Learning to write the alphabet

[RuthChan]

My DD is 3, will turn 4 this month.
She has been learning to read and write at preschool for the last few months.
She can recognise all the letters and is now working on reading 3 letter words using phonics. That's fine.

However, when she writes letters and words, I realise that she is not being taught how to form the letters properly. She simply copies them and as long as the final shape is correct, it doesn't seem to matter what in order the lines are drawn.

It worries me that if writing letters in her own strange ways becomes ingrained she will struggle to learn joined-up writing etc in the future.

Should I work to correct her writing at home or am I worrying unnecessarily?

i'm surprised they are not teaching the correct letter formation - are you sure there is no input on this? i would definitely correct it and slow her down til she gets it, really difficult to undo later - you can buy lots of resources showing the correct formation. (speaking as a primary teacher). hth

Thanks Stinkypants.
I was hoping for some input from a primary teacher.
What you say exactly backs-up what I was thinking.
I will check with DD's teacher about whether she actually tries to work on this or not, but it seems likely from practicing with DD that she doesn't.
I will look into getting some practice books for her to trace the shapes.

Thank you.

i dunno, ds1 is in yr 1 and still doesn't form all his letters correctly, it takes them a while to learn and it doesn't mean that the teachers aren;'t showing htem the right way.
ds1 has been shown the correct way a million times but still likes to do certain letters differently
am sure it'll click into place.

Yes, I understand.
When I show DD how certain letters should be written, she often tells me that she prefers to write it her way.
After the half term break I will discuss it with her teacher and see how she is actually teaching her.

dd learned her letters by copying at nursery rather than with correct formation. however after half a term in reception at school she forms them all correctly, and with joining tails!

they did a letter a day and have now done them all. i worried about her having to unlearn everything. but it really has been fine.

That's reassuring Ruddynora.
Thank you.

Phew!! Glad I spotted this. I have always drawn dotty outlines for my children and now grandchildren to learn outlines of letters. All of a sudden 5 year old granddaughter shows me homework that has letters with little flicks at the start and end of each letter. Oohhh, what's this then? Seems it is called 'cursive' lettering and prepares for joined up writing. Practise pages are available to print off from, I think it's, Kidzone. Someone recently told me that it is very frowned upon to teach 3 or 4 year olds letters and that it should all be left up to 'the school'. I can see from here that it is not. Thank you.

I shouldn't worry too much - more important that they learn to enjoy reading and writing at this stage. Learning to form letters properly later on is perfectly possible. We didn't teach my DD1 (home educated) how to form her letters, but just let her do it how she liked, and then asked her, aged 6, if she wanted to learn how to write joined up and she practised every day for a while. Now (7.5) her writing is not always neat as she doesn't practise, but it's always cursive and always the letters are formed properly.

I agree with stinky pants! I am also a primary school teacher and currently struggling to mend some of the bad handwriting that my seven year olds have previously developed.

Their letter formation looks fine...until they go to join up! I have had to go right back to basics and working in a very short time frame to get their handwriting right. (if they don't learn now, they never will)

I think the early children start the better! Start early then the children can focus on their grammar and punctuation skills rather than worrying about their letter formation!

And I thought pre-school wasn't about reading and writing at all, but about playing, learning social skills and playing again!