Cursive Handwriting - Letter-join

1 Cursive Handwriting HOME USERS' GUIDE. Cursive Handwriting CONTENTS. HOME USERS' GUIDE 4 Getting started Logging-in on PCs and tablets. The Letter-join Welcome to Letter-join ! menu at a glance. Thank you for purchasing Letter-join . Inside this guide you'll find all the help children need to 8 Early Years quickly develop joined-up Handwriting skills and Resources to introduce Cursive become confident handwriters. Handwriting . The guide follows National Curriculum Handwriting guidelines and shows how to use Letter-join 's 10 Key Stage 1. resources to achieve these standards. Material to teach other character sets and to reinforce and practise Handwriting . 16 Key Stage 2. Exercises and practical methods to help reach National Curriculum expectations. 18 Letter-join 's Extra Resources Worksheets, Dictation Exercises and Worksheet Generator 22 Sitting, Posture and Pencil Grip Ensuring a comfortable writing position 22 Letter-join FAQs Common questions and answers 2 3.

2 Log-in and get started with Letter-join at home At a glance: the Letter-join menu Pease login with your Username and Password (these were sent to you when you bought Letter-join ). Follow the instructions below to quickly get started. You can access Letter-join on Macs, PCs and tablets On a desktop computer or an iPad or tablet log-in here. You will then be taken to the choose a level to practice'. page as shown below. Patterns Easy Touch-screen letters activities for iPads and tablets Easy words Harder letters Harder words Watch CHOOSE A More animations letters RECOMMENDED with spoken BROWSER instructions Letter-join is an advanced web site that is compatible Click on the PREFERRED with most internet information LETTERFORMS Google Chrome browsers on symbol for desktop computers Before starting Letter-join select as well as on access to the your preferred letterforms for f, k, iPads, Windows User Manual Extra w, x and z.

3 And Android and FAQ. Mozilla Firefox resources tablets. We recommend Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Apple Safari Because of issues Worksheet with script fonts generator Practice worksheets please do not use accompany all Internet Explorer. sections 4 5. Early Years, Foundation Why not Stage DRAWING PATTERNS ON SCREEN AND PAPER. You can practise Letter-join touch-screen activities on iPads and tablets. Back up Patterns and pre- Cursive shapes formative fun on screen with can be challenging for young print-out sheets for real children. To support what children Handwriting practice. are learning at school, Letter-join This chapter will show you has all the resources parents and lots of ideas for younger children will need to continue children. practise at home. Letter-join 's animations present pre- Cursive patterns with fun sounds that can be copied by air-writing or by tracing on tablets and, most importantly by practising with a pencil on printed worksheets.

4 This naturally leads on to the introduction of real letters, reinforcing at home what your children are learning at school. Watching and copying the shapes of letters and the various joining techniques as presented on the Letter-join animations, will enable children to learn to write simple words in the correct Cursive style at this early stage. 6 7. EYFS. Early Years, Foundation Stage Letters and Words made simple Watch, practise, trace and copy the easy way Develop writing skills with Pre- Cursive Patterns to learn Cursive Handwriting . Choose interactive/touch-screen activities and printed worksheets as a foundation to Handwriting . Word animations cover all the joining Watch how each of the letters are You can control the speed of methods between characters. written and joined. word' animations. Magic Words palettes Tailor-made Worksheets Use the Worksheet Generator to create Cursive worksheets quickly in different formats.

5 See page 18. Letter-join provides a selection of fun pre- Cursive patterns for EYFS children that cover all Handwriting movements. These encourage fine and gross motor skills as a foundation to Cursive Handwriting . Letter-join 's pre- Cursive patterns are Pre- Cursive patterns cover all writing shapes. grouped into logical sets of similar shapes, and each pattern is animated, Example of an Easy word typed into the Magic Words section. Letter-join uses the correct joins accompanied by exciting sounds. between letters ready to be practised on a tablet or printed out for real Handwriting practice. Fine motor control can be gained by finger writing on tablets or with a pencil using the worksheets. Worksheets consist of lines of Watch patterns, such as jellies, with fun sounds. patterns for tracing using a pencil or crayon and a simple drawing which can be coloured-in' using the patterns Rainbow Blackboard of that group.

