Written by an OT with 30 years experience. The Fairground Pre-Writing Programme uses a unique, joyful, whole-body approach. It is accessible, holistic and truly multi-sensory, pulling together many areas of development.
As well as supporting those learning in special school environments, it is targeted and directly meets many of the Government's 17 early learning goals – stimulating literacy; mathematics; communication and language; personal, social, and emotional development; physical development; and art and design.​
It is evidence-based and financially accessible to run with children or young people. Following training, it is easy to implement and there is no need to repeatedly buy booklets or purchase specialist kits. It is appropriate to use for those in pre-school and those with challenges learning these skills. Results are impressive, updated regularly, and presented during the course.
​
For those that may feel that the future for some children is to utilise keyboard skills, there is a vast body of knowledge indicating that memory, phonics, and letter recognition are better developed by those that learn to write, rather than type.
​
With 9 structured sessions, each one a different fairground ride. It encourages those at the early stage of mark-making development, those who are not yet mark-making, and those with challenges developing their visual motor integration skills or have difficulties with specific letter formation. It does all this with songs, movement, and increases:
​
-
Ocular motor control
-
Visual perception
-
Reflex integration
-
Upper limb control
-
Intrinsic hand muscles
-
Core strength
-
Visual motor integration
-
Graphomotor skills
-
Midline crossing
This course aims to prevent letter reversals in the future, increase confidence in self-experimentation with pencil skills, improve focus, improve body schema, and the ability for the children to apply their eyes and minds to higher-level literacy skills. It does all this while the children have fun pretending to visit a fairground and go on each ride.