Should I help my 2 year old with writing

[JennyBlueWren]

My son is 2 and a half.
Recently he has started writing letters in the right order to make words but he puts all the letters on top of each other so in the end you wouldn't be able to see what it says -it is only from watching him write that I can see he has made the right shapes for the letters and words he says.

Should I just leave him to do this and he'll work it out himself or should I be correcting how he holds his pencil and showing him where to write his letters? Basically do I teach him or leave him to it? As with reading/counting/adding I would only do it as long as he was interested.

You could show him how to write his name as a start? I used to do dotted letters for them to trace over. Probably frowned on (everything seems to be!), but if he's interested why not? He can extrapolate that to other words if he wants to. Or scribble on the table 😬

I think it's better to encourage him to do lots of fun things that develop fine motor skills first.(lego/ threading/beads works/play doe/ cutting,etc.) It will help him with hand writing later.
My ds was very enthusiastic writer/ painter.
He has done lots of dot to dot, maze, colourings, colour by numbers.
Also he has done lots of writing/drawing on the pavement with chalk.
If he is really enthusiastic about writing, you can get him chunky soft pencils which are easier for small children to write. There are work books to help children with pencil control. (tracing wavy/ straight/ swirly etc lines.)
My ds was writing perfectly legible letters by 3, but still it was sometimes huge and wonky. (But lovely. )
I still treasure them.

Can he draw a face? Or a stick man? This helps learn placements of mark-making on the page.

If he can do a stick man, add detail to it - can he give it a dress, feet, fingers, ears, hair etc. These types of features help a child understand that it's not just the shapes you make with the pencil that is important, it is also where those marks are made.

I wouldn't try to teach him or correct how he does it at this stage. The fact he understands that the marks can have a meaning is brilliant, let him experiment and increase his fine motor strength. The difficulty is that whichever school he may end up at will have its own handwriting style. In many cases children who have to relearn a different way of forming letters find it much harder than the ones who were a 'blank slate'.
Ofcourse you can let him watch you write and show an interest in what he is writing just don't try to correct or teach.

Thanks for the advice.
He likes drawing shapes, numbers and letters. He sometimes says he's drawing other things (car badges mostly) but never people or animals.

He has chunky triangle pencil crayons. He likes using chalks on his blackboard or outside.

He plays with duplo a lot but not Lego or beads yet as he still puts things in his mouth sometimes. He likes playdough too.

When my ds really wanted to write(mostly makes and models of car ) but couldn't yet, I cut out lots of letters from magazines/ food packets etc, and he just simply stuck them on the paper.
It was good for fine motor too.

He loves making words with his magnetic letters and foam ones in the bath (or all over the bathroom floor). I've been having to learn the makes and models of cars. I get all the S ones muddled up.

My ds loved magnetic letters too, but cut outs are even better because you can keep what you made, imo.

This website has lots of printable resources which you have option to make your original. It might be quite handy for you too. My ds loved making 3d shape models with his original drawing.

www.senteacher.org/print/