How much does proper letter formation matter?

[ButterPieify]

DD1 is starting to write, which is all great (atm she likes writing her name and "car", each to their own I say) but I am a little worried that she writes some letters oddly - eg her "a" is a circle, then she takes the pen off the paper before adding a line, and her "e" is pretty much a random spiral. It is still very readable at the end though.

Do I correct these as she is writing (seems a bit mean when she is just playing - would hate to put her off) or just keep showing her the right way and hope she picks it up?

(She is 3 and due to start school this year, so if she ends up going I don't want to start off on the wrong foot with the teacher straight away!)

I am a teacher. It would depend on the lesson. If it's handwriting, I'd correct then and there. Any other lesson I would make a mental note to give them some particular help soon after, but not at the time. I agree about putting her off with constant correction interrupting her flow.
At 3, maybe some general 'copy me' exercises, e.g. covering a tray in a thin layer of shaving foam and writing a letter in it with your finger, and getting her to copy it from the proper starting point? Or you could write a big letter in chalk and she could 'follow' with a different colour? I'd go big at this stage, it's easier to follow you if it's big.

Thanks :) Up to now we have been praising any attempt, so would be gutted to find out that we are actually storing up problems for her!

I think she would go for the chalk idea - she has an easel that she is always asking me to draw/write on with her, so we could quite easily casually bring in doing a big letter or two as part of that game :)

I always say round up down and flick, down up over the bridge and flick... etc when wanting correct letter formation, but it will be taught in Rec and Y1, wouldn't be too concerned at 3yrs

i'm a pre school practitioner - they do not need to write at this age, it is not a pre requisite to form letters prior to school age.
That being said, my daughter formed her a's in the same way as do many children in my care, my dd needed no correction, as she became better at writing and fine motor skills formation improved.

:D Thanks. I know she doesn't need to write, but if she wants to I can hardly wrestle the pen off her!

She was doing sums last night too - she begged and whinged until I gave her sums to do, so she could use buttons to help her work it out. We were doing addition and subtraction, but she kept asking "what is four fours" and "how many twos are in eight" so I think she must be picking it up from somewhere.

Then we wrote out a shopping list and she drew pictures and she noticed that words often end in "s" when there are lots of the thing, so I had to explain that.

I have NO idea where she gets this wanting to work thing, me and DH are lazy buggers :) Although we are nosy...maybe that is it :)

I'm a teacher too and would correct an older child every time not just during handwriting activities. The problem is it is very easy for bad habits to become firmly established and much harder to correct later. It isn't a prerequisite for pre school children to write but if she is interested and able easier to show the correct way now (without putting pressure on her)

Show her the correct series of movements by air writing with a fairy wand

ButterPieify if it is of any use - I have 2 DD's, one in yr5 and one in yr2; DD1 was very average at the end of reception, confused b and d all the time, and when we looked at her work at parent's evening it was a case of "which way up do we hold the book to understand what she has written??" very LARGE writing, suspect spellings too, but roll on a few years and she is a keen reader, a fab writer, is in the top spellings and guided reading group, is on course to achieve level 5 in her SATs but above all LOVES literacy, and DD2, who showed no interest whatsoever in picking up any kind of writing implement in nursery is the top reader in her class, also the best writer, and also reads all the time and loves books. I would say just nurture her interest, read to her, don't dorrect spellings in any stories she writes and have fun with her. HTH.

Teacher here too and I would gently remind her of the correct way every time. It is SOOO hard to unlearn incorrect formation if it is deeply ingrained in their brain.

Another teacher here - I would also gently remind her of the correct formations. Oh, and please teach her to write words lower case not capitals!

Oh dear! DD (4 in April) has learnt to write her name at preschool because they have to label their drawings.
She's got very interested in writing now and she asks me how to spell things and then writes them but she usually does it in capital letters and invariably the 'wrong' way. I think its because of writing people's names with capital letters and copying the computer keyboard
I haven't been correcting her because I thought she was far too young to be having to do things properly and just pleased she was interested at all.
Looks like I am ingraining bad habits...

DD is much the same, she's starting to want to write. I'm letting her do mazes etc too, to improve pen control, and we are going very slowly!