Handwriting in Year 1

[Noellefielding]

My daughter is desperate to join up her handwriting but they don't seem to be doing any yet in school. Is that usual? She is developing her own horrendous style of joined up writing which I would like to nip in the bud!

They do cursive writing in our school from the get go. As soon as they start learning to write their name in Nursery it's in cursive.

Maybe go on to somewhere like Twinkl and start doing it with her at home

www.twinkl.co.uk/search

Have you asked the class teacher when they are going to start it?

No it isn't unusual for schools not to teach cursive until later. Some wait until KS2 others in Y2 while some start in nursery.

If the OPs child was in the school where I teach the Twinkl style would be totally wrong ... as would anything available on line or commercially available anywhere I'm afraid.

Thank you, I want to ask the teacher but I hate to harass her in any way because I think they have so much harassment from all sides.

It seems to vary a good deal from school to school although our school was blasted by the Ofsted for poor handwriting, so they are supposed to be addressing it. It slightly annoys me that my daughter keeps being given text books for phonics homework without lines so she is still getting no help with getting her writing under control. It just seems like encouraging poor habits to me....

and I do draw lines in where I can, but she wrote a great long story last week on blank paper so the writing looks demented!

The new curriculum says joining some letters in year 2.

OP - can't you look at some displays by Yr5 and Yr6 children, and see what sort of writing they are producing. Or see if DD can ask some older girls to demonstrate their writing to her, then she will know what style of writing to aim for.

Re 'lines': can't you make a sheet of dark lines, spaced correctly, so that it can be placed UNDER a sheet of plain paper, to act as a guide. Our Yr2 children often wrote using line-guides.

mrz Twinkl is exactly what our children are being taught. Guess it's different all over the world.

That's the point. Schools don't all have the same handwriting style so you need to check what style your child's school use rather than plump for a generic version from an on line site which may be quite wrong.

My DD is in reception where cursive writing is being gently introduced. It all seems very relaxed, no pressure. I asked the teacher which style of cursive writing the school used and she was happy to point me in the right direction/ print me out the script so I can support my DD at home.

Op my daughter joined her letters from reception -much to the horror of her school might I add. When she writes birthday cards or helps me write our shopping list she joins her writing. We're now almost at the end of reception year and her writing is better than her brothers who is older!
All I asked her teacher to do was not to discourage her. They didn't have to teach her to join but that if she did, not to say 'we don't write like that in rdception'
I can't tell you how important correct formation from the beginning is and if your dad is interested in writing this way she should be taught how to do it properly.
It does bother me that there is an age band around things like this. Individual children will want to try different things at different times and as long as it doesn't affect the 'learning' (a children writing amazing story with great imagination suddenly their stories take a nose dive because they're conc too much on handwriting) hand writing policies shouldn't be so rigid.
(Writing on home so pls excuse typos etc) ??

*phone

dd's (yr 1) teacher said to me today that she doesn't want them doing joined up yet.... and that she wants good letter formation first. So there is clearly a lot of difference of opinion between teachers.

I fear that kids get into bad habits if they don't start young.

Y1 dd is joining up most words now. They start in reception.

I agree with your daughter's teacher correct formation needs to be the first priority

Thanks for the explanation mrz, I hadn't thought of that.

I taught my daughter aged 5 to write at home as in her state reception class they said they don't focus on writing until Y1. As soon as she formed the letters correctly I taught her to join them. We spent the Christmas holidays after a term in reception practising. When she went back to school she was writing her name and all her words joined up. However her teacher insisted she wasn't to join up. I went in to school and had a meeting with the teacher and insisted she was going to join up and showed them her writing. At first he tried to say it would confuse her and the other children and joined up writing was only after y2. I insisted that why waste 2 years on print when eventually they would join anyway and as her letter formation was correct and all her joins were correct she really should be allowed to do it. In the end he said he would check with the Y2 teachers and the head. After a few days he came back and said she was allowed to do. The Y2 teacher had checked her work and her joins were all correct! She is now in Y1 and has perfectly neat joined up writing that is more advanced than the Y3/Y4! I would insist and do joined up writing from the onset, writing is a habit, and once habits form changing them takes time.
A big tip if your starting to teach joined up writing is get wide lined A4 paper and get the child to do patterns like zigzag, loops, m's, w, and go from one side to the other without stopping and lifting pencil off the paper. It helps train them to keep pencil on paper and helps with joining letters and handwriting speed.