This workbook* has been designed specifically to help kindergartners and to introduce them to a multisensory (auditory, visual and kinesthetic) approach to handwriting. Good handwriting consists of six important and interwoven factors:

1. Multisensory: This is saying the name of the letter/sound, making the letter in a single stroke movement (whenever possible) and an automatic-imprinted motor plan.
2. Perceptual skills: To interpret what is seen.
3. Positioning of the paper, and child in relation to the writing surface.
4. Fine motor skills: Correct pencil grasp and in-hand coordination to manipulate a pencil.
5. Gross motor skills: Good posture, for example.
6. Motor planning: Large muscles help children feel directional changes in print and help store the memory of motor patterns. Motor memory helps imprint the image of a letter formation that, once learned, is rarely forgotten. The Orton-Gillingham approach covers all this and its focus is in the formation of lower case letters.

With consistent practice and repetition, both in school and at home, the end of kindergarten should establish correct lowercase letter formations. This is the outline based on Orton-Gillingham that this workbook follows:

• Trace (multiple times) the teacher’s model (we use different color crayons), stating the name of the letter each time it is traced.
• Copy several times. We use the green dot as a starting point.
• Form from memory. Again, we use the green dot as a starting point for "one good letter formation."
• Write with eyes averted or closed. This is done on the back of the preceding page.

Practice and consistency are the basics to making writing an automatic skill rather than a visual task. The exact same strokes must be used each time a letter is formed to develop the necessary motor plan. The same language must also be used in teaching and practicing the proper letter formation. Our goal is to have students think about what they are writing rather than how to form the correct letters!