Learning to write

Interesting.

I know that phonetics or sounding out the word was stopped but I heard that they were going to use it again. I know at Dylans school they do sound out words as we were taught.

We used to trace our name when we were young and this worked well. I might try it with Dylan when he is older.

I personally feel that far too much emphasis was placed on our handwritting and I am not sure why because we all have our own writting style so I am not going to worry about this.

Amandalynn started reading and writing classes in the begining of the year and all her letters are wrong. The lady who gives the class ensures me that this is normal and with time it will come right.

She does not agree with the school saying let them be they will mainstream writing eventually.

She does not make a fuss about it being wrong, but takes mental note and gives homework.

Milou, I also find the method of schooling a bit past what I recall it being.

My son is not taught to "sound" out words to figure out a word, like we were taught to do - however I have noticed that they learn to recognise the words.

So the entire system is very different to what I was exposed to.

I can't really comment on the writing issue as I have not really experienced it that way.

I do get that kids are "allowed" to write the way they want at a young age, and as time goes by they are "encouraged" to write in a main stream way.

Incorrect gripping of writing instruments and incorrect letter shaping is not wrong, but it makes a child's hand tired, and then they fall behind in the work.

So my experience has been a focus on kids writing and shaping letters the correct way.

However that being said my daughter writes one of her letters in her name back to front, and we have left it, because she is still learning.

Hi everybody, an orientation morning at a local primary school (where I may send the daughter next year), has gotten me thinking.. Some of the kids were writing their names on a smart-board and I noticed that two of them wrote backwards - the end result was their name but it looked strange and the way they formed the individual letters was kind of backwards and awkward looking too. I did some research into this and it seems that the focus now is on the end-result - so whatever route the child chooses to take to write their name is not relevant provided they end up with their name written down. My memories of (what was then) Class 1 did not include learning to write in this way - in fact even the 'font' has changed. Is this a government (OBE-ish) school thing or is it the global norm? We have also been told not to teach our children to write before Grade one as the teacher will then have to unteach what our child has learnt. If anyone has any thoughts or knows a bit more about this - I'd be really glad to hear as I'm not really getting it! At all!