AIBU to worry about my three-year-old spelling her name?

[Newbie1991]

My daughter is 3 turning in 4 in June. They said she quite advance in her speech which is great but today she said a teacher was mean to her.

She come from nursery school and said "Mrs X said mummy should spend more time at your spelling your name" and that the other kids are doing better than her.

I do fyi! But I don't want to force it especially as she's currently learning Welsh and English and also has glue ears in both ears (so I don't want to overpressure her)

I was wondering how common it was for a 3 year old to do this? We got a pencil grip to help and we are doing the dot dot name thing which she asked to use today and she had this comment.

Nothing been said to me? Not sure where to go. I don't want her to be disadvantage because of this.

Gosh my daughter had no idea how to spell her name at that age! She seemed to quickly pick it up once in reception. She couldn't even say her own name properly at three actually 😆

I wouldn’t worry about that until reception when they start to learn the sounds that are associated with the letters too. My DS couldn’t write his name, at thst age, my DD could. My DS is the talker, my dd isn’t. They all find their way eventually. I wouldn’t be happy with the snide comments from the nursery staff.

If a teacher/nursery leader actually said that I’d be shocked. I would speak to them myself and ask them to clarify what was said and what their expectation is.

As long as she can recognise her name when she starts in reception, that's all you need to worry about!

I would wonder if she's misinterpreted a comment from the staff. Maybe she saw other could write some of their name and the teacher said perhaps she could spend time and practice hers at home with mummy?

It's not unusual for children to start school unable to write their name.

Teacher sounds out of line. If you want your daughter to learn to spell her name, though, set it to the tune of a song and she’ll pick it right up. (Like, if it’s “Eleanor,” you can sing it to the tune of “London Bridge Is Falling Down.” “E-L-E-A-N-O-R, Eleanor, Eleanor…”)

Are you sure the nursery teacher said that?
If you are sure they did you need to make a formal complaint.
It is totally inappropriate.

I know I could spell my name at that age and both my DDs could too, but it’s not something I stressed about, they were interested to learn letters and writing their name so we did. There is plenty of time though, most schools won’t expect it starting reception

I didn't think three year olds were meant to be able to write anything?

My three year old niece can write her name really well. Would you not rather this sort of thing was flagged up?

I think DD1 knew her letters but only as a sort of song "ABCDEFGHIJK Lemon Lemon Pee!"

Not actually connecting that to words on a page.

Have a word with the teacher before you do anything else.

Neither of mine could/can do this at that age or were massively interested in learning to do it. My almost 4yo can draw a really good shark though and honestly that’s far cooler. She still has a year and a half till she starts school (Scotland) so plenty of time.

I would check it's not crossed wires.

Could be something like the teacher had been doing some name-writing with them and then your DD wanted to carry on, and the teacher had to say 'sorry, we're going to go outside now, but you can do more of it with mummy at home'.

That's just one possible scenario, but there are tons of ways in which a three-year-old might misinterpret what's been said, and I'd probably focus on reassuring her she's fine rather than anything else.

Teacher will have said something like "if it's hard, you can practice at home with mummy," not told your 3yo how you should be parenting.

In general there are loads of variables, when my DS started pre-school it was only kids called Ava or Max that could write their names and poor old Sebastian, with his 9 letters, took longer.

Well, if her name is name is “Pam” you might have got her to start thinking about it. But if her name is “Siobhan” or “Georgina” or “Deidre” you probably can cut your parenting skills some slack.

PS my son only knew the letter N when he started school, I did try (a bit) and so did his preschool. Now, in year 2, he does lovely joined up handwriting and is bang on average for his spelling skills. This morning we were discussing how to spell “publicly” and “chute”. They do learn at different speeds so don’t stress out!

(Btw I mention that possibility because at that age my DD came home from nursery absolutely steaming one day because she thought she'd been told to do the washing up at home. Turned out she was desperate to help her favourite nursery worker with it at nursery and they had a - very understandable! - rule against children being involved, so they'd said no, you could do it with mummy.

DD was not the least bit interested in doing washing-up with boring mummy and considered the well-meant suggestion a massive liberty. )

Ps a top tip is to write their names in sand or flour with their finger, or get magnetic letters. Reduces cognitive load.

Brilliant 🤩

Depends what her name is - one of my DDs is called Ava. She could spell that at 3 but wouldn't say it was much of an achievement given the lack of variety of letters

Gosh! What has happened to childhood?
one of mine could write her name because it’s quite short and phonetic.
Her sister has a longer name and was still tracing her name at nursery.
she couldn’t even reliably label shapes beyond round, square and triangle at that age so it was bought up as a concern at nursery.
she’s now at uni studying history so hasn’t held her back, particularly as she was a late August baby.
they all find their way eventually, assuming they’re NT.
I don’t think I’d cope nowadays with the expectations put on our babies.

I didn't even know if my 3 year old was left or right handed. He kept us guessing til Christmas of reception. He has lovely writing now!

I would definitely rather not have that sort of thing flagged up.

I’ve never tried getting my daughter to write out her name. She can do her first letter but that’s it. She’s nearly 4.

I don’t think they need to be able to write it et - it’s not a race.

We have just begun some reading flash cards at home but with basically no success (and I’m not sure it’s at all necessary tbh)

Nothing to do with being able to write at age 3 needs ‘flagging up’ its developmentally advanced rather than the norm/expected or an appropriate developmental milestone at that age. There is literally nothing to ‘flag’.

She’s 3! Jesus, everyone needs to calm down