Pre-K question

[The Girls' Mom]

On Monday I get a 4 year old preschooler added to our little homeschool (Yay!!!) My youngest are 12, and they went to PS up until the 3rd grade, so I haven't "taught" little ones before. She is so excited to start "Apryl's school" as she puts it. My girls are excited too. One wants to be a teacher when she grows up, and is looking forward to helping ;)

 

Anyway, I have a question about teaching the alphabet. Is it better to teach lowercase and uppercase separately or together? (I really cannot remember what we/the school did with my girls)

[Ellie]

Teach lower case first. Teach upper case when necessary (for proper nouns, for example) and teach the reason for using upper case.

 

People who teach upper case first spend *year* remediating, because children will write upper case/lower case randomly. :glare:

 

And you can teach her correct pencil grip, and how to write circles and lines correctly (circles beginning at 2 on the clock, up to 12, down to 9, etc., lines starting at the top). That will help with writing actual letters.

[pitterpatter]

Are you talking about handwriting or just in general? In general, both together. We used HWT for handwriting. DD learned to write capitals first.

[Aspasia]

I think Ellie makes a good point. But in the end, I really don't think it matters. Some people teach upper case first because they're easier to write. Maybe they end up remediating a little. I think my dd did do the upper/lower case mix for a little while (definitely not a year), but after they do a little copy work, it's no big deal.

 

I think this is just one of those things where you just do one, and then do the other.

[edeemarie]

Teach lower case first. Teach upper case when necessary (for proper nouns, for example) and teach the reason for using upper case.

 

People who teach upper case first spend *year* remediating, because children will write upper case/lower case randomly. :glare:

 

And you can teach her correct pencil grip, and how to write circles and lines correctly (circles beginning at 2 on the clock, up to 12, down to 9, etc., lines starting at the top). That will help with writing actual letters.

 

:iagree:

I have spent that year (probably more!) with this problem. My oldest 2 started writing letters before they were taught and they still add in a random capital sometimes (especially dd6). With my ds3 I am holding him off on writing until he is physically capable of holding a pencil correctly. At that time I will start him with WRTR handwriting.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Listen to Ellie.;)

 

My two oldest learned how to write upper case first and it was a pain to teach them to only use upper case for proper nouns and at the beginning of a sentence. My next two learned to write lower case first and have no issues with random upper case letters.

 

 

I suppose it may not be an issue for some dc, but why tempt fate?