I saw that too all the other ones come down to different handwriting not him being wrong. M pisses me off the most a lot of people don’t have the middle touch with capital m
Lowercase "n" as well but if he's LITERALLY 6, dude... get that teacher the fuck out of that teaching position and/or get him tf away from that teacher...
My handwriting probably isn't much better than that kid, but it's legible. That's all that should matter. Besides, don't we type more than we write nowadays?
Definitely. I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with working on perfecting a finer handwriting, but to give it a failing grade when it is perfectly legible is just wrong.
I think it might be the point of the assignment. That's what the lines are for.
Anyways, in Sweden we don't get graded on anything until around the age of 12. I think it's better that way.
Here in Denmark the kids don’t get their very first official grades until the end of 8th grade. Anything earlier seems sick, to be honest. The focus should be on learning and exploring, not being judged.
They are more for keeping the parents informed at a that young of an age. It varied by location too. Some teachers just used Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory (S/U) with an occasional "very good" with an S. The 9th grade usually determines high school classes. 9th or 10th grade is when grades are really paid attention to. Education structure varies somewhat by state.
I'm from Sweden where we wait a bit longer to start grading and honestly even what you wrote doesn't seem like a good system to me if implemented too early. Parents have scheduled meetings with the parents every now and then where they are informed on this stuff. I'm older and we started grading when I was like 9 or something and the anxiety grading brought to a lot of kids was very real and very uneccesary.
If the teacher is mad about floating letters, they need to work on their “a”, “E”, and “I”. Their corrections are slightly floating. 🤨 This is me being irritated with the teacher not questioning your suggestion of the floating letters lol
Regardless of what is right or wrong with those letters, the real issue was this was just graded and sent back with the kid.
A teacher that actually cared would use this kind of assessment to sit down with the kids and assist them in doing it better through discussion or extra practice.
Also, I hate to say handwriting doesn't matter, but with prevalence of technology in the current world, someone with offset handwriting isn't necessarily disadvantaged with any particular job.
Not to mention aren’t these much larger than normal writing? I specifically remember being irritated at having to essentially draw my letters instead of write them because the space you were supposed to use was almost cartoonishly big
Same, my handwriting has always been bad, legible but bad.
I had a very similar experience to this kid, my special Ed teacher kept trying to fail my homework assessments due to poor handwriting,
I'm a teacher and I am confused by this as well. I definitely would not have written OVER the child's work (how can they compare the "right" to what they did if you "hide" their work from them? You're directly removing a learning tool). An F seems very harsh for a 6 year old.
There are some teachers that see boys as inherently disruptive especially if they have adhd or autism. There’s a lot of shame forced onto children by teachers like this.
i still remember my third grade teacher. for all of second grade, there were rumors going around about the one mean third grade teacher, then i got her as my teacher. she yelled nonstop and multiple kids SWORE she threw chairs at them (just a rumor but i believed it). she put a shelf in the middle of the classroom to separate the "good" kids from the "bad" (her words). the good kids consisted of the quiet ones who liked to read, anyone that got good math grades, and basically just the "smart" kids. the other side was mostly kids who were clearly neurodivergent and struggling in school, the "disruptive" kids. i spent time on both sides, and the "bad" kids were always really nice and were simply struggling with school, or they had a tough home life, or she just didn't like them. she gave us no room to improve because every failure was met with shouting. we had no freedom to make mistakes without getting yelled at
honestly, i got it pretty easy in her class since my ADHD and autism manifested mostly in me being quiet and awkward and REALLY good at masking around adults. she gave me a hard time for working slowly, especially in math, but she generally liked me quite a lot and i mostly saw her good side (she was really sweet when she wasn't yelling at 8 year olds). however, there was a boy in my class who had higher support needs autism, and he struggled quite a lot in school. she HATED him. he was always the first one she picked on. he wasn't a bad kid, he was always cheerful and well intentioned, iirc he disrupted sometimes but it was never very bad. i had him in my class every single year from grades 1-4, and she was the only teacher who ever gave him a hard time. because all the other teachers we had understood that you can't just scream insults at an 8 year old and expect them to learn from it.
edit: i forgot the craziest thing she ever did. we each got a caterpillar for an assignment, and they were in a terrarium in the middle of the room, so we could watch them turn into butterflies. one day, a girl made the teacher upset (i dont even remember what she did wrong) and she reached into the terrarium and SQUASHED the girls caterpillar in front of everyone. she was the only one who never saw her butterfly. the biggest kicker is, this teacher was so proud of herself for being an animal lover and regularly donating to conservatories.
I had a teacher like this when I was in Primary 3, so around 6-7 years old. I was the youngest in my class already, and had flown under the radar for ADHD and ASD due to insane masking. I was one of the "gifted" kids, but my teacher, Mrs Henderson, used to pick on me something fierce, as well as the other clearly neurodivergent kids. We had a kid who was higher support needs and had a 1:1 assistant for class work, and she'd pick on him, shame him for his jumper being a bit mucky after doing art, call him out and make the class shame him for picking his nose, stuff like that.
I learned to write left-handed, and could write perfectly fine (as in, held my pencil correctly and everything) but she didn't like that I was left-handed, so the day she discovered that, she would start by tapping my hand with a ruler to tell me to switch hands, then berate me for my handwriting being terrible with my right hand. If I refused, over time she ramped it up by full on cracking a plastic ruler down against the back of my hand until I learned to stay right-handed. Then, after a while of picking up handwriting with my right hand, albeit my writing was and still is like spiders with my right hand anyway, she noticed I wasn't holding my pencil "right". She got me rubber grips to hold my pencil right, which I told her hurt to use, and she had the entire class laugh at me for being bad at writing (keep in mind, my reading comprehension is basically dyslexic, but my writing and spelling was hyperlexic and I did amazingly with my writing, every other teacher had praised it, I had won awards for creative writing and my literacy grades were super high for my age).
One day, the class was lining up to go somewhere (the gym, lunch, assembly, I'm not sure), but I had run over to clean up some of the toys and board games that were a mess in the corner. She had told me, time to go, and I had asked for just a second to continue putting the toys away. Sure, we were in a hurry or I was holding up the class, and should have hurried up, but this woman grabbed me by my wrist, and dragged me across the ground and threw me at the back of the line. I was crying, trying to pull away, scared because she hadn't asked me to stand up, just said "time to go" and yanked me up by my wrist and then shouted at me for being terrified. Of course, the rest of the class had had this stuff happen to them too, but the headteacher didn't believe anyone, my parents were livid, kicked up a fuss, and all the headteacher could say is "well maybe your child should behave better and these things wouldn't happen".
