Letter-join’s updated Letter Family section includes more resources, worksheets and a Lesson Planner for teaching handwriting using letter family groups.
Teaching sequence
Letter-join’s letter families follow the most common, developmental order for teaching letter formation:
Ladder Letters use simple, straight up and down hand actions, building instant confidence, as children find these movements easiest to master.
Caterpillar Letters curve around with the same circular movements, reinforcing one basic hand action.
Robot Letters start with a vertical stroke, then go up and over. Children learn to change direction and loop around, preparing them for more complex handwriting strokes.
Zig-zag Letters use diagonal lines which have sharp changes in direction. They require a bit more precision and fine motor control.
Each lesson uses online animations and IWB tracing activities with printable worksheets for real handwriting practice.
Once pupils have mastered the formation of the individual letters in each letter family, they will move on to practising pairs of letters before progressing onto words including the letters from each family.
When children are secure in forming the letters within words in each family, this will create the natural basis for linking letters together and prepare them for joined handwriting in Key Stage Two.
Letter Families Challenge
The Letter Families Challenge is a fun activity designed to support children’s letter formation, helping them to understand which families each of the letters belong to. Pupils can independently practise the letters on screen and are rewarded with stars for accuracy and a cheer when the task is completed.
Handwriting fonts
Letter-join offers schools the option to teach handwriting using Letter Families with either a printed/unjoined font, or a cursive font.
Online and printed resources will be displayed in your chosen classroom font.
Letter-join’s Handwriting Assessment Tracker has been designed in line with the 2025 Writing Framework and National Curriculum targets for handwriting and provides a complete scheme for assessing pupils’ progression in handwriting skills from Early Years to Year 6.
Children’s handwriting development can be monitored termly, annually or as-required throughout their school journey.
Letter-join’s tracker assesses key handwriting features such as letter formation, joining, speed and fluency and helps identify pupils requiring targeted intervention.
Progress can be tracked throughout each academic year, with dates recorded for each assessment and a notes section for further comments and next steps, until pupils are secure in each developmental area. The document can either be printed as a whole or the first section can be duplicated and updated electronically as individual pupil records (pages 1-4), reducing print time and costs.
The tracker is a useful resource for when children transition between classes and year groups, ensuring that receiving teachers have a clear understanding of each pupil’s handwriting ability.
Assessment pages are provided for each year group with guidance for teachers and handwriting tasks for children to complete. Pages should be duplicated for assessments that are carried out on a termly basis.
Letter-join’s Handwriting Assessment Tracker also provides photographs of handwriting examples modelling expected handwriting standards for each year group.
Download the Assessment Tracker from the Lesson Planners page, or by typing ‘tracker’ into the search bar (Letter-join School subscriptions only).
An editable presentation to use for your school’s handwriting workshop
Designed for teachers to present to parents and carers to support their children at home, this new Letter-join teacher resource covers all the basics in learning handwriting using the Letter-join Handwriting Scheme. It explains:
• how your school uses Letter-join to achieve national expectations in handwriting
• your school’s chosen handwriting style
• how to log in to Letter-join at home
• how to use Letter-join at home and support children’s learning
The PowerPoint slides are editable enabling teachers to add their school details, logos and chosen handwriting styles. Each slide comes with teacher’s notes and useful suggestions on how to deliver the presentation.
Also included is a page of supplementary notes as guidance for teachers when showing parents how to make the most of Letter-join at home when logged into a Pupil Account.
The PowerPoint presentation and Guidance Notes can be downloaded by logging in to a Letter-join Classroom Account, clicking the ‘Info’ button and selecting ‘Instruction Guides’ where you will find links to the Handwriting Workshop resources.
This easy to follow checklist from Letter-join will help you to prepare everything you need to teach handwriting when children return to school.
Print out the correct Handwriting Lesson Planner for your class
Build handwriting lessons into your timetable and download the Letter-join Handwriting Lesson Planners by logging into a Classroom account and choosing the ‘Info’ button. There are seven modules which offer teachers the choice to teach printed or cursive handwriting from Early Years through to Year 6 with links to the relevant lessons.
