Information on joined up writing in the UK

Spendless

When's her birthday fall? The school intake year differs between England/Wales and Scotland, so whilst mine first learnt joined up writing in yrs 2-3 (aged between 6 and 8) it may be different in Scotland. Mine would be in a year lower than they are if we lived in Scotland. Might make a difference if a Scottish member can tell you what year she would be in and when they usually learn this.

HelenKA_2

My girls school is also big on getting writing on the paper rather than the best grammer, spelling etc. They have a personal spelling book which they can ask for spellings to be written in for them, but are also encouraged to have a go themselves. Class work will have keywords written up on the white board for them and marked work will have a couple of spelling mistakes marked with an 'sp' in the margin and the word highlighted on the line. The teacher will never highlight all the spelling mistakes made in the piece of work - they don't want to destroy confidence.

The children have been doing joined up writing exersizes for about a year and are now being encouraged to join most of their writing. They can develop their own style but should do their best to be ledgible.

The girls are in P4, and we are in Edinburgh. Happy to help more if you would like.

Helen

bugbabe1970

my daughter is 8 and started learning joined up writing as soon as she started the juniors, age 7. not sure what the style is called though sorry.

elfen

I daren't do joined up writing, it looks like spiders have got into ink and attacked the page (not helped by left handedness and permanently smudged writing - went to a grammar and for the first few years only allowed to write in fountain pen)

busiscoming2

https://www.parentsintouch.co.uk are a vey good site with downloadable worksheets on all subjects covering all school years. You do have to subscribe but it is about £7.50 for three years.

elektra-2007

My lad is 8 but he has terrible handwriting, (spider crawling accross the page!). I got him some books, some off ebay and some from WHSmiths, originally i got ks1, but they were far too babyish so i got ks2 and some were really hard.
Then I started getting ones for ages which were much better:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Best+Handwriting+for+Ages+7-8
You could foto copy the pages to get the style right then use the book.
Atleast you would have an idea. Im pretty sure as long as its legible it will be fine. Also you may find ones for school years, which depending on her birthday would be 3/4.

lostinrates

This probably isn't useful as its so out of date, but I entered UK aducation at 8/9 years old (30 now!) and was never challenged once on writing the beginnnings of American cursive that had been important at school in American system. It seems a more unique style is favoured here, and mine volved to that quite quickly. . I don't recall my neices being asked to do other than write clearly, with no one style imposed upon them if the letter shape was clear and legible.

busiscoming2

busiscoming2 wrote: »

www.parentsintouch.co.uk are a vey good site with downloadable worksheets on all subjects covering all school years. You do have to subscribe but it is about £7.50 for three years.

Just to add they have a forum too, that has a home school section.

wendyl1967

I'm a Teaching Assistant in a primary school. We get lots of information off this site. Free publications can be ordered. Sorry it may not help with joined up writng but it may help with other questions.

http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/

Children are taught from Foundation stage (reception) how to form letters correctly then as they move into key stage 2 (juniors) they can join their letters. I would not worry about joining up her letters now, I would just make sure that she is forming them correctly.

Sparklebox is another site full of useful resources. I know she is a bit old for some of this part but it may be worth doing some of it to make sure that she is forming her letters correctly then she can write cursive which we use at our school and I assume most schools. You need to start at the correct point on each letter.

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/cll/alphabet/cursive/form.html

Confuzzled

tamarto wrote: »

I imagine that'll be fine but without the loops lol when i was at school and still now it's one of the things that appears in his book, if there are loops instead of straight up and down. :rotfl:

But honestly i seriously doubt it'll be an issue, if you have any questions about schools in scotland feel free to pm me i also have a child in p3 so very close to your daughters age.

thank you that's very kind of you, i might just do that! i'm already facing foreign concepts trying to do my UCAS application, not having been through the school system here makes a lot of the things very strange to me so i've made loads of phone calls to them checking this that and the other and that's just for ME!