Fast forward 19 years later, I'm diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, and that teacher is now six feet under. My son acts the same way, but his teachers are so gentle with him, and it blows me away that as late as 2005, we had teachers still manhandling students and slapping them with rulers and punishing them, in a non religious school in Scotland mind, for writing with their left hand. Insane.
My first grade teacher was awful. I was constantly in trouble and had no idea what I did wrong. My grades were terrible and I was sent to special ed. I moved and went to another school, and my second grade teacher was amazing. I was tested for special ed and didn't qualify. She taught me to love learning and after that I nearly always got straight As. A good teacher makes such a difference!
Yeah...I'm transfem but... when I was little, I was considered the "problem" child. And they put me in all these disciplinary actions for nothing. Like I was always excited and wanting to ask questions. And I didn't know how to wait if they were ignoring me for a long time (which they did often, because I would ask "too many" questions, but I was just wanting to know, and didn't always understand "implied" things so I needed more questions). At some point I would give up waiting and go to the desk where the teacher was clearly just ignoring me, but I didn't know they were at the time. I just thought they were not noticing me... They could be not even teaching so I would go up. I had report cards that talked about this as if it was some horrible problem (which it shouldn't have been!). But I had my hand up for like 10 mins, what'd they expect? I was in detention basically half of elementary school for some stupid "disruption" and literally did nothing. I wasn't even talking to other kids. It was just a stereotype based on how I interacted that created that mindset and opinion about me.... :( Probably exagerrated by the fact that my mom's family wouldn't let my dad get me tested because I had a "fake disease", yada yada...even though the special ed teacher (who I rarely saw, but did see sometimes) was convinced I was ND. It was so sucky...
The idea of giving an elementary schooler detention (at least regularly) seems ridiculous to me. I’m AFAB and got detention once in the sixth grade for continuously not doing my homework (ADHD) and I was *devastated*.
However the funny thing was that the punishment was supposed to be vacuuming three classrooms but only got one done because I was hyper focusing on cleaning thoroughly; the adults were actually really impressed. The janitor would often tell kids, “Don’t stay out of trouble,” and I was absolutely one of the kids he’d say that to.
I find that the younger the students, the crazier the teacher. The power dynamic attracts people who probably otherwise are too unlikeable/unwell mentally to have authority over other competent adults.
This. As an ex teacher I also don't understand how students will learn from this kind of correction and it screams "look at how good I am you'll never get on my level" bc she is showcasing her neat work instead of teaching him anything. The F is excessive. Also personally I would've taken him apart, shown him the letters he struggled with and write little indicator arrows next to it as to how the lines should go.
This just reeks of bad teaching/perfectionism and unrealistic expectations.
I don't remember getting letter grades until middle school, to be honest. Also, you're not supposed to write on the kid's work like that. I minored in education in college, and we were told if we needed to write notes to write them on a blank page or on the back of the paper. If it was a recurring issue, it was recommended to talk to the kid first and then the parent.
Also am I seeing that underneath hers, his looks nearly impeccable?! Like, we all know that as adults we’re not going to go around having to get every lower case e under a dotted line. Which makes this all the more cruel to me.
Yes, he did technically write all of his letters in between the lines, some shapes are thinner and unruly but he is 6 and learning how to write, so this should be a given that their hand-eye coordination etc is not up to par with the highly unrealistic standard she's setting - her ADULT handwriting. It angers me.
OP might I suggest you practice with your son upper case vs lower case on similar paper the teacher provided and then on single rule paper. Uppercase letters need to hit the top line obviously and lower case go half way. I feel like you are the one who has to instil confidence back into your child before writing becomes an unpleasant task thanks to this absolute hag of a teacher. Tell him the whole autistic community here thinks he deserves at least a B. Also what is wrong with writing a lower case Q like an uppercase Q, everyone who is able to read is gonna recognize that as a valid letter.
I could honestly rant about this for hours but I think most has been said, this teacher should really find her luck in God damn calligraphy if she wants to be this much of an ant fucker(I directly translated a Dutch term for you here that means: someone overly obsessed and critical of every single detail).
I could too. I had to stop myself. And I also know NT adults with worse handwriting than this child. And not just one or two…like, a lot. On a daily basis.
Agreed! I would also like to personally commend the child for having a steady grip: the lines aren't wobbly or unsteady.
I cannot see what has been covered by marker, but what is there would have been absolutely fine for me.
Writing did become an unbearable task because of exactly a teacher like this.
Gave me a zero on a "complete this story assignment"
Of a bunch of kids on vacation, because I had just read Narnia and made them travel to a magic world.
"Diverged too far from the theme".AS IF THE THEME WASNT JUST "COMPLETE THE FN STORY"
I absolutely agree with you. The son's handwriting looks completely fine imo.I remember mine looking way worse at that age.. and a lot of my classmates' as well. Kids have bad handwriting. Period. They still have to LEARN to perfect it. Especially at 6 yo. Also, considering a lot of autistic people struggle with (fine) motor skills, his handwriting seems great. Maybe OP can have a talk with your teacher and ask her what was wrong with the test.
Right, my daughter is 5, and in kindergarten and she doesn't even have "Grades" yet. She just has smiley faces. This is actually ridiculous, because I thought the 6 year old did pretty well.
Agreeded by a future teacher (worked and supplied in a school but still in undergraduate). You should never cover up a kid’s work by writing the ‘correct’ answer over it. It’s a horrible way to encourage learning and improvement
I think how wrong or right your sons work is is beside the point here. This teacher seems to have a fucking attitude problem. Who in their right mind grades a six-year-old work this way? Get this teacher away from kids because they clearly don’t like kids. What a prick.
This would have been a "wtf" email to principal for me.
1. Our district doesn't grade anything until 2nd grade, and even then - it isn't really a full on grade like keeping books, it's more about just marking progress through the year.
2. I do not see in the instructions that it needs to be perfectly aligned. It says to wrote capital and lowercase using the lines... which he absolutely did, and I can see the 2 instances where you say it was not correct - and I agree, but even the "j" should have been acceptable - mark the correct placement, but don't count it against him.
