Handwriting skills in Nursery

[tigermeow]

I was taken to one side today by DD's Nursery teacher and asked to work on her handwriting!
DD is not forming her letter correctly...I think she incorrectly forms about 7 of them....19 correctly formed though! Her teacher is worried about her getting into bad habits which will be hard to break when it comes to later years.
I, on the other hand dont care how she forms her letters, I don't want to critisise DD for something she has set about teaching herself. DD loves to write short (2 sentence phonetic stories) by hand so I am not about to leap on her and try and get her to form her letters correctly. She even uses spaces between each word...what is a few incorrectly formed letters? Once she gets to writing age (Reception I suppose) then she can learn then, I am not about to start teaching her something she doesn't actually need to know yet.
Am I in the wrong here and should I be correcting the letters? She is still only 2 (3 in a few months though).
Many thanks.

[ThePettyandIllinformedGoat]

of course you should be correcting her handwriting. how is her written latin?

[hunkermunker]

A nursery teacher who is worried about letter formation in the handwriting of a two-year-old?

[theITgirl]

I am unsure about this one - what does the teacher mean about forming the letters correctly? is it getting b & d muddled up or is it doing the circle part of the b, then up stroke, then down for example.

If it is the first, I wouldn't worry.

If it is the second one, doing play writing like this for two years, could code it in to her brain and make it very difficult for her to change to the 'correct way' when she does get to reception, especially as they try to do cursive writing from the start.

But, I still think you should keep it low key and just use some gentle persuasion.

TBH I don't think the Nursery teacher would be worried at all if it was only 'pretend' writing like my dd's

[happystory]

FFFFFFS she is 2! The FFS is not to you dear tigermeow but the 'teacher'! What is she on about? 2 year olds should be painting, sticking, drawing scribbles, etc etc not forming letters perfectly.

Smile sweetly and say it's not important to you right now and ignore her ridiculous comments

[ELR]

i think the teacher is being ridiculous, half of dd reception class cant do this yet it really depends on what the teaching habits of your nursery are and what is expected of them.
dd nursery and reception is all about play, with a bit of reading writing chucked in for good measure!

[Laurac2]

Hi. Last night we had my sons parents evening (he is 4 in reception) and she said that although they practise writing the neatness and formation is not important at this point.
So I wouldnt worry too much.

[PortAndLemon]

It's your DD who has a reading age of 9 or so even though she's not 3 yet, isn't it, tigermeow?

It sounds to me as though the teacher is assuming that because she's so far ahead in one area she must be just as far ahead in all areas. Now, clearly she is way ahead of her age in writing as well, but perhaps not quite so far as she is in reading. I can't see that there's anything wrong with that -- and assuming that they are modelling the right letter formation for her in nursery (and if they aren't it's a bit of a cheek to expect you to do it) I don't think you should be correcting her at home, especially if it diminishes her enjoyment of writing as an end in itself and turns it into a chore.

[quickdrawmcgraw]

whaaaaat?! That's madness. She's very, very clever to be able to write out anything at that age for a start so keep being enthusiastic with her but no way should her letter formation be getting in the way of her imagination.
They don't address that until they're 7 or 8 in school.

[boomie]

I am sorry but this is ridiculous. Why put pressure on a 2 year old to write. DD2 is 3 and she "doodles" about when writing. I (nor her nursery teachers) have any intention of correcting her. I cannot believe the nursery teachers have raised this with you.

[tigermeow]

HappyStory-- thank you, it isn't something that is important yet. She picks things up by osmosis so I dont see a problem for later.

theITgirl- she forms a,b,d,g,m,n,r incorrectly. a is more like an O with a stick. She wrote something the other day that looks like this "wun dy te fish wet owt it ws cod" (one day the fish went out, it was cold)...very phonetic...again I am not worried, it is just something she likes to do. I haven't corrected her spellings either, that will come whenever she is ready.

[tigermeow]

PortandLemon....bingo...I think you are so correct. At the end of the day she is a 2 yr old with 2yr old behaviour and issues who just happens to be able to read and write at a higher level than her age. As long as she enjoys what she does I don't mind, I don't want to put any pressure on her at all and I certainly don't want the school too either. She loves going to school and is making lots of friends which was the whole reason fo going, I dont want that to change.

Thank you for everyones replies.

[theITgirl]

tigermeow
Thanks for answering my post. I think what you describe is fine, I would only have been concerned if she was writing the letter from right to left.
So you have my permission as well to tell the Nursery teacher that she is barking.
BTW - I don't have any specialised knowledge, just aware that I can spell correctly when I write it, but cannot always spell it out loud.

[juuule]

I'm speechless. 2years old. I think mine were still writing squiggly worms at this age.

[happystory]

It wouldn't be a problem at her age even if she was writing from left to right, back to front, upside down,whatever. tm's dd is experimenting, having fun, finding out about writing.....nursery insisting she forms letters correctly could put her right off.