DD is 5 and this is her handwriting...

[SwingingCatsAround]

... It's shockingly bad.

She was 5 in December. Her reading is much higher level.

I'm not concerned about the mirror letter/spelling, but the construction if the letters.

We're trying to get her better, but she will resist writing at any opportunity, gets cross if we ask her to correct her grip.

She has strong fingers and good fine motor (sews with tapestry needles, can do buttons up etc) she plays with play doh, tongs, tweezers, loves squeezing anything and everything lolol

What else can we do? It won't magically get better will it?

It’s fine. My 6 year old keeps forgetting to hold his pen properly, and a 2 year old can draw better than him🤣. He’s very good at maths though,so at least there’s that.

Which phonics scheme do the school follow?

If you were told she’s behind at school you should probably look in more important areas than handwriting style.. maybe look at spelling, letter formation, phonics.. not how neat and tidy they write.. that certainly isn’t in the curriculum.

For goodness sake she’s 5 !!
my son went to an alternative school they don’t start writing until 7 ( he is btw dyslexic but got four Alevels and 12 GCSEs )
the most important thing at you can do for your daughter now is to read to her , foster a love of words and stories the rest will come
dont push her or judge
put in the time

That's completely average. I would not be concerned.

You can encourage her by providing a chalkboard easel and coloured chalk, and a sand box where she can play letter games (look at Pinterest for suggestions of activities). The easel lends itself more to writing and drawing and the important hand movement and translation of content from mind to surface. Making marks with chalk is a great sensory activity.

Don't be tempted to make her practice - it would be a huge mistake.

I’m sorry people are being so harsh OP. If it’s been suggested your child’s writing is behind, of course you’re going to worry.

I would say that my daughter is in Yr 1 and in her parents evening, the teacher showed us her writing in reception vs Yr 1 - the difference was unreal! Sounds like you’re doing all the right things so really don’t worry. This will be one of those things that will seem ridiculous to worry about in a decade x

My 5yo's is similar, I'm not at all worried because he's hearing sounds in words, getting his ideas down on paper, choosing to write independently, doing well with reading and maths and generally enjoying his learning. It is on the messier side for year R but he is hypermobile and had no interest in writing at all before starting Reception so I'm actually just really happy that he's doing any writing! I wouldn't worry about your DD's either, it will improve with practice.

She is 5 years old for goodness sakes! I really can't believe the teachers are saying she's behind!

I do wonder how many people have read the whole thread and seen the number of posters already telling @SwingingCatsAround that the writing is fine and not to worry. This is a first time parent looking for advice, which has been taken on board looking at OP's subsequent posts.

Fwiw, I think it's lovely that your little one wanted to write a review, and good of you to spend time reflecting on feedback from school. I hope you have lots of fun writing together in future x

One thing I would advise, though, is to have her use the proper tripod grip when writing. You can buy silicone or rubber attachments to put on all her pencils to help her achieve this grip.

Don't let her use markers/ felt tip pens. The sensory element of writing is important at his age and she will miss out on it with markers. Crayons, chalk, coloured pencils, lead pencils, and paints are all preferable.

She should be forming her letters using the right direction of strokes too. I used to hold my hand over my DCs' to teach them this if they seemed to want to ignore it or weren't remembering it by age 6.

A really excellent post.

The responses on this thread are imbecilic.

I hope you're able to rise above this absolute wave of bullshit OP.

She's doing great for her age if she's happy to take pencil to paper and have a bash at writing her own sentences. What a wee star 🌟

Things will improve with time. Keep doing what you're already doing, read lots, lots of mark making in different ways. She's doing great.

My now 7 year old struggled a lot with forming letters properly in reception and year 1, his writing looked a lot like this. We did lots of games like putting a green dot on the start of the letter and a red dot where he should finish to encourage him to start at the top of the letter. There are some good letter tracing books- look out for ones with a big dot to show where to start writing the letter and little arrows to show the direction to move the pen. Although having said that my son would probably do about 2 letters before giving up 😂. I think what ultimately helped him was following a channel on you tube called ‘draw with Rob’. All of a sudden he was interested in holding the pen properly and recognising that where you start a line can make a big difference. It is drawing not writing but I really noticed his writing improve, he’s now in year 2 and his writing is beautiful (in my loving eyes 🤣)

OP, perhaps find ways of getting her to practice that are fun. Write a story together, where you write a line, and she writes a line. That will model handwriting to her as well.

Or get a chalk board to play schools and get her to 'teach' handwriting or something 🤷

Otherwise this looks pretty average to me!!! Don't worry about it :)

Tbf, my mid 30's DH handwriting looks similar 😂 (and actually my dr's, haha).

Read write Inc

It's fine. But if you want to improve her fine motor skills get her gardening, sewing, colouring, doing woodwork... Anything that's not actual handwriting, she'll get enough of that at school.

You could also practice things like ball sports which would improve hand eye/ body coordination. Swimming is also Greta for that. Development is so much more than how perfect the formation of letters are at 5 years old. You need to see the bigger picture and approach development holistically.

Looks similar to reception child's current writing, I wouldn't worry. My older child never wanted to practice writing at that age but all of a sudden something clicked in year 1 and it improved massively

If she's only in Reception I think that's fine. It's probably the lower end of my son's Reception class, but not the bottom end (and it is a private school with a tiny class). I don't see anything hugely concerning here.
Sorry some posters are telling you to 'get a grip' though!

There are a lot of horrible comments on this thread. I had a feeling this had come from the teacher.

This isn't the OP being a hectoring parent, this is the consequence of the education system putting relentless focus on English and Maths, to the point where our nursery and reception age kids are being told they're not good enough.

My advice would be to just ignore it, as hard as that is to do as a parent. There's nothing wrong with her handwriting, it's the school pressuring the teachers for results, nothing more.

If you wanted to do a bit of work at home with her on the formation it would be useful to use the Read Write Inc handwriting phrases. This might just help to reinforce what they are teaching at school. E.g. around the apple and down the leaf. Lots of this is available online if you don’t have it or you can buy the home pack which has the phrases written on.

I wouldn’t be worried about the size or reversals too much either but if you can get some of the formation sorted it might help her. As others have said, look at her grip too.

Read Write Inc handwriting phrases

This may help.

Honestly it's nothing to worry about, it's so hard not to compare your child to others especially when a teacher tells you that they are behind, some children are great at one thing and not so great at others but worth encouragement they will get there, it's so hard when you want your child not to have struggles but these children turn out the most determined.
Oh and I can read your child's writing, I still can't read my husband's and he can't even read his own writing but he is very successful.

Now this surprises me, I thought you were going to say jolly phonics. Primary teacher here and no I don’t think it’s bad for just turned five, not amazing either, but not concerningly behind. I was however going to suggest read write inc as that scheme is excellent for hammering (lol) correct letter formation - I can only assume the teacher hasn’t really focused on this aspect of the scheme. Google the ‘phrases’ and put them on the fridge. When dd is writing parrot them of with her a- round the apple and down the leaf, b- down the laces and round the toe, c - curl around the caterpillar, d- round his big bottom up his tall neck and down to his toes etc

The usual nasty comments on here. Some posters must use this as an outlet for their own frustrations.

So much for this being a supportive environment.

Bet you wish you hadn't asked @SwingingCatsAround 🤔