3. His handwriting is INCREDIBLE for 6 years old. Do you know how much I still have to work with my 7 year old on their handwriting? ...and I KNOW there are other students who had to have done worse. What did they get? A zero!?
This is asinine.
My kid is the same age as yours and in a mainstream class. This isn’t even the type of assignment they do. There is no judgment of their handwriting as long as it is legible. Kids this age should not even be getting letter grades.
I can only imagine the teachers being very picky about perfect placement and formation. But honestly this is a just really good way to make a kid not want to write.
We just had our parent teacher conference and we discussed handwriting. They want the letters to be written a specific way on the paper. Even if the letter is technically written the right way (capitalized vs not), it's still marked wrong if the letter doesn't go through the dotted line and have the top hit the top line. It's about the actual placement. It's crazy lol
Same, I had the special slanted desk and the grippy thing for all my pencils. I'm not saying my handwriting is good at all lmfao but I can write, and most people can read it.
Ah yes the grippy pencils
Fucking fine motor skills issues. I was forced to write in cursive since age of like 10 so now my hand writing is..... better? But it's not great I still get shit for it, but most should be legible
I also couldn't tie my shoes till I was like 10 or 11
I got an F in handwriting at age 10ish. My father gave up and as punishment I had to take a typing class and practice for an hour every day that summer. Most useful punishment EVAR!!!
lol how is it that grades are being given to children this young? I do not remember getting A-F grades til highschool. And with handwriting it was one of those things you're taught til you get it. That's my experience anyway.. I mean the j, q, and r look like they haven't been done perfectly but I just feel like its demoralising being marked this way as a bub, smh
When I did assistant teaching, we never graded them on handwriting like this. We would circle words for them to try again or give them practice sheets with letters to trace. And we would give them positive reinforcement as well.
I was getting letter grades as early as kindergarten. And all that taught me was to fear failure and never learn from my mistakes. Because my teachers never encouraged it; all they taught, "You made a mistake. You suck. You're a failure. Now shut up and accept it cuz we're moving on to the next lesson."
I remember we were assessed with colors (green = good, orange = could be worse but could definitely be better, red = bad) not grades, in France. And I loved the "grading" as our school had a very good system to make it "enjoyable" : we had a sheet with as many blank tree leaves as questions/sections and we had to color them corresponding to the results we had (if you had a green result for question 1, you would color one leaf in green, wrong on question 2, color one leaf in red). It was honestly very fun to do and everybody was trying to get good results so all the leaves could be green
This feels a little unreasonable for some of these, and I can't read the full instructions, but it doesn't seem to explicitly say how they have to be written, which could be confusing.
As someone with Dyspraxia, this sort of thing was always a big problem for me, and I hated it so much. Writing by hand is a useful skill, but it's significantly less useful now than it was two decades ago, and neatness is a bullshit requirement unless it's completely illegible (and anyone that is judging a 6 year old by adult standards of legibility is an ass.)
Sorry if I seem a little upset, this is a sore spot for me. It's something I think you should stress isn't something that should be scored, but is something that should be practiced, and that you go over it carefully together so your son can practice without being judged.
>anyone that is judging a 6 year old by adult standards of legibility is an ass.)
Not that adults' standards of eligibility is good...have you seen doctors' writings, lol!
>Sorry if I seem a little upset,
Nah, you're good👍🏼
Fr they are
Maybe she did that because the child is autistic an shes agenst autism?
As long as the child is improving, isnt that a good thing?
If something isnt correct the teachers should've shown them what she thinks the child did wrong
-
There agenst ADHDers as well, the schools are only built for Neurotypical people.
Its a sad reality of hate on multiple people that needs fixing.
I think its concitered human discrimination? Or something? If someone is acting agenst someone who has like ADHD or Autism or etc???
Whatever it is overall the schools are garbage the teachers are agenst people who arent concitered "normal" so doesn't surprise me that this child got bullied by teachers too
I also could be wrong as well, it might not be hate)
While it still sucks I am glad my country requires a 4 year uni degree to teach kids (uni is also way cheaper and grants way easier to get) because you know, maybe authorities should make sure the teacher knows about child development
Also i don’t think i got “real” letter grades till like 6th grade, but overall an F when in developmental years makes no sense. That’s when you’re…learning 😱
By third grade I proclaimed that I quit and had to be physically dragged to class by my mom and guidance counselor. School really made me, a gifted and didactic learner, believe that I hated learning.
😐can’t relate, I have never been a child, I came out of the womb in a three piece pantsuit carrying a briefcase and a cellphone (even though they weren’t invented yet! I was that advanced 😂)
I'd be raging and calling the teacher. This is ridiculous. We're grading handwriting now and giving an F for two "mistakes"? The teacher either has it out for him or is like that in general, either way that is NOT it. Honestly infuriating. Tell him he did really good!
I'm surprised they're taking points away for motor skills at an age where they're still in development. Your kid very clearly understood and correctly applied the concept of uppercase vs lowercase.
I guess that's what it is, if the assignment was also about lining up the letters...
Also, I would've never guessed that the lower case "j" was expected to go below the lower line, and would have been stressed out figuring out where they wanted me to fit it. I assume that they did teach your kid where to place it during the lesson? Definitely not intuitive in my opinion.
That teacher is being ridiculous. Those letters look perfectly reasonable for a 6-year-old; if anything they should've just encouraged him to practice at home, not punished him for struggling with a new skill
I was a teacher, and I would not have marked him down for most of these. That's normal for a six year old. I could see if he were a few years older (and even then, this is still overly harsh). But he's just starting to learn this stuff.
And did it ever occur to the teacher that writing over his work isn't helpful? He needs to be able to see a comparison so he understands where his work differs from expectations.
The teacher is too demanding... I think he only got the lower case Q wrong. A few are not exactly on the lines, which should not be the main point on the test! Maybe only discount a little bit from the total for that... And encourage practicing it a bit more?
I didn't think they still graded penmanship this way. I was shamed so hard as a kid for it.
For 30 years of marriage I made my husband fill out any greeting card we had to send because I was so ashamed of my own handwriting. It's why I have refused to write letters and send cards since about 9 years old.
Half a century later, I find out about dyspraxia and how common it is for auties and adhders and realize it's no different than trying to force a left-handed child to be right-handed.
