Tell me about the way children learn writing in reception e.g. what are finger spaces for?

[thegrammerpolicesic]

I am a bit clueless. Ds writes BIG at the moment - like eight words and a page of A4 is taken
up. Does this matter?

What are finger spaces for example?

Are they the spaces to leave between words?

What is expected typically in reception with this sort of thing?

I want to leave ds to it and not dampen his new found enthusiasm for writing, so really want to know for background info or in case he asks a question about something.

Finger spaces are the spaces between words.

They write a word, leave a finger-sized space, then write the next word. If they didn't think about a finger space, their writing would be one long word.

Here

Finger spaces are just using your finger to leave a space between words. For Reception it sounds like he is doing really well.

or this page

The children will be encouraged to write with smaller letters, you could do this at home.

My DS used to write really big letters but already has learnt to write normal sized letters. Just takes practice.

hi there, having spent friday morning in reception helping with a christmas activity morning I can tell you that the standard ranges from neat and well sized to mark making (where there is no letter formation as such, just making marks on the paper with a pencil).

The finger space is, as you rightly say, the gap between words.

May i offer some advise based on my experience with DS? Forget your son's writing! Leave it to the teachers. I think I tried too hard to get DS to hold a pen when actually his muscles and skills weren;t ready for it and now (age 8) he still has problems holding a pen. Concentrate instead on getting your son to use playdough, 'paint' the garage door with a large brush (use water as paint) to improve his shoulder strength and gross motor skills, play with lego etc. All things that improve the muscle groups that will be needed to hold the pen correctly.
I'm sure an early years teacher will come on and tell you more (and hoepfully not contradict me too much although I'd bow to their experience and knowledge).

McK - we totally left him to it for ages e.g. not bothering if he didn't hold a pencil properly. It has worked a treat and he has found he is interested in his own time - he is so keen to do write.

Just to clarify I am not standing over him telling him how or what to write so he gets on with what he wants to do e.g. he wrote a (very rudimentary) little 'book' today. I was so happy as he didn't used to want to do any writing at all a few months back before school started.

Thanks re finger spaces - useful to know. Will check out the links later too.

writing not write

sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression I thought you were pushing him to write. I just figured you might have been like I was those few years back, actively encouraging and wanting him to write more. I'm sure that's what I would have been doing, especially as most of my friend's children were girls who were all writing so much more than DS was.

I've noticed too with DD who started reception in September how her writing has just come on leaps and bounds in these last 3 months. It's lovely to see isn't it?

No worries McK - from my own experience you are right in what you were saying and it's worked an absolute treat to back off with him. I could never have believed how into writing he would end up being such a short time later.

And I guess that all the stuff with writing smaller and neater will come in time in the same way.

He did manage to write his name really quite small on some tiddly xmas cards earlier so I'm wondering if it's the letters they feel confident with they can do smaller but when they're just getting used to the movement of a newer letter that they have to do it bigger?

Hi
I am an ICT TA - do you know how cute it is when reception/year 1 children are typing a sentence on the computer and put a finger on the screen so that they leave a finger space.
Sorry had to share

Writing in sand, paint, flour, gloop etc all very good as well.