MY OPINION
Focus on Lower Case Letters
When teaching printing I believe considerably more time should be spent on teaching lower-case letters.
Why?
The reason I believe the focus should be on teaching lower-case letters is because 95 percent of what we read is written in lower case letters. That leaves 5 percent written in upper case letters. In my experience, when children are taught to print words in upper-case letters it is difficult to undo this habit in the upper grades. Having taught a number grades; I have spent a great deal of time retraining children to not place an upper-case letter in the middle of a word. If focus were placed on printing lower-case letters first; this problem might be reduced. Children could be trained when upper-case letters are appropriately used in conjunction with proper grammar usage.
Handwriting for Preschoolers and Kindergarten Children
What is your opinion on this? COMMENT BELOW...
4 comments:
I agree that preschoolers should learn lowercase letters but in conjunction with uppercase letters so that there is less confusion with identification when learning to read. If they are taught both at once they will always recognize it no matter where it is placed.
I believe best practice in teaching young children about writing, is that you should always present the instruction in the most reaslistic, natural use of the form. Use upper case letters when appropriate, and the same for the lower case. This will accomplish the goal of not teaching children to print in all capitals simply because these lines tend to be cleaner/easier to form and/or recognize. This way, there is no babying or falsifying of the practice, and each child can develop their independent ability as they practice. Of course, other fine motor activities besides traditional writing with utensils should be happening as much or more than actual writing in order to build muscles control and endurance for writing through the ages. Gross motor activities are just as important in this respect, since the core strength plays out into the limbs, and large motor practice (such as 'skywriting') build kinesthetic understanding and memory of the lines needed for successful letter formation.
I am in absolute agreement, and I have been following that rule for many years now. I, like you have spent countless hours trying to retrain them when writing capital letters in the middle of their names. As far as teaching them both at the same time, you can still do that, but not necessarily in writing. In Zoophonics, for example, we teach lower case letters first and then, when they have learned those, we bring out upper case. I still, include activities with upper and lower case matching, and I haven't really had a problem with them learning their uppercase letters. I also agree with Native's comment, teach them in their natural form.
rozani .........
its good teach the lowercase first and once their done itroduce the uppercase. it works well.while you introduce each alphbet you should encourage them to write the alph oder.when the alph is completed they also know t owrite the alph order, makes thiks easy for the kid to proceed.and also activites
with write the begining alpha,
i have been very sucessful, they als start reading very fast
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