Letters



Riley has always used the Handwriting without Tears program at preschool.  These letters are more of a straight line block style but now that he is going to school at all Saints they use D'Neilian style writing.  This is a cursive looking print with a more loops and tails.  It moves very nicely into cursive as the kids get older.  Rex didn't have any issue moving from this style of printing to cursive.  I realize that most people don't care about cursive writing and I hear that some schools don't teach it.  I guess we are a little old fashioned.  I have been a bit worried with Riley and these monkey tail letters.  The swoops and tails add an entire knew element to what he knows.  The teacher sent home a stack of flash cards for all the kids so they could practise the lowercase letters so we've been practising.  He knows the majority of them with mistakes that you would expect when the letters are close like b and d and then there are j, t and i and when you put tails on these the all look a lot a like. 

The school has the handwriting with out tears materials and the teacher is open to using them but realistically she is still using the d'nealian style for everything else.  That is what he is going to seeing in the room and that is how the teacher writes on the board.  So do we continue having him work on the writing sheets from one style while everything else is the other style?  Questions questions......

Riley wanted to show the Grammas his skills so we took the video below.  Just in case you are wondering he has a blanket on his lap because he refused to put his jeans back on after he went potty.  Why is it that my child has developed a dislike of pants at age 5??