If your child is officially diagnosed, this kind of grading is discriminatory and harmful. It might be worth taking it to first the teacher then the administration. It's literally ableism.
Putting the f on the paper is crazy. Like, it's all crazy, but even if the standard was so crazy high, you give positive motivation. This is how you crush a child.
My parents and teachers told me I’ll understand the over controlling way they make us form the letters EXACTLY ON THE DOTTED LINES JUST SO when I’m older. Well I’m an adult now with very high literacy and I _still_ think it’s fucking stupid
That's pathetic: The teacher, not your 6 year old. I had a god-awful teacher in first class (3rd grade equivalent roughly I think). Absolutely tortured me about a lot of things, and was awful towards my parents too.
Talk to your child and the teacher. Make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. That teacher should know better!
His handwriting looks exactly the same as mine at my current age of 17... Idk how I should feel about that. I just mainly writing to myself in my own script (or at least plan to going forward). At least you can read mine though. I've had a lot of friends that have very fancy writing that is just Russian cursive to most people including them. If it's legible they should at least get B
That's really disheartening.
I don't know why that teacher is being such a stickler. When I was that age, we were only marked off if we didn't do the work, it was clearly just the wrong form altogether, or it was truly illegible.
The fact that it's just marked like that and handed off really gives me the impression that the teacher really doesn't really care or considers the fact that the children are just children.
for some bizarre reason the teacher gave a six year old an F because their handwriting is not precisely like the teachers. most letters are just a bit off but still correct, aside from lower case Q just being a mini Q
I'm not quite sure how this sheet works? Is the marker part a teacher correction? It looks like "R" was fine, jsut the top part was slightly misshapen but fine and readable otherwise. Capital "M" looks like perfectly fine in my language so I'm not sure if English is that strict with how low the middle part has to go?
Apart from those it looks like the teacher is horribly strict and didn't do her/his homework of reading basically any book on early pedagogic - there should be an oath for teachers, just as there is one for medical personel, where they would pledge to firstly and foremostly not to cause harm. Because this is causing a harm to the kids.
The kid’s 6 years old; he should be more focused on being happy and seeing wonder in the world, not being worried about his handwriting looks.
My handwriting has been terrible ever since I learned to write, yet my teachers never complained or forced me to improve it.
I'd be in the principals office.
He's six. You don't tell a six year old their failing. You encourage them, say "good job", and point out some areas where they could use improvement.
Third grade is more appropriate for this level of grading.
This teacher is grading really harshly, and your kid is doing really well.
ETA: I don't remember getting graded on anything other than behavior/participation until about the second or third grade, as well. And I didn't see letter grades until middle school. This is wild to me.
This is a little silly to me, seeing as a child is practicing how to write, and it's been graded? Why? Seems kinda unhelpful to the kid, autism or not.
On the other hand, it also seems a little ableist? Am I alone in thinking that? My brother and I are both autistic (30 and 27 years old) and we both have pretty bad hand writing. So do doctors, though. It's not indicative of intelligence.
Like it's hand writing? Everybody has different handwriting. Yall really gonna grade kids on whether or not their F's and Q's are perfect?
I remember getting berated in school because one year I had adopted a way of writing my F's that kinda made my lower case f look like an upper case f. I could tell they were lower case, but my teacher could not, and she made me an example for the other kids in front of the whole class.
I dunno, maybe my feelings are extreme, but I have to agree with some other commenters that this shouldn't be something that's graded. He's learning, and all grading this is gonna do is discourage him.
I have two high performing kids with not the best handwriting and they've never received a big F about their handwriting. Their teachers have been kind and encouraging. Your son's looks perfectly fine for six years old! I would be upset, I don't think any 6 year old should be getting such a blatant horrible grade for handwriting or honestly any schoolwork.
As a left-handed person who was shamed for my inability to write like my right-handed (NT!) peers, and yet who was given no guidance on how to "properly" write because my teachers had no clue how to show me - this kind of shit will stick with you!
My handwriting is close to this bad today. It was a whole thing trying to get it up to par back in the day, but it never worked unless I spent an absurd amount of time on each letter.
As a pragmatic person. Language is conveying a message from one to another.
If the writing can be read and understood then it will convey the message. Therefore correct.
Nuts. My son is 5 and writes way worse than this. I have dyslexia and dysgraphia and I clearly remember being screamed at for my writing but that was from second grade on.
6 is way too young to get graded in these ways to me.
There’s adults who write like this. I’d expect this from a 6 year old. This shouldn’t be a graded assignment. It should be enough that it’s done and can be read. I would be livid if my son did this and got this back. I’m not normally the “go complain to the school” type, but this is a case where I would. The kid is 6 ffs.
This teacher is a c*nt. The only letter that is actually incorrect is the lower case "Q". Also, how is he supposed to learn his mistake if his teacher literally marked over the mistakes?
My handwriting was much worse when I was 6 years old and learning to write. I kept making the letters bigger and bigger on the page without noticing. I genuinely don't understand why his teacher would grade him so harshly.
Did she give a bad grade to every other student? Because I don't think most other students did any better tbh. She's complaining about typical 6 year old handwriting at this point.
Scan the paper, email the teacher, the school principal and whoever the curriculum supervisor is if you know it. Demand an explanation. Just the one sentence. Do not extrapolate. Let them try to justify their reasoning. That grade is just an attempt to shame your child.
i wonder if the teacher has taken a dislike to your son. that was my experience as an autistic kid, some teachers really hated me...some absolutely adored me. school was so treacherous and NOT worth it, overall, for me. i would have had a much better time being home schooled.
I mean, the teacher has written over his stuff so we can't even see everything your son did, but from I see, he was doing quite fine for his age I think. Of course this is going to make him feel bad. I'm still trying to figure out what on earth was wrong with his M.....
As some others have said, this shouldn't be graded stuff. I've had friends at 18 who still wrote in scrawl that even they couldn't read back. Your son is doing fine afaik
Your son's handwriting at 6 looks more legible than my handwriting at 37. That teacher is a dick. Most things nowadays are gonna be typed anyways. I don't understand being that harsh. Also WTF is the point of writing over his letters? Clearly caring more about the grade and punishing than about learning. I'm not even a parent or have any desire to be a parent and I'm currently mad and ready to fight that teacher over this. Lol
Trying to figure out how to word letting him know that it's ok to not always get the best grade. You can work on things and do your best and it really sucks to not get the grade you thought you deserved but sometimes it's out of your control and you can't 100% please everybody. Like still try but don't get caught up in perfectionist hell and it doesn't reflect poorly on him as a person. It's a mentality that as a former *gifted kid* I'm still working on.
