writing abc's

babywisher

So I am working on getting ds (3 1/2) some lessons going. We are going to be learning to write his abc's. Now do I teach him upper and lower case at the same time? He can do about 15 upper case letters already. We were working on A today and he just couldn't get lower case a. My mom told me that I should do all upper case first. So, how did you teach your lo?

LoveEeyore

I always do their names first.  Upper first letter, lowercase rest.  Then I do the rest of the capitals.  Then numbers to let that settle in.  I don't bother with lowercase until they start reading.

meg1974

In DD's school they have only worked on uppercase so far. You can probably find preschool lesson plans online that will show you what is age appropriate.

memali26

I started DD1 with her name, all uppercase, then she started writing her sister's name all on her own, also all uppercase. From there we've moved on to the rest of the uppercase letters. One of the little activity books she has does uppercase and lowercase, so if she chooses to work on a page in there we will do the lowercase, but I haven't done anything beyond that with lowercase. 

babywisher

Okay. Thank you all. He does his name in all caps now. So we will learn his name in lower case and wait for the rest.

lujain

I've never used a curriculum with my kid or formally taught her how to write.  She learned how to write using a game on her Leappad.  Her virtual pet does tricks for her if she writes letters; it's a cute game that covers uppercase and lowercase letters.  Leapfrog also makes tracing toys.

shannm

We did all uppercase first.  Then lower case came pretty naturally, although he often chooses to use all uppercase anyway.

Spin313

Uppers first, then lower

suedell

Be careful with writing words in all uppercase because it's a very difficult habit to break. If you are going to start writing full words, I would suggest writing them how it would normally be recognized.

babywisher

The only full words he does is his name. I want him to learn both cases before we move to actual writing. Also this isn't suppose to sound rude!

I really like the cornmeal idea too.

VTbride05

I used to teach first grade and it made me crazy when kids came in writing their whole name in uppercase letters. I first taught my son his name with only the first letter as a capital, then all lowercase letters, then uppercase. It makes more sense to teach lowercase as that is what they will write (and read!) 90%+ of the time.

pete0121

Yes, I teach Literacy to K-2.  Please do not teach kids to write words, esp name, in all caps.  Terrible habit to break, and a necessary habit to break.  Start with child's name and maybe important people's names with a capital letter at the beginning and then lowercase for the rest of the name.  Our school uses the Handwriting without Tears curriculum.  They do teach all capital letters first and then lowercase.  But the teachers teacher capital and lowercase when they focus on their letter of the week.