At what age did your child start being taight "joined up writing"?

[ComeOVeneer]

DD is in year 1 and has recently been told she now has to complete all writing aand homework tasks in joined up writing. Although she is (according to her teacher) on a par with the most advanced children in year 2 , her handwriting is poor, now doing it joined means it is verging on illegible. Is this the usual age to start? Her teacher feels she should just perserver, but wouldn't mastering the basics more efficiently be better before moving on to more advanced techniques?

DD started in Year 2, DS will be starting in reception (different school)

All a bit of a nightmare with DD as she has dyspraxia. It definitely would have been better for her to learn in reception rather than switching. But finally in Year 4 her writing is legible and she isn't going to need to have a computer at middle school next year. So hang in there, it does improve, even if it takes time.

Reception in our school.

When they do the SATS in yr2 , they get a mark for joined up writing in some of the English tests. My son in Yr2 had beautiful writin when NOT joined up but hates doing joined up as he says it is a mess !

I dont push him to do joined up - getting a boy to write neatly whatever way I think is sufficent

Reception here too...

It took DD until Christmas of yr1 to get it properly, before that it was a bit of a magic eye picture type thing (if you squinted you could see somethng, but not sure what )

I am glad DS didn't do it from the start. He would have hated it. He is in Yr 3 now and is now joining his letters and it looks great. No need for demoralising disastrous illegible attempts at the age of 5 when they are just getting to grips with the basics.

DD (now Yr2) from Reception - knows nothing else, still a bit illegible as she is a leftie but improving

DS (in a different school) started in Year 1 and found it all too much of an effort so now in Yr5 he prints everything, it looks terrible compared to the beautiful copperplate produced by his chums and drives me mad!!!