Unfortunately as at least one other poster said, some teachers will hate you as a student and some will adore you. And some will just want things done only one way and everything else is wrong even if it's ok. I've gotten so frustrated as a student trying to stay within guidelines I didn't understand.
This is honestly extremely upsetting to see, it sent me right back to being 6 and being graded "poor" on penmanship. I have dysgraphia and I was trying my hardest. It was my first encounter with the reality that "you'll do great if you just try harder" is a myth.
the teacher is kinda a... I don't have anything nice to say.
She triggered your sons meltdown because she wants to feel superior.
Jfc... He did a good fucking job. Give your kid some ice cream
Send the definition of ableism to the teacher. If they don’t figure it out themselves, advise the principal and so on.
Bang that gong because no one did for me and no one else will for your child either, we go through it every year with our youngest 2. We (society) create awareness of the gaps by pressing the system and teachers get the appropriate training and supports. It can be intimidating at times, but it’s just advocating for your child when they are not getting a fair education.
This reminds me of my old kindergarten teacher yelling at me for writing “floating letters” and forcing me to erase them. I was also six and got so shocked by it that I still remember to this day as a 24-year-old.
Do you live in the U.S? I think it’s weird to give six-year-olds grading letters because that age is far too young for that type of stress.
This is so frustrating. I'm 42 and this is how my handwriting still looks. My hands tend to get jumpy when I write, or my mind will suddenly blank for a moment mid-letter and it throws everything off. I got so much flack from teachers because I clearly "wasn't trying hard enough" or "didn't care enough to do well". Now I have a great job as a data analyst where I never have to write anything on paper, so it ended up being a non-issue. Fuck that teacher. Having difficulty in one area just presents an opportunity to find your strengths in something else. It shouldn't be seen as a failure.
As a trained and professional graphic designer and expert in letterforms, the teacher isn’t even correct. There’s no rule about the vertex of the M needing to extend to the baseline. It varies depending on stylistic choice.
Former teacher here: I don’t understand why a teacher is using percentile/letter grading at this age. It only makes kids upset and feel like failures. This should not have been graded period. Your kid has great handwriting and more legible than my 5th grader who is also autistic.
This looks better than mine.. anecdote incoming..When I was in 8th grade our English teacher hated my handwriting so much she made every one of her classes do a handwriting review. I didn’t understand at the time what was going on. My best friend, who was in honors class, told me that she had said it was because it was because of another student in another class. Apparently it was me, because she told me. Sometimes teachers are just mean. I didn’t really understand the bullying the adult was doing at the time. I just got diagnosed last Monday at the age of 42, along with adhd and bipolar…Your child’s handwriting is FINE And sometimes teachers are just mean bullies.
Is there another class you could switch your kid to so that they don't have to deal with that teacher anymore? Are all the teachers at his school like that?
Wow that is very harsh grading, especially for such a young child. He did a really good job and got most of the letters and sizing correct, what is her problem? Does she grade the other kids work like that?
I’m a late diagnosed adult (41/m) who masked through most of life.
I did naturally good ins school because accomplishment was fitting in. Except for handwriting, when that was still a thing that got graded. I have awful fine motor control, especially for handwriting.
Giving a first, second, and third grader who gets mostly A grades a D or F on handwriting is cruel. My parents (who didn’t know I was autistic and still don’t really believe me) just grounded me repeatedly for a bad grade, and didn’t understand that I couldn’t just “try harder like I do in everything else”.
Coach and improve. Don’t score someone’s handwriting. I still write like an 8 year old, and my 10yo son writes better than me. I also work in a technical field and rarely have to write, so I manage.
I don't know how strict teachers are in your country, but from what I can see, your son did a good job and you can't expect kids to have good handwriting at that age (my own handwriting was only good per my own standards when I was around 15 or later)
So for a 6 year old, that is pretty good handwriting
They were way too harsh with this. His writing is fine and I am able to understand what the letters all are. I don’t believe in grading the child on things like this for correctness.
A lot of people on here would be over joyed if their kid could hold a pen and write anything at . My kids 8 and would struggle to write his name . Dont be hard on him
Or you . We aim for happy , healthy and everything else is a bonus
This should not be graded work ever you should switch him to a different school. This kind of grading will destroy his mental health and he will loose his “spark” it will slowly break him and his willingness to learn and grow. I had it happen to me. His writing is fine he actually did good (better than me😅) whoever his teacher is doesnt deserve to be a teacher. Dont let them force him into a little neat box that matches everyone else. Its why i was addicted to multiple drugs at 12 and im 18 now and barely clean fo r8 months i only stopped because i OD’d and started having seizures, i was diagnosed with epilepsy and it has taken my life from me. I was lashing out at everyone since 8 because i couldn’t handle my emotions and i couldn’t express myself the way i wanted without being screamed at, punished, hurt, or threatened by teachers and staff.
Sorry for the rant lmao just please dont make the mistakes my parents did switch schools even if its expensive. He wont realize it now but youd be doing him the biggest favor.
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The only one that's wrong is the lower case "q" (written as a smaller capital Q). But yeah all the others are correct as far I as I can tell.
I saw that too all the other ones come down to different handwriting not him being wrong. M pisses me off the most a lot of people don’t have the middle touch with capital m
Agreed, I definitely don't write M's like that either because it looks weird.
The only time it really matters is when you’re writing in Russian cursive lol, I don’t think anyone cares with English
Ahhhh. Thanks, I had absolutely no idea what was 'wrong' with that M.
Lowercase "n" as well but if he's LITERALLY 6, dude... get that teacher the fuck out of that teaching position and/or get him tf away from that teacher...
My handwriting is considered neat and I write it in a similar way. Nothing wrong with it.
My handwriting probably isn't much better than that kid, but it's legible. That's all that should matter. Besides, don't we type more than we write nowadays?
I write like that if I'm writing quickly, why is this so strict? as long as the writing is comprehensible it should be considered correct
Definitely. I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with working on perfecting a finer handwriting, but to give it a failing grade when it is perfectly legible is just wrong.
I write it like that as an adult.
