Capitals...lower case...or both at the same time.

[praisefor3]

Which do you teach first? Does it matter? I am asking because I am looking at some preschool material that teaches capitals first and since I am just now ordering WTM in my rainbow order (I have only previously used a library copy and didn't have a preschooler then) I don't know if this is an important point or not. Thank you for your help!

[Mama Lynx]

I taught my two oldest capitals first, and for us it was a mistake I will not repeat with my others. Most of the letters we write are lowercase. It is much easier to teach lowercase, and then to teach that we only use caps for a REASON. My two olders took years to stop randomly using caps.

Hth

[Leila]

Others will tell you to teach small letters first because most of the words are written in small letters . But with my experience with my 2 kids, with now my ds(3), learning his letters too, I teach him both. I don't see any problem, just like with my eldest, I taught them simultaneously. I showed him both the capital and small, but repeatingly saying "this is big ... and this is small..." For me it is a very useful techniques, so when you're out and they see letters , they can tell you what the letter is even when they are in capital letters or not.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

We teach both at the same time here as well. The kids have all enjoyed playing games to match the upper and lower case letters.

[Bambam]

When learning to form the letters, we only did lower case. It didn't make sense to me to start with upper case when the great majority of the letters we write are lower case. Why teach kids to use all upper case and then turn around and make them change all that? Why not teach them to use all lower case and then teach the proper rules for capitalization?

We did matching between upper/lower case with little cards though to make sure they knew that.

I have heard it said that it is easier on their fine motor skills to make upper case letters, but I have never seen a scientific study to support that statement. We did write really big for many years. I made our handwriting practice pages with Startwrite and made them a large font (maybe 56? It has been years!)

[kls126s]

I taught my two oldest capitals first, and for us it was a mistake I will not repeat with my others. Most of the letters we write are lowercase. It is much easier to teach lowercase, and then to teach that we only use caps for a REASON. My two olders took years to stop randomly using caps.

Hth

This was my problem as well. My son is learning his letters now and we only do lowercase for writing, and then I have a matching game to match lower case with upper case, as another poster mentioned.

[Ellie]

many people will tell you their dc randomly used upper case letters in places other than where they are supposed to be. Teaching lower case letters first, upper case letters as needed (and including the rules for capitalization) usually results in proper use of upper and lower case.

[Sandy in Indy]

Lower case first, then upper case...because upper case is "special" and only used in "special" situations.

[terrij]

I taught my children lower case letters first and then capitals and the reasons why we use capital letters. Children naturally gravitate to writing in all caps, so it is important to learn lower case letters early on.

Terri

[Carol in Cal.]

If you're teaching reading, the lower case letters are far more valuable because they are so much more used.

But for writing, the upper case letters are mostly quite a bit easier to write. They have simpler shapes and more straight lines.

IIRC, I taught both with magnetic letters on the fridge, and taught beginning letter sounds sort of organically when I was reading aloud. DD would sometimes try to write something, and would use the upper case letters. Then I taught her to write both upper and lower case letters together, using a poster with correctly formed letters on it, and making up my own copywork. Simultaneously I used 100 Easy Lessons to teach reading, and it emphasizes lower case letters. So I basically mushed them together but let her start a little later than some people do, so could get away with that because her fine motor skills were well developed.

[Mama2Three]

I'm going against the grain from most of what you are hearing here... but for my DS who has fine motor delays, he did better with learning upper case first, then lower case. That is the way that Handwriting Without Tears does it (the curriculum was developed by an OT), and it worked well for him. Upper case letters are easier to form and they usually "face" the same way, so you have fewer issues with reversals. That said, my DD learned several upper case letters (mostly for names), but then she completed the ETC A,B,C books which is all lower case, so for many of her letters she did lower case first, without any real issues. Now we are going through the HWT K book and she will learn (or re-learn) upper case, then lower case again.

[Gretchen in NJ]

I taught both at the same time. OPG also teaches both upper and lower cases at the same time. All of our phonics and spelling books have both upper and lower cases together also.

I would use your child's name as an example.

[abbeyej]

Lowercase. Especially for writing.

[Sahamamama]

For LETER RECOGNITION (being able to "name" the letter) --

At first, we do both simultaneously. We have letter cards (with A a, B b, C c on them) and alphabet books with both upper and lower case letters. We begin to teach the alphabet by holding up the card/pointing to the letter and saying, "This is A. This is B. This is C," and so on.

When the child starts to say the names of the letters, then we go a step further. We point to A and say, "This is big A." Then we point to a and say, "This is little a." A fun book to go along with this stage is Dr. Seuss' ABC book, which is so fun that I can read it with my eyes shut....;)

Once the child can recognize each letter in both upper and lower case, then we have a set of cards with only an upper or lower case letter on each card. We play a game with them like this: Place the upper case cards in A-Z order in a long line on the floor. Tell the child that the Mommy Letters are all on the bus, ready for their trip, but they can't go until the Baby Letters get on the bus with their Mommies. Hand the child one card and say, "Can you help this baby k find her mommy?" Children love this game, and they love being able to match all the baby letters with their mommy letters.

