Writing in columns

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder. We're here to support any approaches you might already be using. And then you work, you might have already been set. We know that this lesson is going to be going up so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team. Have you noticed that sometimes we don't write from left to right, but instead we write from top to bottom. So for example, when you're making a list of things you want to buy at the shop, or when you're making your list of things you want to do for the day, you often write it from top to bottom and that's really important skill to be able to do that, okay. It's also really important when you're doing your Maths. So your numeracy, cause you need to write from top to bottom. Let's look at that in a little bit more detail today. Why should we practise writing in columns? Well, it lets us be more accurate about where we're placing our letters onto paper and we'll have to write in columns for subjects such as our Math, so our numeracy, when we write in columns, it lets us practise moving our eyes in control ways and control movements downwards. Sometimes we may have to read like this. For example, when we make a list of names or a shopping list or a list of all the items you need to get for going swimming. Pause the video now to get the items you will need. Some graph paper, which is just a fancy way of saying paper with little squares, some lined paper, some plain paper, and a pen or pencil. Restart once you have everything ready. For our first activity, we're going to practise downwards writing. So it get some graph paper and a pen or pencil. If you don't have graph paper, which is just paper with squares on, you can ask an adult to draw some squares on paper for you. I want you to write all the letters of the alphabet going from top to bottom, put one letter in each box and then move on to the box below. If you get to the end of the page, simply jump back up and go to the top and start again. If you're not yet writing the alphabet, you can draw shapes from top to bottom. So you can see that I have completed mine here. So I've started at the top and I've gone a, b, c all the way down to j. Then I bounced back up. I went all the way from k to s, t bounce back up u, v, and then I decided to just write my numbers. So, zero, one, two, three, look up four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Oh! I think you can see Y A Y. Yeey! If you want to make it more tricky, you can try writing a sentence. So if you look carefully, that sentence says, Hi, my name is, and then it goes all the way over and you can see I've run out of square. So I just wrote it up at the top there. And if you look very carefully, you can ask an adult to help you. You will see the secret message says, "Hi, my name is Aniesa." I have a new puppy called Buddy Pause the video to try downwards writing. Restart once you're finished. For our next activity, we're going to try writing downwards on lined paper, okay? Get some standard line paper and turn it on its side to all the lines are pointing vertically up and down rather than across. And you're going to repeat the activity again and write the letters of the alphabet going from top to bottom, try and keep them an even space apart. And the same thing again, when you get to the bottom and you've run out of space, jump back up to the top and carry on. There's some lined paper for you. Okay, and you can see, you would start over there and you would write a letter. Then you would jump down and do the next letter. Pause the video now to have a go at writing downwards on lined paper. Restart once you're ready. For our next activity, we're going to do downwards writing on plain paper. Okay, so now you've got no lines. And quite often, when we have to scribble something on a piece of paper or a posted note, it doesn't have any lines when we have to quickly write our list of things to buy. So again, you going to do the same thing. Write the list of the alphabet going from top to bottom, draw some shapes, write some numbers. For having it go at writing downwards on plain paper now, pause the video and restart when you're ready. So some ways you can make this activity easier is by using a ruler to keep track of where you need to write when you're using graph paper, so paper with little squares on it. If the lines hurt your eyes, when you're looking at it or the it looks a bit confusing, just simply cover the rest of the paper with some plain paper. If doing the whole alphabet is too tricky, you could just do some of it like the letters in your name or the letters in your pet's name. You could also do numbers instead. Remember do the best for you. Practise, practise, practise. See how many fun games you can make writing vertically in columns. And as always, if you'd like to please ask your parents or carer to share any pictures of work that you've done, writing and columns on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #learnwithOak. Bye. See you next time.

Writing in columns

Writing in columns

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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