can any teachers help? correct formation of letter 't'

[tankerdale]

Sorry this is a bit dull & pendantic!
I had a thread about whether to query with the teacher the handwriting homework. The example words that the children were meant to copy weren't cursive and t's were written same height as bs, h's etc.

Teacher has come back saying that as dd has been finding cursive tricky, she gave her some separate ones to do - fair enough (though dd just got the hang of always trying cursive....)

She also said that t's have the same ascender height as h's. Is this right? Even when she wrote this in the communication book her t's are shorter, and they are in this font on mumsnet.

Is she right? Are t's as tall as b's, h's etc & is this what children should learn when doing handwriting?
Really don't want dd to practice it wrong!

Ive never heard of this either, all letters are created equal, poor t

t was definitely shorter when I learned

Yep, short 't' here.
And written like this!

Three quarter t in our scheme but only really corrected in handwriting books. Unless it was huge or tiny I doubt I'd notice in a normal exercise book.
If I was the class teacher I don't think I'd be impressed with a parent querying the size of a t with the Head.

Lovelilies, that's a pretty handwriting style. Does it have a name?

There are loads of different handwriting styles, there isn't one correct way of doing it. Have the school not sent you home a style sheet at any point? DD's school even sent home a laminated one for her to refer to.
If in doubt, maybe ask the teacher if they have a letter formation/style sheet you could have a copy of. The head probably doesn't know anyway, at least ours wouldn't.

Surely all that matters is that handwriting should be legible.

We had a reference sheet back in year R but I may ask for another one, good idea
Thanks for all the help, seems like ours might not be the only school teaching tall t's though lots still teach shorter ones.

We had separate handwriting lessons several times a week, right up to what is now year 4. This was back in the 70's.
I learnt Nelson handwriting and the lower case 't' was always a three quarter height letter.

Gosh, Nelson handwriting, that takes me back!!

Oh god. No wonder DS has been doing what I thought were Titchy Tees.

Poor boy. I kept trying to correct him. He was right.

Sorry DS.

They were the same height when I were a lass...

It is actually correct to do a t shorter than the other letter but noone ever writes like this. A bit like noone writes a k like a R with its hand in the air

Stepping, I do actually. And one of my ds' past ta did. He was very curious why we write like that.
I do leave my ds' handwriting teaching to school though. (I don't like his style, I like mine better!)

I mean about "k"

I always do my t's shorter - hence the question! Not the weird curly k's though.... but it was because the DC were asked to do them big paying very close attention to the lines and forming them correctly. I wouldn't have picked up on them in just normal writing. Now I have a seed of doubt in my mind that the teacher could be someone that never realised t's are traditionally shorter rather than doing it in accordance with the handwriting scheme because I never picked up on it last year.

My Danish Mum taught me to write like that Molly
She said English handwriting was ugly

I think I do curly k's, if I understood it right. The alternative would be taking the pen off the paper, that slows you down. I do short t's too. I don't think it's correct or incorrect, just one style.

It's not just one style catkind! Short (3/4) 't's are correct - anything else is incorrect. The problem is that primary teachers don't seem to know that. Curly 'k's are optional though.

"They were the same height when I were a lass.."

They weren't when I was (1960s)

And they're not on the MN font, nor commonly used fonts such as Times New Roman

They weren't when I went to school either ... I may be wrong but all/most styles/fonts have a shorter t

ts were the same height as bs and ds and hs when I was a child - 1960s - or so I believed. A quick search seems to show that Marion Richardson (the style we used) has shorter ts.

There are different styles of cursive though, so other people might have learned 'same height'.

Well this at least explains why my DD's t's are so rubbish and hard to distinguish from her c's. . She has poor handwriting and spelling, and short t's are certainly not helping work out what she wrote.

My t's are the same height as other tall letters. Taught in the 70s.

I left primary school in 1993, and my 't's have always been shorter than my large letters. I'm going to have to look at the children's books to see what they do now.

I also do the 'k' with the loop on the top bit of the 'hand', as does DS2 who started school in September. Then you don't have to take your pen off.

You left primary in 93? God I feel old!

Selection of styles. Seem to be some each way on the t height.
www.drawyourworld.com/blog/examples-of-handwriting-styles.html