LDA Speed Up! Activity Programme

Support learners aged 8 and above in developing confident, fluent handwriting with this structured, multi-sensory activity programme, ideal for teachers, teaching assistants, and therapists working with children who find handwriting challenging.

• Contains a step-by-step, eight-week course designed for older children with handwriting difficulties

• Includes baseline assessment, photocopiable instruction sheets, and practical guidance for identifying and addressing underlying issues

• Developed by a paediatric occupational therapist with a focus on kinaesthetic and multi-sensory learning

• Emphasises enjoyment, self-esteem, and writing confidence throughout the sessions

• Comprises 64 A4 pages, suitable for individual or small group delivery

• Particularly beneficial for SEND and dyslexia support settings

• Speed Up! provides a multi-sensory course of help for any child aged 8 Years + whose handwriting is illegible, slow or lacking in fluency. Poor handwriting hinders many children's progress - right across the curriculum. Unfortunately, most handwriting schemes do little to help children who are struggling with this vital skill. Here, at last, is a new and highly effective approach. Developed by a leading paediatric occupational therapist and designed specifically for older children struggling with handwriting, Speed Up! gets to the root of writing difficulties by developing kinaesthetic awareness through multi-sensory activity and exercise.

  The programme includes:

  • a baseline assessment

  • clear, fully illustrated, photocopiable instruction sheets

  • an overview of the theory behind the practice

  • advice on identifying underlying causes of difficulty and how to tackle them.

How is the programme delivered?

The Speed Up! programme is suitable for use with any child from Year 3 through to Year 8 (8–13 years); presented in eight weekly sessions lasting an hour or less.

Administered by a teacher or teaching assistant; done in small groups (three children is an ideal number) 

The programme begins with an assessment, which is easy to administer and takes only a few minutes.

This assessment helps both the teacher and the pupil to be aware of any specific areas of difficulty and provides a baseline against which to measure progress.

Following initial assessment, the programme itself is delivered in eight weekly sessions of 45–60 minutes.

The child is also required to practise at home between sessions. Ideally this practice should be done daily but a minimum of three times a week is necessary for the programme to be effective.