Do your Yr 1 kids write neatly?

[dameofdilemma]

Just seen online homework display for dd's Yr1 class - some of the kids are writing joined up ffs :(

Dd is left handed and struggles a bit with getting a few letters the right way round and generally writing neatly (though its still legible and majority between the lines). She's fine with reading/maths/spelling and very happy at school generally so never worried about it until seeing the lovely display of fantastic efforts from her classmates with beautiful writing.

How do parents teach their kids to write like that???

My son is in year 1 now and I had to ask his teacher about handwriting. He came home telling me they are learning joined up and he needed to do it in his homework. I didn't believe him, as the week before he told me they didn't.

So I asked the teacher and she said that they're not actually telling them to do it, but some children are giving it a go. She said that my son has neat writing and it's easy to read his when he attempts it.

My children are being taught to write like this..

My Ds is in Yr 1 and also left handed. He enjoys writing, has great ideas that he likes writing down but his handwriting is terrible! Some letters are back to front, some I can't decipher. We had parents evening last week and his teacher wasn't concerned at all. He said the main thing at the moment is that he wants to write and that if we looked back in a years time we would see how it has improved. He doesn't want to discourage DS or make him anxious about writing so we will just let him carry on enjoying writing.

No. Mine didn't have neat handwriting until they were older.

Left handed DD cracked neat handwriting towards the end of year 3.

Her older brother is right handed and could write neatly at the start of year 3.

Both taught cursive handwriting from reception. It was a long slog, and seemed pointless when they were in key stage 1, but seems worth it now we're out the other side.

I worked in Y1 last year, and I think maybe one or two had decent (ie legible) joined up writing at this point in the year. A handful of others had legible unjoined writing, and the rest were a mixture of no spaces between letters/words, misformed letters, random capitals in the middle of the word, letters/words not on the line or even anywhere near each other.

My daughters was pretty messy beginning of year 1 . Just started year 2 and is so much smaller and neater and just starting joined up .

DS2 is in Y1 and his writing is still all randomly sized letters that start off on the line but end up on the next line down by the end of the line. He's got the hang of doing all the letters the right way round recently though, and the letters are now starting to become a more uniform, legible shape. His teacher says he is doing really well and progressing beyond the expected targets for Literacy, so I'm more than happy with it.

DS2's writing is still not great and he's almost 12. He does have dyspraxia though so his hand gets really tired a lot. It hasn't held him back much though as it is legible and he's now at a super selective secondary (sorry not trying to stealth boast just reassuring you!).

When I was at school, Claire and Helen in my class had super neat, tiny writing that I was very jealous of. They could colour neatly within the lines too, unlike me! They didn't get a GCSE between them aged 16 though, so I don't think there is a big correlation between handwriting aged 5/6 and end educational results tbh. The content is far more important, as long as the work is legible.

Thanks all - this is encouraging. Completely agree the content is more important in many ways.
I do remember dd's reception teacher saying would be worth dd practising writing capital and lower case letters neatly but assumed she said that to all the kids!

My daughter is in year one. Her writing is fairly good when not joined but she is expected to join all her writing now and bless she hasn't really been taught to join all the letters.

Ds2 had beautiful handwriting from Y1. Ds1 was reluctant to even pick up a pen until Y2. Its ok for your daughter not to be good at everything. No need for people to denigrate others for their skill though.

Question for teachers (sure there are some on this thread) do you notice a difference between writing of summer born and autumn born children in year one....

DS is a July baby and quite honestly his writing is dreadful.... as for his spelling, I think its as bad but since i can't read most of his writing, I'm not sure.

Thankfully he seems very interested in learning to find his way around the keyboard.

lists I’m not a teacher but my DS is a September baby - not good writing yet at all. He refused to do any sort of writing/drawing before school though!

Nope. Actually that's mean. Dc1 had fairly neat writing in y1 & it's still getting progressively neater now in y3. Dc2 is y2 & still doesn't have neat writing but throughout last year his teachers made a point of letting me know at parent's evenings that it will come with time & that he is trying & slowly but surely getting better. Hopefully it will continue to improve this year.

Child 1 when in Y1: ha ha ha no. We'd be lucky if it was legible at that age.

Child 2 currently in Y1: very neat and small, some joining but not always (they haven't actually been taught to join yet). Wasn't taught particularly, she just did it. Her reading, spelling and thinking what to write type skills were strong before she started school, so I guess handwriting was all she had to think about in reception. There were a couple of lads writing like DD does in DS's class too, but it's not the norm.

I'm not sure I like the putting everyone's work up online for parents to compare. Seems designed to worry people.