FIRST Occupational Therapy

11/10/2026

Handwriting research answers some questions and leaves others open, so it helps to know which is which when you are deciding what to put in front of a class.

Settled enough to act on: lined paper supports legibility better than unlined (Guilbert & Fernandez, 2025); four lines provide better size control than two (Reidlinger et al., 2012); saying the movement aloud while forming a letter improves automaticity and transfers to word reading (Berninger et al., 2006); and brief, spaced practice outperforms longer, occasional sessions (Graham, 2010; Hoy et al., 2011).

Still open: no study fixes a particular millimetre size, none compares one formation cue with another, no trial determines how much Tier 1 practice a class needs, and no font has been shown to produce better outcomes, though keeping one style for two years or more is the strongest finding (Wolf et al., 2017).

Where the research is quiet, the Groundwork Handwriting System reasons from cognitive load and consistency and states plainly that this is reasoning, not proof. The third brief sets it out, free and without sign-up: firstot.com.au/research

09/10/2026

Last day to register for the early-bird rate for the Saturday cohort of GHS Core: $293.25 instead of $345, on Saturday 24 October, 12:00 to 3:30pm AEDT, with a follow-up on 21 November.

Registration covers the 3.5-hour main session and the 1.5-hour follow-up on Zoom, and includes the full Resource Suite in all four state font systems: letter formation animations and reference sheets, six practice paper families from 36mm to 18mm, line progression papers, sixty-four everyday-writing layouts, and unlimited use of the GHS Handwriting Sheet Generator. The PDFs and the generator work as they are; customising the Word versions requires Aussie School Fonts Plus, which is licensed separately. Cohorts are capped at twelve.

If Saturdays do not suit, the Monday evening cohort starts on 26 October, and its early-bird registration closes on 12 October.

firstot.com.au/book-online

07/10/2026

The Groundwork Handwriting System is four steps, and every step uses the same words.

Teach. The letter formation animations and the movement lexicon ensure every stroke of every letter has one spoken description that teachers, displays and children all use.

Practise. The practice papers, from 36mm down to 18mm, have the same student cue printed at the top of each page.

Write. The line progression, from colour-coded 24mm paper to ordinary 12mm ruling, with the scaffold fading as a child’s control grows.

Keep the lines. Sixty-four page layouts for everyday writing across the curriculum, so the lines a student learned follow them into ordinary classroom work.

It is built on four state font systems (ACT and NSW, QLD, SA and VIC), and the GHS Handwriting Sheet Generator makes the same kind of sheet for whatever words the class is on this week.

firstot.com.au/groundwork

04/10/2026

Four strands do the composing when a child writes: critical thinking, syntax, text structure and writing craft (Sedita, 2023). What actually reaches the page is whatever transcription lets through, and transcription is spelling and handwriting.

Early in school, those two take up most of a child's working memory, so less thinking gets transferred to the page. As handwriting becomes automatic, more ideas can be put on the page. That's why teaching letter formation explicitly and early matters, and why handwriting belongs in the literacy conversation, not only the motor one.

The three research briefs behind this are free to read, with no sign-up: firstot.com.au/research

02/10/2026

Handwriting begins long before we pick up a pencil. While teaching letters, the Groundwork Handwriting System also lays a foundation through fun activities: animal walks, wheelbarrow races, and crawling through tunnels to strengthen the trunk and shoulders; playing with playdough, pegs, tongs, and tweezers to develop fine motor skills; navigating mazes, completing dot-to-dot puzzles, and copying block models to enhance visual-motor coordination; and games such as balloon keep-it-up and following a torch spot to train the eyes, among others.

Two clear truths about play emerge. It lays the groundwork, but it doesn’t teach letters. A study found that intensive handwriting practice improved legibility more than visual-perceptual-motor activities (Howe et al., 2013). Both should be part of the classroom, and the holidays are a perfect time for activities that feel like games.

The research behind this sits in three briefs, free to read with no sign-up: firstot.com.au/research

01/10/2026

The first Groundwork Handwriting System cohort ran on Tuesday: three and a half hours on Zoom, with a follow-up session on 31 October.

Most of the discussion returned to two practical issues: how much handwriting practice a class needs each week, and where to start children who are already writing. The system addresses both by embedding the practice in the work the class is already doing and by letting each student enter the line progression at the point that suits them.

The next cohort runs on Friday 16 October, 12:00 to 3:30 pm AEDT, with a follow-up on 13 November. The early-bird price of $293.25 (15 per cent off $345) closes tomorrow, Friday 2 October. Each cohort has 12 places, and registration includes the full Resource Suite for all four state font systems.

firstot.com.au/book-online

16/09/2026

Rise Literacy is now FIRST Occupational Therapy. It's the same page and the same person behind it, with the same commitment to children's literacy; the name has simply caught up with the work. Over the years, my occupational therapy practice grew until it became the whole show, and the literacy work I've shared here is now part of it. FIRST Occupational Therapy works with school-age children in Canberra and by telehealth on handwriting, literacy, sensory processing, regulation and school participation.

From here you'll see more of what this page has always been about, with a sharper focus on handwriting as part of literacy: the research behind the Groundwork Handwriting System (GHS), practical ideas for classrooms, and news of sessions and professional learning for teachers and allied health practitioners. If you followed Rise Literacy for its literacy content, this page is still for you, and you don't need to do anything to keep following along.

The best place to start is the three free research briefs behind the GHS. They set out what the handwriting research supports, where it runs thin, and the reasoning the GHS uses in between, and you can download them at firstot.com.au/research with no sign-up.

James

Three open-access research briefs on handwriting and literacy, evidence-based practice, and where the handwriting evidence runs short. Free to download.

19/09/2023

These are fantastic documents to support evidence-based instruction. Excellent!

🤔Understanding how students learn is key to effective teaching. Our project on how students learn connects cognitive-science research on how students learn to practical implications for teaching.

Find out more:
https://www.edresearch.edu.au/our-work/current-projects/how-students-learn

18/06/2023

A new report by Equity Economics reveals that a significant number of students in the ACT are struggling to meet literacy benchmarks.

The report indicates that one in three 15-year-old students in the ACT fall below the national proficient standard for reading, as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

That rate, applied to all Canberra’s school kids, would be enough to fill Bruce Stadium.

This is a wake-up call Canberra can’t ignore!

Read the latest report from Equity Economics on how to solve this challenge.



https://www.actaebe.au/critical-reports