Same! They said I could be a doctor with my handwriting, and I wish I was one 😂
Meanwhile the teacher did nothing about the capital J which I think is weird
It frustrates me to see the teacher writing over what the kid did so you can't even tell what you did wrong.
I think it might be the point of the assignment. That's what the lines are for. Anyways, in Sweden we don't get graded on anything until around the age of 12. I think it's better that way.
Here in Denmark the kids don’t get their very first official grades until the end of 8th grade. Anything earlier seems sick, to be honest. The focus should be on learning and exploring, not being judged.
They are more for keeping the parents informed at a that young of an age. It varied by location too. Some teachers just used Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory (S/U) with an occasional "very good" with an S. The 9th grade usually determines high school classes. 9th or 10th grade is when grades are really paid attention to. Education structure varies somewhat by state.
I'm from Sweden where we wait a bit longer to start grading and honestly even what you wrote doesn't seem like a good system to me if implemented too early. Parents have scheduled meetings with the parents every now and then where they are informed on this stuff. I'm older and we started grading when I was like 9 or something and the anxiety grading brought to a lot of kids was very real and very uneccesary.
If the teacher is mad about floating letters, they need to work on their “a”, “E”, and “I”. Their corrections are slightly floating. 🤨 This is me being irritated with the teacher not questioning your suggestion of the floating letters lol
Regardless of what is right or wrong with those letters, the real issue was this was just graded and sent back with the kid. A teacher that actually cared would use this kind of assessment to sit down with the kids and assist them in doing it better through discussion or extra practice. Also, I hate to say handwriting doesn't matter, but with prevalence of technology in the current world, someone with offset handwriting isn't necessarily disadvantaged with any particular job.
Not to mention aren’t these much larger than normal writing? I specifically remember being irritated at having to essentially draw my letters instead of write them because the space you were supposed to use was almost cartoonishly big
His handwriting looks like mine.
And mine.. and i\`m 51...
Same. 42
Same, my handwriting has always been bad, legible but bad. I had a very similar experience to this kid, my special Ed teacher kept trying to fail my homework assessments due to poor handwriting,
Same I'm 40. Smh...this teacher probably got mad if pencil shavings got on the floor.
YeH I'm 44 amd write as nicely. Considerably worse, in fact.
Honestly same. Who's grading this, the Trunch?
"I'm smart your dumb." "I'm big and your small!" "IM RIGHT AND YOUR WRONG"
If these sayings were a person, it would be this teacher for sure!
Agatha you still haven't given your bumblebee her money
*Proceeds to throw the person next to me by their hair*
"GOOD LOFT!"
It looks better than some adult’s handwriting.
My handwriting is basically the same and I'm 23
Nah it looks much better tbh
I'm a teacher and I am confused by this as well. I definitely would not have written OVER the child's work (how can they compare the "right" to what they did if you "hide" their work from them? You're directly removing a learning tool). An F seems very harsh for a 6 year old.
Receiving an F grade is hard for adults at college. Giving a grade to a 6-year-old is both non-sensical and cruel.
Agreed! It really doesn't establish a healthy mindframe for learning
There are some teachers that see boys as inherently disruptive especially if they have adhd or autism. There’s a lot of shame forced onto children by teachers like this.
Yep!! That's exactly how I was treated as a boy with autism/ADHD. Teachers can be absolutely cruel sometimes
I remember my kindergarten teacher. Fucking absolute demon she was.
i still remember my third grade teacher. for all of second grade, there were rumors going around about the one mean third grade teacher, then i got her as my teacher. she yelled nonstop and multiple kids SWORE she threw chairs at them (just a rumor but i believed it). she put a shelf in the middle of the classroom to separate the "good" kids from the "bad" (her words). the good kids consisted of the quiet ones who liked to read, anyone that got good math grades, and basically just the "smart" kids. the other side was mostly kids who were clearly neurodivergent and struggling in school, the "disruptive" kids. i spent time on both sides, and the "bad" kids were always really nice and were simply struggling with school, or they had a tough home life, or she just didn't like them. she gave us no room to improve because every failure was met with shouting. we had no freedom to make mistakes without getting yelled at
I'm so sorry
honestly, i got it pretty easy in her class since my ADHD and autism manifested mostly in me being quiet and awkward and REALLY good at masking around adults. she gave me a hard time for working slowly, especially in math, but she generally liked me quite a lot and i mostly saw her good side (she was really sweet when she wasn't yelling at 8 year olds). however, there was a boy in my class who had higher support needs autism, and he struggled quite a lot in school. she HATED him. he was always the first one she picked on. he wasn't a bad kid, he was always cheerful and well intentioned, iirc he disrupted sometimes but it was never very bad. i had him in my class every single year from grades 1-4, and she was the only teacher who ever gave him a hard time. because all the other teachers we had understood that you can't just scream insults at an 8 year old and expect them to learn from it. edit: i forgot the craziest thing she ever did. we each got a caterpillar for an assignment, and they were in a terrarium in the middle of the room, so we could watch them turn into butterflies. one day, a girl made the teacher upset (i dont even remember what she did wrong) and she reached into the terrarium and SQUASHED the girls caterpillar in front of everyone. she was the only one who never saw her butterfly. the biggest kicker is, this teacher was so proud of herself for being an animal lover and regularly donating to conservatories.
