to think this is the most patronising school shite yet

[moogster1a]

My ds came home from nursery with a sheet of printed letters of the alphabet. I assumed it was for him to copy, but no. There was a letter attached explaining it was for parents' info. to show how they write the letters. each letter had a helpful arrow on it " to demonstrate how at nursery they begin to write the letter". I assume in case I write letters upside down or begin from the middle of the "W" and work outwards for instance.
Also "for my reference" she had written the initial letter of ds's name in the corner.This had extra arrows to show in what order the lines of the letter "H" should be tackled. In case I've forgotten what I called him or what his name begins with; or how the fuck to write it?
She "hopes this helps so we are all writing in the same way when helping our dc ".
AIBU to think patronising cow? I am of course going to thank her on Monday for her helpful advice as otherwise I would never have been able to form the letters of the alphabet by myself.

yes YABU

I will almost bet you do not form every letter in the correct way because once we start to do joined-up writing we adjust and amend.

It is important that they start to learn that an 'a' starts at top right and an 'l' is from the top down with a little tail

"My father has fabulously exuberant hand-writing."

Like that as well.

Is it a metaphor for difficult to read?

a friend of mine has an 8 yr old who is now struggling badly at school as his writing wasn't monitored properly when he learnt to write. He was making the shape of the letters any way he could or wanted to (so would draw an I from bottom to top etc). Therefore when it came to writing more quickly and doing joined up writing, his letter formation didn't flow at all. Consquently his work is a complete mess, he takes ages to get things down on paper and is falling behind and getting badly frustrated. He is having to relearn his writing skills.

It is really important! And I will be very pleased if my own son comes home from school with a sheet to help me help him do it properly. My friend said she had no idea about any of this and wished she had known much earlier.

YABU for the reasons already stated.

Your op did make me laugh though :o

I could have sent a letter to my children's school, saying that as a fantastic teacher and parent, I demanded that they not patronise me by offering any support.
I know everything about teaching any child all subjects up to the age of 13, and I have the paperwork to prove it?

But I didn't, so I learned a lot more along the way as well.
I am pleased that so far, no one has felt that the nursery were being arrogant and patronising about the level of education possessed by the parents.

There are a lot more 'patronising' letters and projects to do at home to come believe me.
I felt like you at first but held my toungue and just realised that if your ds was doing alright then fine ignore what you already know and try and not take it personally.

Personally, I'd be glad to get something like this and hope I do when DS starts school - I'm terrified of teaching him bad habits.

yabu
I can remember getting something similar when ds was diddy,

Can I ask why we teach cursive writing btw? I don't have anything against it, I'm just curious whether there is a specific reason for writing that way rather than just printing. Is it supposed to be quicker?

I'm another one that can't do 'correct' writing - I write both types of a's, sometimes in the same word. I have an awful habit of doing 'delta' rather than a d, and (to answer whoever it was above) I do write some letters from the bottom up. My handwriting is quite artistic but in my defence it is legible, and I get lots of compliments on it.

YANBU Thinking there's a "correct" way to write letters is BU. It's the result that matters not the process.

diddl probably!

His writing also lives up to the reputation of his profession.

It is lovely though. Uses a fountain pen I think.

thatsnotmymonkey Sorry, don't mean to offend, but you really made me rofl with your 'BARLEY literate' comment, very funny

MrsDmitri

There is some evidence to suggest that teaching cursive writing helps improve spelling as it helps you to learn the patterns of words. Or something.

YABU, I have no doubt they feel you are ttoally capable of writing. But as your dc doesn't it will confuse him if you do it diffrently

YABU - it's not at all patronising to send a sheet home, it's helpful.

And the phonics workshop - I would lay bets that one of the first things they say is not to teach 'muh', but to teach 'mmm'. My children are always telling me 'it's not muh, it's mmmm' etc (even though I taught them mmmm), because the teacher has to undo loads of parental teaching, so is always saying that in class. Try sounding out and blending a word like 'mat' if you're starting off with the sound muh. Other children may have learned 'emm'.

Btw, I did laugh at the comment further down about many adults being 'Barley Literate'....

this is how i form my letters

I was shown a little while ago how to write left-handed - ie how they teach them in schools in this area now .

It was complete bollocks - most of the letters were formed in such a way it made it impossible to join them to other letters, and it made it look like left-handers were aliens, rather than perfectly normal.

when I was taught to join, we were taught to make joining lines from the letters (and that you didn't join c to any other letter from behind (eg it would go ceiling, but re ceiving)

I agree with everyone else. Very useful.

It's very common for children to learn to write in capitals - or in their own "unique" way - as (certainly in the case of all 3 of my DS's) they often copy things they see/have around the home.

DS1 thankfully did this the least- he couldn't write at all before he started school. He has beautiful handwriting now and I'm certain that learning to form his letters properly at school rather than doing it own way prior to that contributed to that. He was starting on a "clean slate" so to speak. (He was actually the first child in his entire year to get a pen to use in YR3

DS2 used to love watching countdown with me, and realised that the letters on the keyboard were the same as those on Countdown - and copied them - in his own unique way. He's in YR2 now and although his handwriting has improved a lot recently he really struggled to start with to learn to write properly

DS3 doesn't really write anything yet - although does occasionally draw a T (first letter in his name) but after my experience with DS2 I try and make sure that he does it properly (using the sheet that DS1 had sent home in reception at school (DS2's one got lost somewhere ).

school tend to do letters a specific way - often this is quite different to how we were all taught to form letters/the bad habbits we have fallen into.

btw - I'm left handed and although have never had great handwriting I can write neatly and fairly quickly - I had no idea there was a "left handed" way of learning writing

I never even thought about how I form leters until my son and his home work showed me that I do it completely differently than how he is taught. An information sheet would have been helpful, and I used to teach kindegarten.

YABU, you are the one being patronising OP, assuming you know best and belittling other parents and the teacher.

Baroque, I'm left handed and I write "o" etc in the opposite direction to right handers.

Don't know if this is typical of leftys but I only noticed when I saw one of those sheets with the arrows.

I asked our teacher about why on earth they were teaching DS to write the k with the curly bit on the top...

Turns out it's to aid the teaching of joined up writing.

I agree with the sentiment that the teacher is not being deliberately patronising, she is genuinely trying to give all parents the tools to help their children learn to write.

There are many more irritating things about school than this, general leaving everything to last minute, not telling us when our attendance is needed despite it being well known a year in advance, constantly asking for money...

YABU> Get over it and stick the sheet in the recycling without a second thought if you're not bothered about using it. Personally I like to see what/how my ds is learning because I think it's important.

Mumsnet is such an eye opener regarding how some people view things. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought any parent would find that patronising