6 Magic Words includes colourful palettes where words can be typed onto the screen and then written over using a finger or a Fun worksheets are available for all the stylus for practice and fun. For more interaction it also features a pattern sets for Handwriting practice using simple star rated scoring system. Practise tracing patterns on IWBs or tablets. pencils and crayons. Good try! Well done! Excellent! 8 9. Key Stage 1. At home, Letter-join is the perfect Handwriting companion for KS1 children with easy access to the same resources as school. With gentle encouragement children will be aiming to produce neat Handwriting with consistent spacing and letter sizes. Practicing Handwriting exercises both on tablets and with pencils on worksheets can be fun with real improvements achieved surprisingly quickly. The following KS1 pages cover a variety of Letter-join resources to achieve this including speedy on the go' iPad activities and a multitude of worksheets for real Handwriting practice.

7 When using Letter-join at home parents can be sure that they are using the same letterforms and resources as chosen by school. Why not NEW CHARACTERS. KS1 is the time to introduce new characters; capital letters, numbers, printed letters, mathematical symbols and punctuation. Letter-join animates all of these to show the correct formation and provides ready-made worksheets. This chapter covers a large array of Letter-join activities to give a real boost to children's Handwriting skills. 10 11. KEY STAGE 1 KEY STAGE 1. Developing children's Handwriting skills Capital and Printed Letters, Numbers and Use Letter-join to teach harder letters and words to Punctuation all have animations and practice help children gain confidence in their Handwriting . worksheets at the ready! Animations for Capitals, Printed Letters, More letters Numbers, Punctuation and Symbols can be At school KS1 found under the More Letters' menu tab.

8 Children will be learning: l The correct methods for writing upper and lower case letters with the correct joins. Letters and Words cover all the joining techniques between Cursive characters. l How to form numerals of the Letter-join 's animations of letters and words make it easy to learn and write Practice worksheets same size that sit on the base line. the letters of the alphabet. The words Letter-join 's worksheets for KS1 l How to write printed letters and include practice sheets for all of the use Letter-join 's animations and used in the examples have been animated letters and words, word worksheets to practise how they carefully selected to cover all Cursive joining methods enabling children to lists, high frequency words and are used. Try Letter Families Times tables worksheets are available in the Extra Resources section to help with number writing.

9 Sequencing sentences. See page 18. quickly become more natural with the variety of strokes between different for a full listing of Extra Resources. worksheets letter shapes. Help children familiarise similar letter shapes and become confident at writing differently formed characters. 100 High 1. Using the familiar format KS. Frequency Words l Toleave the correct space of long ladders, curly between words. caterpillars, one-armed this l Towrite longer passages of text to build up endurance using the robots and zig-zag letters, Letter-join 's water Dictation Exercises. l Thatletters sit on the base line worksheets can be printed out for tracing After watching the animations, it's people and are consistent in size with correctly formed ascenders and and copying the different letter families. easy to use an, iPad or tablet using a finger or stylus to familiarise and which descenders.

10 Vibrant graphics add to practise the letter shapes and joining the recognition of each Printable worksheets techniques. The pre-prepared letter family and your in three sizes in trace worksheets, which are available in and copy format school's alternative three different sizes, can be easily letterforms are printed for that all too important real automatically used. New worksheets are regularly added Handwriting practice. to the Letter-join web site. Letter Families worksheets can be found under Extra Resources >. Printouts, Handouts and Posters > Supplementary Worksheets. 12 13. KEY STAGE 1 KEY STAGE 1. Letter-join 's Magic Words touch-screen activities Practise number writing with times tables printouts The Magic Words section is a great capabilities of iPads and tablets. Letter-join on their tablets at school Letter-join includes a full set of times tables worksheets way for Key Stage 1 children to type With five exciting backgrounds to and at home.