He really, really wants to write e's bottom first

[amyrobynne]

My first grader writes a lot of his letters from the bottom up. I decided to do Handwriting Without Tears's first grade book largely to give him practice writing top-down. His lower-case e's bug me the most because they look bad in addition to having poor technique. His other letters mostly look right. Yesterday we finally hit the e pages in HWT and I sat and watched him and made sure every, single e was written the right direction and it was like pulling teeth. Today I gave him another sheet with about 6 e's and 10 e-filled words to copy. After about half of them, he sometimes started them correctly the first time.

 

At this point, would it be better to continue on with the HWT book, watching for e technique? Or keep giving him pages with mostly e's? Or am I damaging him for life by expecting him to change? I feel like this year we'll either get him writing the correct way or he'll keep up his funny way forever, but what do I know? I remember my kindergarten-teacher aunt being horrified at my weird pencil grip and trying and trying to correct it, but I still hold my pencils funny and my fingers hurt after writing a page or two because of the awkward grip.

 

My son's pre-k and kindy teachers tried to get him to write top-down but it didn't stick.

[blondeviolin]

Are you using HWOT's prompt? Lowercase e is Emmett's favorite letter to write! "Hit the ball, run the bases!" When I first told him that he said, "It's like playing a mini baseball game each time you write an e!" Maybe you could have him "hit a ball" and "run the bases" in the shape of an e? As in, start a a spot, run to "hit the ball" and then do the bases. Make it whole body and physical.

[amyrobynne]

Are you using HWOT's prompt? Lowercase e is Emmett's favorite letter to write! "Hit the ball, run the bases!"

 

I did forget about the prompt -- thanks, that should help!

[hsbeth]

Is your child by chance a lefty?!? Two of my four kiddos are and they have both struggled to write top down when printing. With prompts (I also use HWOT) they will do it more consistently when working on penmanship, BUT this doesn't translate to writing in other areas (math, spelling, copywork, phonics workbooks). The continue to print in an odd style. Eventually once cursive and then typing is introduced it becomes a non-issue. I eventually made "legibility" not perfect form/technique my goal and let it go.

[alisoncooks]

My 1st grader starts a LOT of words from the bottom (f, l, t, h, n -- oh, too many to count!) despite my constant instruction. I finally gave up this week and we're switching to cursive, LOL.

 

If you come up with something that helps, do share. :) Someone on here once said to have the child stand at an easel to practice writing the letter -- that it's much harder to write from the bottom-up at that setting... (I don't know, though, we never tried it.)

[sbgrace]

My left handed child continues to do a lot of bottom up writing. We have worked on it (a lot) in HWOT. He can do it correctly but it seems to feel more natural for him to go bottom up. So once we aren't emphasizing top down on a HWOT page he goes back to his style. I've given it one last try lately and I think we're going to just go on to cursive.

[amyrobynne]

Is your child by chance a lefty?!?

 

 

My son isn't a lefty but I am!

[Mrs_JWM]

I'm just curious - so totally not judging your individual situation! - but for people whose kids write the letters neatly and legibly, do you care how they form them? My daughter writes some of hers in ways that I don't, but they look fine. I do notice when she does it because it looks funny to me, but I don't care because the end product is good.

[amyrobynne]

I'm just curious - so totally not judging your individual situation! - but for people whose kids write the letters neatly and legibly, do you care how they form them? My daughter writes some of hers in ways that I don't, but they look fine. I do notice when she does it because it looks funny to me, but I don't care because the end product is good.

 

Not sure about others, but my son's e's aren't neat or legible. His other bottom-up letters look better and I'm less worried about those.

[ForeverFamily]

I'm just curious - so totally not judging your individual situation! - but for people whose kids write the letters neatly and legibly, do you care how they form them? My daughter writes some of hers in ways that I don't, but they look fine. I do notice when she does it because it looks funny to me, but I don't care because the end product is good.

 

:bigear: I am curiou s to know the answer to this as well. My Dd does this with some of her letters, but they turn out legible despite starting in the wrong spot. I have debated whether I should bother correcting her.

 

I am also curious to hear responses to the OP's question. My Dd writes her 9's (and probably others I can't think of right now) incorrectly and it isn't very neat looking. I am not looking forward to correcting her (she doesn't like being told to fix her writing).

[Farrar]

 

:bigear: I am curiou s to know the answer to this as well. My Dd does this with some of her letters, but they turn out legible despite starting in the wrong spot. I have debated whether I should bother correcting her.

 

I am also curious to hear responses to the OP's question. My Dd writes her 9's (and probably others I can't think of right now) incorrectly and it isn't very neat looking. I am not looking forward to correcting her (she doesn't like being told to fix her writing).

 

 

The reason to form letters in a certain way (and there are variations, but generally top to bottom is the rule) is to speed up writing fluency. It's like the difference between typing properly with your fingers on the asdf jkl; to start. I've known people never learned to type properly who begin with their fingers all over the qwerty keyboard. Some of them can type pretty fast, but they are inevitably expending more energy than I am with my fingers properly positioned. Their typing doesn't have the potential to be as fluent as mine. It's the same with the letter formation. If you begin in the wrong place, then you won't ever have the potential to be as fluent as people who form theirs correctly. And this especially can matter as children are asked to write more when they get older. It can be frustrating and defeating not to be able to, for example, write as many words a minute as your fellow SAT essay test takers.

 

Obviously, if they look bad, then you have to correct them and you may as well teach the right way to do it. But I have given up on a few of the ones my 8 yos do incorrectly, but which are perfectly fine looking once they finish. (Sticklers, I'm sure, would DIE to watch my ds make his lower case f, for example. It's absurd.) At some point, the kids have just done it. They write quickly. The letter is legible. In other words, the ship has sailed.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

Dh (a lefty) writes the majority of his letters starting at the bottom, including his 'e's, and his handwriting is very difficult to read. Because of that I am very strict about how ds forms his letters, and I make sure he does it the "right" way when we are doing school.