With the support of their head teacher Debbie Calderwood and their principal teacher Emma Stanners, class teachers Holly Keenan and Karen Taylor decided to use a resource called Foundations of Writing with their primary 1 pupils at the beginning of the school year. They identified this resource as a useful intervention to help many children develop the physical strength and fine motor skills required to form letters and write well. They also felt that the methodologies promoted by this resource would work well with their adoption of a play-based approach to learning in primary 1.

“Foundations of Writing: a report of a project on the teaching of writing at the early stages” is now out of print, but may still inhabit resource cupboards. It was first published in 1986 by the Scottish Curriculum Development Service and consists of the report itself, plus a Teacher’s Guide written by Bill and Maureen Michael. Its ultimate aim is similar to the Talk to Write programme – for pupils to be able to structure and compose writing independently for many purposes across the curriculum. However, its focus on drawing/art experiences as a means to develop the technical skills of writing initially was very innovative at that time:

“The Project spends a lot of time on the teaching of handwriting skills so that children learn as soon as possible to write quickly and legibly, then to concentrate their resources on the more difficult task of composing what they want to express and communicate.” (p 11, 1986)

Holly and Karen reflected that they would value further training in the approach and in the art techniques used, but have observed considerable progress in how their pupils can demonstrate the skills listed in the initial phases of the programme. They now feel their pupils are ready to begin using Colourful Semantics.

Comparison of the drawing and writing in the photos below shows progress and impact of the approach on the children’s drawings and writing in August then November 2018.

The progression and development captured here relates to the Experiences & Outcomes of Tools for Writing – note the relevant extract from our Falkirk Literacy and English Progression Pathways at the end of this post.