseline, which will indicate which children will require additional support.

Some children demonstrate they have an idea of the concept of writing (left to right, letters’ made up of straight and curved lines, and if writing their name, the correct number of letters, some resembling letters in their name). Whether it be at home, nursery, their childminders or their grandparents, they have experience of being presented with writing equipment, and they will most likely have had some level of modelling. Then there are those drawing detailed pictures and writing their name accurately with correct pencil grip and formation. These children may have had more explicit teaching, and may even have had some access to elements of a phonics program, teaching accurate letter formation.

However, there are usually children in each class who have a lack of experience in this sort of activity. Some are using whole-fist grasp, holding their pencil steady with two hands, or swapping from left to right hand. When we ask them to write about their picture or write their name we can be faced with confused expressions; some children don’t even know where to begin, and some may have rarely entertained the idea of drawing or mark-making, let alone attempted any form of emergent writing. These children are in the earlier stages of emergent writing, who may first need to master lines, geometric shapes and simple drawings (see figure 1 above) and will require input to achieve the pre-handwriting targets (see figure 2 above) before they can progress any further in their handwriting journey.

Many children are no longer seeing their parents fill in forms, write shopping lists or notes and letters at home, and so they have not been sufficiently exposed. Therefore, what we need in school is to close the early writing gaps by placing a particular focus on those children assessed as being in the earlier stages in terms of emergent writing and pre-writing skills.

Part 2
of this blog considers how children can develop their handwriting readiness skills within the EYFS classroom.

References:

Breadmore, H., Vardy, E., Cunningham, A., Kwok, R., & Carroll, J. (2019). Literacy Development: Evidence Review. Education Endowment Foundation. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Literacy_

Department for Education (updated 2023) Development Matters – Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage’

Trivette, C. M., Hamby, D. W., Dunst, C. J., & Gorman, E. (2013). Emergent writing among young children from twelve to sixty months of age. Center for Early Literacy Learning, 6(2), 1 – 18.

The Highland Council (2015) Pre-Writing Development Continuum’ Care & Learning Service – Occupational Therapy, Educational Psychology, Speech and Language Therapy DRAFT: August 2015

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