Open Doors Therapy UK

03/11/2025

QUICK PREWRITING EXERCISE
The following exercises are designed to stimulate a child’s proprioceptive feedback and so give the child greater fine motor and more comfortable pencil control lasting up to about 40 minutes. Not only have teachers reported back that this has improved writing within their class but that children are often stiller and more focused as they write.
Children with proprioceptive difficulties can temporarily awaken (about 40 minutes) their proprioception by doing some simple and quick Prewrite Warmups. For many children this improves the fluidity of pencil movement, and accuracy of intent.
• Play an ‘air piano’ for a few seconds.
• Put index fingertip to thumb tip and rapidly tap 5 times, using both hands. Repeat finger thumb tapping with the other fingers.
• Grasp right wrist with left hand and gently ‘yank’ the arm 10 times. Swap hands and repeat.
• Whilst sitting securely on a chair place palms on the edge of the seat or desk and do ten sitting press ups.
Remarkably with the groups and classes of children I have done this with, the children were generally more focused and less fidgety afterward.
PART OF MY BODY SYNTONIC HANDWRITING COURSE FOR TEACHERS

29/10/2025

‘’Different activities to engage children, keeps them interested and actually wanting to do their writing practice. Even teachers have said they've seen improvement in his writing which is AMAZING news! Big praise thank you for these, it has become a family favourite.’’ 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 - Elizabeth W

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29/10/2025

28/10/2025

ADHD Awareness Month
Poem 25 – When Sleep Won’t Come

When the world slows down,
mine speeds up.
It’s as if the quiet
turns the volume inside me on high.

My body is tired,
my eyes are sore,
but my thoughts?
They have other plans.
They dance.
They build.
They refuse to rest.

Do I really want to borrow
from tomorrow’s energy tank
by staying awake now?
No. I don’t.
Sometimes it’s enough
to ask myself that question
and move toward bed.
But mostly,
this isn’t about choice or habit.
It’s about a busy, racing, brilliant mind
that won’t let go of today,
and just won’t stop whirling.

My circadian rhythm,
Is out of sync,
running late.
A brain still sparking
when it should be sedate.

It’s lonely, sometimes,
to be awake
when everyone else drifts easy.
To feel like night is both
a friend and a thief.
Stealing rest,
but offering clarity.

And when at last
sleep takes pity,
it comes in bursts,
in patches,
like everything else about me.

When the world slows down,
mine speeds up.
And somewhere between
the quiet and the dawn,
I finally close my eyes.

Jannine Perryman

26/10/2025

Connecting, Sharing and Empowering

14/10/2025

Phonic Phone
When learning their phonics children need to hear the sounds as well as see the letters. Their ‘hearing’ of the sound can be enhanced by using a phonic phone. This can be as simple as shouting into a plastic beaker or by making a simple phone out of two push fit plastic waste pipe bends.

The phone makes the child’s voice louder and cuts out a lot of peripheral noise. It is fun as well!
At Open Doors we sometimes also use the phonic phone to improve rote learning of spellings and times tables by rote. They did it any way the liked, the traditional look-cover-write-check method used by schools and by shouting into the phonic phone. The majority of children improved using the phonic phone.