Parents of Y1 children, how good is...

[frogs]

..your child's handwriting?

Just interested, really. Ds has just turned 6, ie. one of the youngest in the class, and his handwriting is still pretty ropey. Although I know they've been taught how to form letters, it doesn't seem to be monitored or practised very well, as he still tries to form lots of letters from the bottom up, or in all sorts of idiosyncratic ways. Looking at the writing in the birthday cards he received last week, he's not alone in this, nor does it seem to be corrected in his schoolwork.

By contrast I was looking at the school mag from my friend's kids' school (private prep school). They'd printed some pieces by Y1 and Y2 children, and they were brilliant! Terrifyingly so, with all the children making the little joins at the beginning and end of each letter, and some doing proper joined-up writing. Even the strugglers were making the letters correctly.

Now presumably not all children of affluent Surrey parents are necessarily geniuses, so if this school can achieve such results with a not-terribly-selective intake, they must be doing something very right.

For the record, I'm not worried, tho' I am going to take ds's writing in hand over the summer with one of those workbooks. I'd just be interested to see how unusual my children's school is in being a bit slack about writing. It was mentioned in Ofsted report as being something the school should work on, but then most of the Ofsted report gave the impression of the inspectors having visited a different school entirely, so not sure how reliable that is.

Your opinions please!

dd1's (reception) handwriting is lovely and she makes all the little tails etc . They are quite hot on it at her (state) primary.

But she does come home and sit for ages copying words and practising it so I think its just her 'thing'.

Now if she could actually add or count properly we'd be laughing

ds has attended two different schools. last year he had to form his letters perfectly with all the joined up squiggles. the new school lets them write the letters any way they like. i am told that both are recommended methods.

the new school said that although writing is worse in the early years when they dont form letters 'correctly' by the end of primary school handwriting tends to be better and often children are more enthusiastic about learning to write because they dont face as much criticism.

s definately true about enthusiasm, and i find it far more satisfying for my kids to enjoy writing a messy card or letter than sitting over them while they write a letter in perfect handwriting which they hated doing.

My dd is in yr 1 and she started doing joined up writing in reception.The school she goes to said why teach them one way to write and then have to teach them a different way.My dd writing would be very neat if she did not join it up.I also have a child in yr 3 and his writing is pretty messy in fact i think my dd is neater.This was the only thing the teacher said my dd could improve on and she has since march she was 6 in april.If you are comparing private schools i have friends who work at private schools and they are always amazed at how well my kids can read comparing them to the 7yr olds they teach.

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My daughter was taught to write at nursery and loved it. She used to write me lovely notes (all rubbish, she didn't really relate it to reading, which they taught too). When she went to "big" school, her writing (printing) was beautiful, well-formed and neat. They wouldn't let the kids write for the first term and then insisted they learn the cursive stuff; dd went into total confusion mode as all her beautiful writing was wrong (I talked to her teachers endlessly about it but they insisted that only cursive was acceptable). Her pen grip is now appalling, her writing is messy and often illegible and SHE DOESN'T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE. I am furious and don't know what to do. The school is completely obdurate. So is my daughter!

Dss both at state primary, but they do focus heavily on handwriting. IMO too much in reception, and possibly too much for some children in yr1. They teach all the 'loops and joining bits and squiggly fs' etc. from the beginning of yr1, but the results are varied. My boys are both summer babies.

DS1's writing was very poor at the end of yr1.
DS2's writing (just at the end of yr1 now) is mostly beautiful.

Having said that ds2's teacher does seem to be majorly hung up on handwriting and presentation, to the detriment (IMO) of other more important things.

DS1's handwriting now is 'good enough'. He can write quite fast, and it is legible, though certainly not beautiful.

I had appalling writing for most of my school life. A teacher told me that my brain worked too fast for my hand. (I always liked that explanation). The thing that helped me a lot was using a fountain pen. You can get fountain pens for children but I'm not sure what age they are appropriate for. My DS also has ropey handwriting which I hope to tackle this holiday.

There is a pen on the market called the Yoropen which has won a design award. It's meant to help people and children who find writing difficult. I showed it to my ds's teacher who thought it was so interesting she kept it. My DS liked it but I wasn't sure if it was a good idea. I was afraid he may get ued to the Yoropen and never want to use an ordinary pen. I may get another one this summer. You can get them in WHS.

Message withdrawn

I'm with dinosaur and gigglinggoblin,
My ds's handwriting is terrible! But much improved this year since we realised that he is very long sighted, and couldn't really see what he was doing. He's just finishing yr1 at a standard sort of state primary school, which we are happy with (and who picked up the eyesight problem). What is great is that he writes all the time now, where he wouldn't have picked up a pen at all a year ago. From looking at other kid's stuff last time I was in school, I would say his writing was amongst the worst. On the other hand he is great at maths and science, and very knowledgable too, he can talk about anything!

Many countries don't even start children at all until 6 (and have better levels of literacy than we do by 11), so I'm not sure that hot housing them in anything really is that productive.

Private schools do have a selective intake by their very nature, as they will have parents who think education is worth paying for and all the evidence is that in general parental expectations is the stronger drivest for achievement.

Also remember that any literature the school produces is a form of advertising!