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curious about letter tracing and boys/girls @ 3 yrs old

groovygrlgroovygrl member
in Toddlers: 24 Months+

my kids are 3 yrs 2 months. In their daycare class they are working on letters and did a tracing worksheet last week with capital & lower case b's (dotted, then the kids are supposed to try to draw the letter over the dotted lines). DD did a pretty good job but she is much more into drawing and letters in general.  DS attempted like 3 of them but was not really able to do it.

I did not see another boy in the whole class who had a tracing sheet, only the girls, who all did similarly to DD- the kids were outside when I picked up so I didn't get to ask the teachers whether it was an optional activity/center or what.

I'm just curious- before anyone jumps all over me, I have ZERO expectations for either of my kids to be able to trace or write letters at this age & I don't think he is 'behind' or anything, I'm more curious about gender differences- is this something that girls typically do and are interested in before boys, regardless of what age they are able/interested? Obviously every kid has their strengths & interests & they all catch up at some point (trust me, with b/g twins I am extremely aware of individual differences in how kids do things, but I also am always seeing a lot of gender related differences too).

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Re: curious about letter tracing and boys/girls @ 3 yrs old

  • heymommyheymommy member
    Boys are slower at this type of thing .. Usually.
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  • groovygrlgroovygrl member

    imagefredalina:
    My DD is not "behind" regarding letters etc but she can't or won't write or copy or trace them either. But she tends to be more tomboyish in general. Not sure if it's a boy/girl thing or not but it isn't with my DD.

    This is kind of what I'm curious about...is it just lack of interest in this sort of thing? She is so interested in letters & has me write her grocery lists & all that sort of thing & while he actually seems to enjoy books more than her, he never wants to do crafts/drawing/writing/etc. I even did a craft yesterday where I drew a pumpkin & a ghost on black paper & put glue on it & had them gluing marshmallows on it (turned out surprisingly cute, I stink at crafts) and of course half the fun was getting to eat marshmallows while you do it...he was all over the marshmallows but put down maybe like 5 on the craft the whole time & I just couldn't tell if fine motor wise it was challenging for him or if he just really didn't care. LOL.

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  • sara785sara785 member
    DS does the same exercises in preschool and he's not quite 3. I've tried to practice at home with him, but he can't really even hold the pencil well enough to write. He does know what he's supposed to do though. For example, we were doing lowercase "f's" and he kept saying, "Straight line down, straight line across," which is what his teacher taught him. He has always been a little ahead of the curve, but I wouldn't think he's behind at all in this case... I'm shocked they're even bothering with trying to teach him how to write at all!
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  • lynseflynsef member
    DD is interested in trying and we do work on it at home, but she just ends up drawing shapes or scribbling and isn't able to draw or trace the letters yet.
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  • LoCarbLoCarb member

    imagefredalina:
    See, Charlotte is very into letters fight now. She spells out the words she sees. She tells me words that start with those letters. She asks strangers what their name is and then tells them what their name starts with. She can sound out short simple words. So it's not lack of interest in letters. She just doesn't care to draw them. She can properly use scissors and screwdrivers. I don't think it's a fine motor skills thing. More of an "it's hard and I do 't like to fail" tungsten. At least for Charlotte. I will not be concerned unless she doesn't develop interest/ability sometime around 4.5.

    This goes for my 3yo too...except the screwdrivers Smile

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  • *LrCg**LrCg* member
    A little after 2 (but before 2 1/2) my DS was tracing letters and by the time he was 2 1/2 he was working on free hand and it didn't take long for him to be able to do them all.  Now my DD is almost 2 1/2 and we just started to work on it about 1 month ago.  She's not doing as good as DS was- however, I'm also noticing she's not committing to being a lefty or a righty yet.  Both my kids get excited about "homework" time and wanted to do it- its fun time for them.  We've always included letter writting, colors, shapes, cutting, glueing, etc.  At first I felt bad like DD was behind (because compared to her brother she is) however, when we started looking at preschools I realized that the 3 yr old class is just starting to work on tracing so I realized that she's not "behind".  I will say I am surprised that DD is having a harder time then DS because she's always loved to color where DS rarely colored- which I just assumed would help with drawing straight lights, holding the pen, etc. 
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  • MrsSRMrsSR member

    As a former daycare teacher, I can tell you that we'd keep the letter tracing sheets along with large letters to color in our writing/art center.  It was pretty typical that the girls would be working on their letters while the boys played with cars or in the housekeeping center (set up like a home with a play kitchen in it). 

     

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  • groovygrlgroovygrl member
    imageMrsSR:

    As a former daycare teacher, I can tell you that we'd keep the letter tracing sheets along with large letters to color in our writing/art center.  It was pretty typical that the girls would be working on their letters while the boys played with cars or in the housekeeping center (set up like a home with a play kitchen in it). 

     

    Lol, this is exactly what the teachers said yesterday when I asked if a lot of the boys opted out or did very little of it compared to girls...they said the boys will sometimes try but move on to something else or chaos to do something else from the get to. Obviously not a hard and fast boy girl rule but seems to be a pattern. 

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  • welshgirlwelshgirl

    Yeah, in my experience, girls are much more into this sort of thing.nmy four year old son is learning phonics in pre k and is very iffy with writing. My nounquote two year old daughter is much more interested in writing, has a great grip on her pencil already, and generally loves drawing. So maybe a stereotype, but True in my kids. 

    Mum to W (4) and M (nearly 2)
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