Handwriting and the letter 'g'

[CoffeeChocolateWine]

My DS (5) is in reception and has been getting handwriting homework each week. This week he's been praticing writing the letter 'g'. He recognises the letter as it's typed...so like this g. However, I was quite surprised to see that when his teacher wrote her example for him to copy, she's done it with a loop at the bottom, so she's brought the loop right back up to the line as if to join it to the next letter.

My DS doesn't even recognise it as being a g and got really confused and upset when trying to copy it saying it doesn't look like a g. And it's a personal thing (not one that I've shared with DS), but I really don't like gs and ys being looped and joined to the next letter...I think it's quite stylised was of writing and personally I think it looks ugly. So I'm surprised that it's being taught like this.

Is it a universal thing...are children now being taught to write gs like this and if so, why? Or is it just my DS's teacher who is teaching it like this?

It's taught like this in readiness for cursive writing. Some schools teach the lead-ins as well as the lead-outs (ie the loopy bit on the g) the easier thing to do is to explain that the written g looks different to a printed one to make it easier and faster to write as they get bigger. In my reception class we teach the lead-outs. I'm sure your class teacher could give you the cursive alphabet the way your child will be taught so that you can support at home.

Yes the school I used to teach at taught the lead ins as well as the outs. We also used to do all our writing (teachers) joined from the start of reception. The children seemed to adapt quickly and the only ones who had difficulty were the ones who had poor motor skills and therefore were struggling with any recording, cursive or not.

My personal preference is never to join from letters with descenders either - I think it looks messy.

I really don't think that mother's personal preference or opinion is of any importance at this stage. Unless you think that your child should be a carbon copy of yourself. Be jolly thankful that your child is being taught correct letter formation; I have worked with many children who clearly haven't and who suffer all sorts of problems in consequence, reversals, illegibility and very slow working being a few.

As for not recognising it as a 'g'; there are hundreds of different ways of writing 'g' which your child will encounter, not to mention capital 'G'. Please don't encourage closed minded thinking at this early age. Just introduce him to lots of different looking 'g's. Have a trawl through the fonts on your computer...

My son also in FS2 has a g in his name and writes it beautifully with the loop going over the straight line. He just recognises both forms but always does the loop going across the stick when ever he writes a g.

They teach cursive letters here too, not the easiest to learn but I'm told it makes it easier in the long run. I remember when I was learning to read the g's in the books were that font where it has a circle at the top and a circle at the bottom and a funny squiggle. a's are different too aren't they, even if not cursive? I like the idea of looking at different computer fonts, we even have a cursive letters font that's quite similar to what school teach.

Aw at him not believing it's a g, my DS is just the same. He decides how things "should" be in his head and won't believe anything else without a battle. We have a handwriting sheet from school showing how they are taught the letters so we have a higher authority to refer to in case of disputes!

maizieD, for goodness sake, I am not suggesting for a second that my personal taste is the important thing here! I only mentioned it because I've always considered the loops quite stylised (ie. something that people tended to add later because it was their taste). My concern was that to me it didn't look like the correct letter formation...I mentioned in my other thread in chat that I was actually taught it was bad practice to loop letters that descend below the line so I was surprised to see my son being taught to do it this way...he's my eldest so this is the first time I've come across it. And seeing it written like this confused and upset my DS because he didn't recognise it as being a 'g' and wasn't taught it this way in pre-school.

Ds2 is in yr 1 and he has been taught only to write cursive letters too since reception (when ds1 was there, they didn't teach cursive until yr 1/2).

Ds2 is really struggling with it still - he tends to write the letter as it is printed then stop and go back to add on all the extra bits which kind of defeats the object of doing it! It doesn't help that the cursive font they use in school for labelling stuff and as the exemplar that they should be copying is one of the most illegible fonts I have ever come across. (pre-kids was involved with design/typography/readability etc so can say that with my 'professional' hat on rather than my 'moaning mum' hat on!). It's horrible to read so god knows what the kids think of it compared to the words they see printed nicely and legibly in books.

I haven't yet plucked up the courage to ask them for the name of the exact font they are using so I can add it to my bad font collection .

At my school it's policy to join descenders with a lead-out loop. They did an analysis of the yr 6 SAT writing papers over several years... all those that scored 3 for handwriting were loopy joiners. Not joining after a descender but otherwise neatly joined writing scored 2. Thus, joining descenders became school policy for any easy extra mark.

Now, if I could just get my class to actually do the descenders as descenders and not sitting up above the line .... sigh.

Prepare him for cursive writing. It will be so worth it in the long run when he starts to join. It will look good and be much quicker for him.

It's just cursive. Taught from day 1 of reception, in most schools.

I don't like it either, but that is the way we have to teach it! Hate all the lead ins and lead outs,and loops on g's and y's and f's but that is the way the school wants it done!

I find it very difficult. When I was at primary (40+ years ago!), we were taught an italic form of handwriting,and so totally different from cursive! I really struggle with it - it makes my handwriting look messy!

Try this: displays.tpet.co.uk/#/ViewResource/id1121

I don't think most schools do teach cursive from reception ... some do and some don't. We did briefly about ten years ago but decided that it was more useful to teach a semi cursive style that would easily feed into joined when the children were ready. The schools I know seem to use sassoon style initially.

I have to teach it like that...I don't like it either. Think it is probably helpful though, I just think it looks messy sometimes.

jamdonut, thank you so much for that link...really useful and if I thought the 'g' was bad don't get me started on the 'f'.