Meeting the National Curriculum Standards.

Can the Think Write Helps Schools Achieve the National Curriculum Guidelines for Handwriting?

In 2013 the government released the national guideline to schools, stating the standard of education the government was expecting.  This lengthy document covers all aspects of the curriculum and for the purposes of handwriting, the government expectations for handwriting have been summarised:

In Year 1:

• Accurate formation of all 26 lower case letters, with correct direction, start and finishing points         
• Form all capital letters Understand which letters belong to ‘handwriting families’ 

In Year 2: 

• Form all letters with the correct size
• Write with correct spacing 

In Year 3 & 4:

• Use correct horizontal and diagonal strokes to understand how to join letters
• Increase legibility, consistency and quality of handwriting

In Year 5 – 6

• Write fluently and with increased speed

Hemispheres have carried out a series of studies to evaluate whether the Think Write is an effective programme in meeting the national standards for handwriting. 

The results show that those children who have been taught using Think Write achieve the expectations for letter formation including start and finishing points are achieved by the end of Reception, rather than Year 1 and that the structure of the programme fully supports the instruction of ‘handwriting families’.   86.5% of the children leaving Year 2 are achieving the standards expected  for children in Year 3 & 4 and  most of  the children are showing consistency in the fluidity of their writing before transitioning into Year 3. 

The HTW also embodies the recommendations set out by the National Curriculum:

•  HTW correct direction, start and finishing points.         
• Core to its teaching, HTW is structured around a simplified group of ‘families’.
• The animal characters teach children the rules for the correct size of each letter.
• correct spacing 
• Module 4 builds in the transition from print to cursive
• Increase legibility, consistency and quality of handwriting
• Children by the end of Year 2 are able to write fluently and therefore can concentrate on developing their handwriting speed.