Advice about preschool writing please

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DD has loved drawing from an early age. Obviously starting with scribbles when she was younger. Now she is 3.5 and will happily spend 1–2 hours a day drawing over the course of a day if she is left to her own devices. I'd almost say she's obsessed!

She started showing an interest in writing a few months ago and I wrote her name for her to copy, which she did. She draws the letters in the same way she would copy a drawing of a cat or a car, if that makes sense.

At nursery they've taught them to recognised and write capital letters, I think focusing on the letters of the children's names. At home if DD asks me to write a word I use lower case as I've heard somewhere that this is how letters tend to be taught.

Now whenever DD does a drawing she covers it in random letters (mix of upper case and lower case) and asks me to read the 'words' which I do.

Anyway, I had really planned to leave learning to write up to school as basically I don't want to fuck it up and also I feel like she'll spend the next 12 years doing academic stuff and now is the time for playing. Now I feel torn because if I leave DD to it she will spend another year copying letters as shapes and forming them incorrectly and might have a lot of bad habits to break by the time she starts school, but if I try to steer her then I'll be one of those parents and still might mess it up.

I'd wondered about getting those activity books with letters to trace but having Googled I see that these aren't recommended by people in the know.

Having read other MN threads I know I am going to be told to stop hot-housing her and just let her PLAY but she is drawing and writing because she wants to (it all started because I would take paper and crayons if we were going out for lunch so that she would have entertainment at the table). She does play loads and we go for a walk/scoot/balance bike every day, go to playgrounds etc. In normal times we're a lot busier out and about meeting friends but I suppose there has been more time for DD to entertain herself this year.

She's going to write whether I'm involved or not basically and I don't know if there's anything I should be doing to nudge her to form letters correctly.

I think it is lovely that she has cottoned on to the fact that marks on paper can represent speech and ideas. She is developing good hand control and fine motor skills through her drawing and her writing, and it’s great that she is able to copy letter shapes that she sees, it shows good spatial awareness.

The only problem is that for good legible joined handwriting to develop (eventually, not now,!) letters need to be formed so that they flow into each other. Capital letters don’t do this, nor do lower case letters where the letter is written starting and ending in the wrong place. And unfortunately , once a child has “learned” a letter shape wrongly it is really hard to unlearn it.

You should be able to find examples of how lower case letters are written, they are usually taught in groups that have similar starting places and initial hand movement directions. ( if you are not in the UK check for your own country’s format)

I always encouraged and used oral cues too (down, up a bit, over. Down up a bit over and round) . Tracing is fine, and you can save on tracing paper by tracing with a finger. You can also finger trace in a tray of sand, or flour, or rice. Use paint to paint big letters on paper. When it’s fine use paintbrushes and water to write on the floor or the wall outside. Her muscles are learning the movements needed for each letter.

I’m sorry to hear the nursery is writing and teaching in capitals, and very surprised too to be honest! A capital letter should be used at the start of a name but the rest should be lower case , unless the name is hyphenated of course. At the moment she only needs to learn the capital letter of her own name, or any other names she wants to write.

However , I would not be at all worried if in her own writing she is using a mix of upper and lower case letters, she is at an early stage of writing and as she progresses to writing recognisable words this will change. She has already learned that there are specific marks (letters) that we associated with writing, and that is something to be proud of. Quite often children initially make marks that are a mixture of squiggles, numbers, letters and random marks, the fact that she can distinguish letters and chooses to write them is impressive. At the moment the great thing is that she knows these letter marks carry meaning , it might be only her that can decipher the meaning, but that is fine.

Can’t you just let her carry on swing what she’s doing? Make sure she has unfettered access to pens and paint, paper and card. She sounds like she’s doing a fab job all by herself.

Thank you both.

She has a drawer in the dining room with paper and card and a bucket with crayons, pencil sharpener and scissors on the table. She goes through crayons so quickly because of the amount of drawing! They get short and I have to replace them. I’m sure when I was a kid that pencil crayons lasted eons!

Re the capital letters, my mum was an infants teacher many moons ago and she is horrified by the teaching of capital letters! I’ve had bigger fish to fry with nursery so haven’t felt able to question this. They’re a brilliant nursery overall and DD is happy so I want to to keep her there.

I’ll look into letter formation and see if DD is interested in learning to write them correctly. If not, I’ll leave it a couple of months.

My ds loved writing/drawing from very early age. He loved dot to dot/maze/colour by number types of writing/drawing exercise workbooks. And the ones that let the children draw following wavy/zigzag/straight lines etc to introduce writing letters. You can find those fun work books in shops and online.

Just as Xerochrysum saya above .. there are workbooks which give patterns to follow - loops, zigzags etc and these would be excellent. Or you can make them yourself. Also colouring in is good to help with fine motor skills. And those books where you copy drawings too.

Learning to make neat circles but always starting with a "curly c", and always starting straight lines from the top so as to develop good habits. And moving left to right across the page.

You are right to try to avoid her copying letters incorrectly as a PP has said. Without being discouraging, try to gently steer her away from doing that.

She sounds lovely OP and as if she will embrace learning with great enthusiasm once at school.