Early Years and KS1 teachers can also print out the Phonics Lesson Planner which delivers extra games, activities and worksheets to support your school’s validated phonics programme. This enables you to seamlessly combine the teaching of phonics with handwriting. Teachers have a choice of fonts to use with these resources, including the Letter-join Print Plus font which is in line with the DfE phonics guidance.
Choose your fonts
Be prepared by selecting your preferred font for teaching handwriting in your classroom. Download the fonts to create documents in MS Word (use Letter-join Basic for Smart Notebook and Powerpoint). Choose which type of Letter-join font to use in your class for Worksheet Generator, Online Word Processor and Letter-join’s Fun activities. The same font is automatically selected when children use the Pupil log-in details and choose their class name.
Create some fun childrens’ name labels
In the Fun section:
• Select the Magic Words facility.
• Choose a background.
• Type in the child’s name.
• Trace over it.
• Take a screenshot.
• Print on to card and laminate.
Laminate A4 reference printouts
Printout our handy reference resources to laminate for each classroom table so that children can refer to themwhen completing handwriting tasks:
• Printed, cursive and capital letters.
• Alphabet strips.
• Tall, small, fall letters.
Make classroom displays
Brighten up your classroom and model good handwriting, ready for the new term with:
• Letter-join’s gross motor skills posters.
• Phonics posters (phases 1-5).
• Numbers and alphabet friezes.
Letter-join’s training videos and presentations
For new subscribers and staff members new to Letter-join, a series of training videos and presentations and a handwriting workshop for parents.
• An introduction to Letter-join, a video introducing the wide range of available resources and facilities for staff.
• A comprehensive overview of Letter-join as a Powerpoint presentation, helpful for explaining how the website works, for members of staff or schools new to Letter-join.
• An editable handwriting workshop to present to parents.
• Become familiar with Letter-join’s handwriting Lesson Planners which offer a whole school approach to the teaching of printed or cursive handwriting. Choose your year group from Early Years to Year 6.
• To set up your school’s Letter-join account, the named school administrator needs to log in using the details sent with the ‘Welcome’ email. This video will guide you through how to access all the different facilities on the School Admin page.
• Find out how to build a word bank to make your own word animations for children to watch and practise at school and at home.
• For help with fonts (whether it’s downloading them, displaying them correctly, choosing fonts for your class or selecting your preferred letterforms) these video tutorials are an essential aid for staff members.
- Classroom fonts >
- Download fonts for MS Word >
- Use fonts correctly in MS Word >
• Finally, don’t forget, Letter-join school subscriptions include lots of great handwriting activities for pupils to enjoy at home, using the same letterforms which have been selected by your school. See where you can find your schools’ Pupil log-in details and prepare parents to set up for home learning with Letter-join.
Support your pupils with the physical demands of handwriting and establish fundamental pre-writing routines with Letter-join’s Ready to Write Resources pack which offers teachers a handy set of resources in preparation for handwriting, including:
• a PDF guide including a selection of classroom posters
• links to fun, interactive videos to boost fine and gross motor skills
Display
A set of key handwriting resources at your fingertips, including an IWB presentation and classroom posters modelling:
• Posture
• Pencil grip
• Paper position
• Pencil pressure
Videos
A series of lively videos are included in Letter-join’s Ready to Write Resources pack to help motivate your learners. Have fun with your class as they practise these animated activities to get them ready to start handwriting.
The engaging, ready to write routines modelled in the videos can be easily integrated into daily classroom practice.
A lively, seven-minute warm-up session encouraging children to copy large, whole-body movements.
A focused, five-minute selection of fun exercises designed to improve strength, dexterity and control in fingers and hands in readiness for handwriting.
Clear, step-by-step guidance for learning the tripod pencil grip method, accompanied by a memorable rhyme.
An extended ‘How to Hold a Pencil with warm-ups’ video combining selected gross and fine motor skills activities is also available.
To download the Ready to Write Resources pack here > as a PDF to explore the resources.
