Joined Handwriting

[Guest]

Hi, Was just wondering what other peoples views were on joined writing in foundation. Our school scheme says that children are taught to join as soon as they enter school. We have no nursery and children start school the term after their 4th birthday. The problem is that I find children come in with incorrect letter formations. I spend time getting the children to form letters the correct way (following the school scheme - hand for spelling) but I don't see the point in teaching children to join when they are unable to form single letters correctly. Surely it makes more sense to get the children forming letters correctly first then they can learn to join. I am feeling more and more pressure to make children join but I am not happy about it.

[Cait]

I wouldn't be happy either. Some children aren't even ready to form basic letters on entry to school. Like you, we struggle with incorrectly formed letters and I seem to be constantly saying to parents that, yes, a 'o |' does look like a 'd' etc, but children need to form the letters properly as soon as they are keen to write their name, as it's really hard to un-learn bad habits later

[Guest]

I wouldn't be happy either. Some children aren't even ready to form basic letters on entry to school. Like you, we struggle with incorrectly formed letters and I seem to be constantly saying to parents that, yes, a 'o |' does look like a 'd' etc, but children need to form the letters properly as soon as they are keen to write their name, as it's really hard to un-learn bad habits later

 

I teach in Foundation and we do not join up our letters although we do add off flicks - I am sure that there is a correct name for them

 

For some children recognising letter shapes is a real WOW and being able to scribe individual letters is fantastic - also one could argue that developmentally children would see joined words as one thing and not be able to then distriguish individual sounds within the words - i think its the Piaget cconceptual phases of development

[Guest]

I've always made sure that children are able to correctly form the letters with flicks (hugely popular with the children!) then moved on to simple joins in Year 1 and have fully joined handwriting in Year 2. Without correct formation, children will find it harder as Cait says to unlearn and relearn the correct formation.

 

If my memory serves me right, I thinks Cripps does start with formation patterns, individual letters but in a cursive style and then as the books progress to joins e.g. oi, an, etc, before moving onto fully joined words.

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest]

I will follow this thread with interest as I was on a CLLD meeting today where some schools said they follow a cursive handwriting scheme in reception. We teach letters with flicks but some people were talking about how cursive works well when teaching vowel digraphs in Phase 3 of Letters and Sounds. Obviously the comments so far have been against using cursive but I will be interested to see what others think.

Edited March 2, 2009 by Guest

[WChurchill]

I've always made sure that children are able to correctly form the letters with flicks (hugely popular with the children!) then moved on to simple joins in Year 1 and have fully joined handwriting in Year 2. Without correct formation, children will find it harder as Cait says to unlearn and relearn the correct formation.

 

If my memory serves me right, I thinks Cripps does start with formation patterns, individual letters but in a cursive style and then as the books progress to joins e.g. oi, an, etc, before moving onto fully joined words.

 

Hope this helps.

Hi

 

Flicks can be called exit strokes. If letters formed correctly and have exit strokes usually easy to joing later on!

[Marion]

I teach diagraphs as joined script.

[Guest]

I teach diagraphs as joined script.

 

Are you happy with this? I am considering mentioning using cursive for digraphs to the literacy leader and the rest of the SLT tomorrow when feeding back about the meeting I was at.

[Marion]

I've always taught it this way as it helps the children to see it as one "unit" rather than separate letters.

[Marion]

We did teach fully joined from nursery for a time but dropped it two years ago. Some children actually found it much easier to write this way as it flows with no stops and starts.

[Cait]

It makes sense from that perspective, as long as children realise that they are actually separate letters

[Marion]

they are taught how to form them as separate letters then when they begin to write words taught how to join it's a two part process.

[Guest]

I teach in Reception and we have always done pre cursive writing, just putting the flicks on the end. Before this academic year we had a staff meeting to discuss the introduction of cursive from Nursery and it was agreed to do this.

 

I supported the view of some of the posts on here that it should not be done. It has been hard work, especially at the early stage of phonics - as s is hard to form first !! However with a lot of hard work it has really worked. At the early stage lots of children were not ready to pick up a pencil so they were able to practice formation in gloop, water, sand, chalk etc. I only made children use pencils when they were ready. This approach really worked and now all children are using cursive.

 

Like some posters said it takes a while for those children that can form letters, but not all children form letters correctly before Reception. Most children can now write their name in cursive. We are also introducing long vowel digraphs joined so children see them as one unit

[Guest]

Thanks for all that. We do the exit strokes (or flicks) from reception. I have no problem with teaching them to join when they can form letters correctly and we do this in year 1 so I will go back to school with your comments - thanks

[Guest]

I've always taught it this way as it helps the children to see it as one "unit" rather than separate letters.

 

Thanks for that Marion, what a good idea - we have already looked at digraphs th, ch, sh, and this week we are due to look at ai & ng and I will certainly teach the scribing of these letter as joined makes complete sense to me - so thanks