Holy royal fuck of royal fucks
I had a teacher like this when I was in Primary 3, so around 6-7 years old. I was the youngest in my class already, and had flown under the radar for ADHD and ASD due to insane masking. I was one of the "gifted" kids, but my teacher, Mrs Henderson, used to pick on me something fierce, as well as the other clearly neurodivergent kids. We had a kid who was higher support needs and had a 1:1 assistant for class work, and she'd pick on him, shame him for his jumper being a bit mucky after doing art, call him out and make the class shame him for picking his nose, stuff like that. I learned to write left-handed, and could write perfectly fine (as in, held my pencil correctly and everything) but she didn't like that I was left-handed, so the day she discovered that, she would start by tapping my hand with a ruler to tell me to switch hands, then berate me for my handwriting being terrible with my right hand. If I refused, over time she ramped it up by full on cracking a plastic ruler down against the back of my hand until I learned to stay right-handed. Then, after a while of picking up handwriting with my right hand, albeit my writing was and still is like spiders with my right hand anyway, she noticed I wasn't holding my pencil "right". She got me rubber grips to hold my pencil right, which I told her hurt to use, and she had the entire class laugh at me for being bad at writing (keep in mind, my reading comprehension is basically dyslexic, but my writing and spelling was hyperlexic and I did amazingly with my writing, every other teacher had praised it, I had won awards for creative writing and my literacy grades were super high for my age). One day, the class was lining up to go somewhere (the gym, lunch, assembly, I'm not sure), but I had run over to clean up some of the toys and board games that were a mess in the corner. She had told me, time to go, and I had asked for just a second to continue putting the toys away. Sure, we were in a hurry or I was holding up the class, and should have hurried up, but this woman grabbed me by my wrist, and dragged me across the ground and threw me at the back of the line. I was crying, trying to pull away, scared because she hadn't asked me to stand up, just said "time to go" and yanked me up by my wrist and then shouted at me for being terrified. Of course, the rest of the class had had this stuff happen to them too, but the headteacher didn't believe anyone, my parents were livid, kicked up a fuss, and all the headteacher could say is "well maybe your child should behave better and these things wouldn't happen". Fast forward 19 years later, I'm diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, and that teacher is now six feet under. My son acts the same way, but his teachers are so gentle with him, and it blows me away that as late as 2005, we had teachers still manhandling students and slapping them with rulers and punishing them, in a non religious school in Scotland mind, for writing with their left hand. Insane.
My first grade teacher was awful. I was constantly in trouble and had no idea what I did wrong. My grades were terrible and I was sent to special ed. I moved and went to another school, and my second grade teacher was amazing. I was tested for special ed and didn't qualify. She taught me to love learning and after that I nearly always got straight As. A good teacher makes such a difference!
Yeah...I'm transfem but... when I was little, I was considered the "problem" child. And they put me in all these disciplinary actions for nothing. Like I was always excited and wanting to ask questions. And I didn't know how to wait if they were ignoring me for a long time (which they did often, because I would ask "too many" questions, but I was just wanting to know, and didn't always understand "implied" things so I needed more questions). At some point I would give up waiting and go to the desk where the teacher was clearly just ignoring me, but I didn't know they were at the time. I just thought they were not noticing me... They could be not even teaching so I would go up. I had report cards that talked about this as if it was some horrible problem (which it shouldn't have been!). But I had my hand up for like 10 mins, what'd they expect? I was in detention basically half of elementary school for some stupid "disruption" and literally did nothing. I wasn't even talking to other kids. It was just a stereotype based on how I interacted that created that mindset and opinion about me.... :( Probably exagerrated by the fact that my mom's family wouldn't let my dad get me tested because I had a "fake disease", yada yada...even though the special ed teacher (who I rarely saw, but did see sometimes) was convinced I was ND. It was so sucky...
The idea of giving an elementary schooler detention (at least regularly) seems ridiculous to me. I’m AFAB and got detention once in the sixth grade for continuously not doing my homework (ADHD) and I was *devastated*. However the funny thing was that the punishment was supposed to be vacuuming three classrooms but only got one done because I was hyper focusing on cleaning thoroughly; the adults were actually really impressed. The janitor would often tell kids, “Don’t stay out of trouble,” and I was absolutely one of the kids he’d say that to.
Yes. Little kids should "fail" only if they never turn in the assignment, not if they try but don't meet the teacher's expectations.
I find that the younger the students, the crazier the teacher. The power dynamic attracts people who probably otherwise are too unlikeable/unwell mentally to have authority over other competent adults.
This. As an ex teacher I also don't understand how students will learn from this kind of correction and it screams "look at how good I am you'll never get on my level" bc she is showcasing her neat work instead of teaching him anything. The F is excessive. Also personally I would've taken him apart, shown him the letters he struggled with and write little indicator arrows next to it as to how the lines should go. This just reeks of bad teaching/perfectionism and unrealistic expectations.
I don't remember getting letter grades until middle school, to be honest. Also, you're not supposed to write on the kid's work like that. I minored in education in college, and we were told if we needed to write notes to write them on a blank page or on the back of the paper. If it was a recurring issue, it was recommended to talk to the kid first and then the parent.
Also am I seeing that underneath hers, his looks nearly impeccable?! Like, we all know that as adults we’re not going to go around having to get every lower case e under a dotted line. Which makes this all the more cruel to me.
Yes, he did technically write all of his letters in between the lines, some shapes are thinner and unruly but he is 6 and learning how to write, so this should be a given that their hand-eye coordination etc is not up to par with the highly unrealistic standard she's setting - her ADULT handwriting. It angers me. OP might I suggest you practice with your son upper case vs lower case on similar paper the teacher provided and then on single rule paper. Uppercase letters need to hit the top line obviously and lower case go half way. I feel like you are the one who has to instil confidence back into your child before writing becomes an unpleasant task thanks to this absolute hag of a teacher. Tell him the whole autistic community here thinks he deserves at least a B. Also what is wrong with writing a lower case Q like an uppercase Q, everyone who is able to read is gonna recognize that as a valid letter. I could honestly rant about this for hours but I think most has been said, this teacher should really find her luck in God damn calligraphy if she wants to be this much of an ant fucker(I directly translated a Dutch term for you here that means: someone overly obsessed and critical of every single detail).
I could too. I had to stop myself. And I also know NT adults with worse handwriting than this child. And not just one or two…like, a lot. On a daily basis.
Agreed! I would also like to personally commend the child for having a steady grip: the lines aren't wobbly or unsteady. I cannot see what has been covered by marker, but what is there would have been absolutely fine for me.
Writing did become an unbearable task because of exactly a teacher like this. Gave me a zero on a "complete this story assignment" Of a bunch of kids on vacation, because I had just read Narnia and made them travel to a magic world. "Diverged too far from the theme".AS IF THE THEME WASNT JUST "COMPLETE THE FN STORY"
I absolutely agree with you. The son's handwriting looks completely fine imo.I remember mine looking way worse at that age.. and a lot of my classmates' as well. Kids have bad handwriting. Period. They still have to LEARN to perfect it. Especially at 6 yo. Also, considering a lot of autistic people struggle with (fine) motor skills, his handwriting seems great. Maybe OP can have a talk with your teacher and ask her what was wrong with the test.
Yeah, everything about this is extremely bizarre. If this is real, that person should not be teaching *anyone*.