For early PHONICS/READING INSTRUCTION -- We simply work with normal sentences, Bob books, easy readers -- any good books that use upper and lower case letters according to rules of normal usage (for example, caps on first letter of proper nouns and first words of sentences). This gives the child exposure to upper and lower case letters as they are used in ordinary print material. We also point out that signs and billboards are often printed in caps -- STOP, EXIT, SALE, GAS, NO PARKING.

For WRITING INSTRUCTION & PRACTICE -- At this point we are only "working" on upper case letters, because these tend to use straight lines more than circles, and my daughter is very young (3.5, so we are not in a hurry to write, but she wants to be like her 6.5 yo cousin!). It's much easier for her to "make" capital A, E, F, H, I, L, T, V, and so on, than for her to "make" the lower case forms of most letters. At the same time, we use Kumon workbooks from time to time (Easy Mazes, Tracing, Cutting), to develop hand-eye-brain coordination. In time, we'll get to all of it.

[CactusPair]

For ds, it was all caps all the time. He had small motor delays and we were using HWT, which teaches caps first. They are easier to form so this makes sense. I'm glad we went that route.

I was so happy he was writing at all. He could bearly form his 4 letter, simple first name when he was 5 yrs. old in preschool.

He wrote in all caps until he was almost 7 yo. He did spelling and copywork in all caps. I didn't see a problem with it and I still don't. What's important to me is that the child is able to confidently and comfortably write and feel good about it.

Then in 1st grade we worked on small letters for most of the year. He had no problem whatsoever transitioning to using small letters in writing sentences, spelling, etc. It was not a difficult concept or a hard habit to break. It was really never an issue for us.

He just naturally started to use small letters once he knew how to form them comfortably. I had to remind him only a couple of times for copywork in the very beginning and that's it.

He is almost 9 now and will start 3rd grade in the fall. He has unusally neat, lovely printing. We will start cursive in 3rd and will again work at our own pace without worries.

My dd learned both caps and small at the same time and taught herself basically without a program. She has slightly advanced motor skills, but neatness is not yet a strong point. We will work in that in 1st grade. When to use caps and smalls has never been an issue for her either.

I think it just depends on the individual child. If you feel caps. is a better place to start go for it.

If you think your student can easily learn small and caps. at the same time, go for that.

take your time and have fun!

[3blessingmom]

I am teaching both, but focusing on small letters for writing. My ds has fine motor delay too (glad we aren't the only ones:tongue_smilie:). I am just taking the writing slow and working more on technique than a perfectly formed letter. Strangely, he has been spontaneously writing CAP letters for FUN:001_huh: There must be some truth to the CAPS being easier. Still, I want my ds to focus on the small case letter for the reasons mentioned in previous posts.

My dh still writes all CAPS.

[mom31257]

I taught my dc capitals first. They've had no problem learning the small and both were reading some by 4. I taught them their upper case at 2-3, then lower case 3-4. My dd wrote her name for the longest time in all capitals, but by Kindergarten made the switch. My ds is starting K this coming school year, and I will have him make the transition to writing his name the proper way.

Amy of GA
Darin's wife for 17 years
11yo dd
5yo ds

[StephanieZ]

FWIW, I do lower case first, then capitals.

Rationale: lowercase is the one used/read most.

Also, I teach the *sounds* the letters make before their names.

[CMama]

As for letter recognition and tracing... I taught my ds uppercase and lower case at the same time, but starting this way he was mainly retaining only the uppercase and wasn't recognizing all of the lowercase unless it was next to its uppercase. Maybe it was the way I did it... I'm not sure... but once I realized that he completely recognized the uppercase, then I focused only on lowercase until there was full recognition of those as well.

Although he now recognizes both with no problems, if he randomly draws letters on a white board/paper he writes them mixed - some in uppercase and some in lowercase. If I were to do it again I would definitely start with lowercase letters first.

As for learning to write the alphabet from here on... I'm using Cursive First with the language arts program I've selected, called Spell to Write and Read (SWR). Presently, he is learning cursive lowercase letters by writing them in a salt box, on a white board, or tracing sandpaper letters w/his finger, etc... these are for large motor skills. He says the sounds of the letters as he writes them in cursive. My ds learned the letter sounds after letter recognition... but is still in the process of learning all 70 phonograms.

BTW, even though I'm just starting out... I highly recommend SWR and Cursive First.

Melissa

[graywiggle]

We have been using HWT for the last 8 weeks or so. Ds is 4, and has completed the pre K book. He is really pleased that he has completed this book, knows his letter names and sounds from it, and is progressing well with HOP.
I think the wooden letters, chalkboard, and crayons appealed to his sense of order. This style of teaching, and encouraging his enthusiasm seemed more important than the case of the letter.
We're only at the start of this journey, but I don't foresee difficulties when he switches to the next book, which covers both upper and lower case.

Maria.

[ereks mom]

Capitals were easier at that age because they can be big and "blocky". Soon after, I began teaching them lowercase letters.

[mo2]

I taught my two oldest capitals first, and for us it was a mistake I will not repeat with my others. Most of the letters we write are lowercase. It is much easier to teach lowercase, and then to teach that we only use caps for a REASON. My two olders took years to stop randomly using caps.

Hth


This is the problem I'm having with dd. I will teach lowercase first from now on.

[one l michele]

With my 3rd, I am teaching HWOT uppercase, then calvert script lowercase in HWOT sequence.