The current curriculum of the South African Department of Education, Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS), prescribe handwriting to be taught in the subject Home Language. According to CAPS, a pre-handwriting program should be followed before formally teaching handwriting in the Grade 1 classroom. Yet, the curriculum does not prescribe a specific pre-handwriting program. I undertook this qualitative research project to explore Grade 1 teachers' experiences of their learners' challenges with pre-handwriting skills. Data was generated during two focus group interview sessions. The data consist of my own notes taken during the interviews, audio recordings of the focus group interviews, which yielded data rich discussions among the teacher participants, teachers' field notes from the classroom and evidence from the learner participants' workbooks. The transcribed focus group discussions were analyzed and coded by hand. The four main themes (with sub-themes indicated in brackets) that emerged are: Fine motor skills (Pencil grip and Letter formation), Visual memory (Reversals, direction and space), Intrinsic physical aspects (Low muscle tone and Midline crossing) and Extrinsic environmental aspects (Seating position, Writing tools, and Teacher training). I recommend that the identified challenges be used as the basis of a pre-handwriting program that will fill the void in the CAPS policy document. Such a program should include daily activities and the duration thereof stipulated for use in the Foundation Phase classroom.