This is a brief overview of the stages that children need to go through in order to gain fluency in both their oral and written communication skills.

A Harvard Business School study on time pressure for children performing tasks found that time pressure really does seem to have an important impact on creativity.

Fine motor skills, which are a pre-cursor to writing, can be enhanced in a number of ways but it is important to choose activities that you and your child enjoy.

Writing, like any other skill, is something that has to be honed over time with plenty of opportunities for practice and making use of the creative ideas they have gleaned from their favourite movies or books.

Understanding new things can of course be challenging for children - and for all of us! We inherently hate to fail at new things and that can make us reluctant to engage in the trial-and-error process that is so useful in developing new skills. This applies in all activities, hobbies and especially in numeracy.