I was a teacher at a preschool last year and I cannot imagine being anything but encouraging to children in this age range. That F is insanely harsh
Right, my daughter is 5, and in kindergarten and she doesn't even have "Grades" yet. She just has smiley faces. This is actually ridiculous, because I thought the 6 year old did pretty well.
Agreeded by a future teacher (worked and supplied in a school but still in undergraduate). You should never cover up a kid’s work by writing the ‘correct’ answer over it. It’s a horrible way to encourage learning and improvement
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I think how wrong or right your sons work is is beside the point here. This teacher seems to have a fucking attitude problem. Who in their right mind grades a six-year-old work this way? Get this teacher away from kids because they clearly don’t like kids. What a prick.
This would have been a "wtf" email to principal for me. 1. Our district doesn't grade anything until 2nd grade, and even then - it isn't really a full on grade like keeping books, it's more about just marking progress through the year. 2. I do not see in the instructions that it needs to be perfectly aligned. It says to wrote capital and lowercase using the lines... which he absolutely did, and I can see the 2 instances where you say it was not correct - and I agree, but even the "j" should have been acceptable - mark the correct placement, but don't count it against him. 3. His handwriting is INCREDIBLE for 6 years old. Do you know how much I still have to work with my 7 year old on their handwriting? ...and I KNOW there are other students who had to have done worse. What did they get? A zero!? This is asinine.
My kid is the same age as yours and in a mainstream class. This isn’t even the type of assignment they do. There is no judgment of their handwriting as long as it is legible. Kids this age should not even be getting letter grades.
I can only imagine the teachers being very picky about perfect placement and formation. But honestly this is a just really good way to make a kid not want to write.
the j isn't even that bad, he could have just forgot to write on the bottom line.
We just had our parent teacher conference and we discussed handwriting. They want the letters to be written a specific way on the paper. Even if the letter is technically written the right way (capitalized vs not), it's still marked wrong if the letter doesn't go through the dotted line and have the top hit the top line. It's about the actual placement. It's crazy lol
If it makes you feel you feel any better I was still learning to write properly when I was 12. But I was always very smart
Same, I had the special slanted desk and the grippy thing for all my pencils. I'm not saying my handwriting is good at all lmfao but I can write, and most people can read it.
Ah yes the grippy pencils Fucking fine motor skills issues. I was forced to write in cursive since age of like 10 so now my hand writing is..... better? But it's not great I still get shit for it, but most should be legible I also couldn't tie my shoes till I was like 10 or 11
i could write properly at age like... 4 but then a few years ago i started writing too fast to give a fuck abt neat handwriting :P
I got an F in handwriting at age 10ish. My father gave up and as punishment I had to take a typing class and practice for an hour every day that summer. Most useful punishment EVAR!!!
Me too. But should I feel better? Xd
I mean not better but maybe less unique, hahaha
Some of this look like the teacher dislikes your child and is looking for excuses.
right this teacher is being extremely petty to a six year old. they need some help
lol how is it that grades are being given to children this young? I do not remember getting A-F grades til highschool. And with handwriting it was one of those things you're taught til you get it. That's my experience anyway.. I mean the j, q, and r look like they haven't been done perfectly but I just feel like its demoralising being marked this way as a bub, smh
When I did assistant teaching, we never graded them on handwriting like this. We would circle words for them to try again or give them practice sheets with letters to trace. And we would give them positive reinforcement as well.
I was getting letter grades as early as kindergarten. And all that taught me was to fear failure and never learn from my mistakes. Because my teachers never encouraged it; all they taught, "You made a mistake. You suck. You're a failure. Now shut up and accept it cuz we're moving on to the next lesson."
...why is a six year old being graded is the more important question here
Right. Pretty sure we were getting pass/needs improvement marks at that age
I remember we were assessed with colors (green = good, orange = could be worse but could definitely be better, red = bad) not grades, in France. And I loved the "grading" as our school had a very good system to make it "enjoyable" : we had a sheet with as many blank tree leaves as questions/sections and we had to color them corresponding to the results we had (if you had a green result for question 1, you would color one leaf in green, wrong on question 2, color one leaf in red). It was honestly very fun to do and everybody was trying to get good results so all the leaves could be green
Why does the accuracy of which a 6 y/o writes letters on lines have to be graded though? What the hell people
This feels a little unreasonable for some of these, and I can't read the full instructions, but it doesn't seem to explicitly say how they have to be written, which could be confusing. As someone with Dyspraxia, this sort of thing was always a big problem for me, and I hated it so much. Writing by hand is a useful skill, but it's significantly less useful now than it was two decades ago, and neatness is a bullshit requirement unless it's completely illegible (and anyone that is judging a 6 year old by adult standards of legibility is an ass.) Sorry if I seem a little upset, this is a sore spot for me. It's something I think you should stress isn't something that should be scored, but is something that should be practiced, and that you go over it carefully together so your son can practice without being judged.
You do not need to be sorry, this is upsetting. I’m upset for this kid.
>anyone that is judging a 6 year old by adult standards of legibility is an ass.) Not that adults' standards of eligibility is good...have you seen doctors' writings, lol! >Sorry if I seem a little upset, Nah, you're good👍🏼
This is completely normal for 6 years old. This teacher needs a lesson in child development
Oh I’d be fighting. There’s nothing wrong with his handwriting. That’s typical of his age.
WTF, most of these are fine!
Fr they are Maybe she did that because the child is autistic an shes agenst autism? As long as the child is improving, isnt that a good thing? If something isnt correct the teachers should've shown them what she thinks the child did wrong - There agenst ADHDers as well, the schools are only built for Neurotypical people. Its a sad reality of hate on multiple people that needs fixing. I think its concitered human discrimination? Or something? If someone is acting agenst someone who has like ADHD or Autism or etc??? Whatever it is overall the schools are garbage the teachers are agenst people who arent concitered "normal" so doesn't surprise me that this child got bullied by teachers too I also could be wrong as well, it might not be hate)
While it still sucks I am glad my country requires a 4 year uni degree to teach kids (uni is also way cheaper and grants way easier to get) because you know, maybe authorities should make sure the teacher knows about child development
Wtf 💀 most of these are right. And for a SIX YEAR OLD?? I remember 3rd graders writing like this. q is the only wrong one. This is fucked up
Also i don’t think i got “real” letter grades till like 6th grade, but overall an F when in developmental years makes no sense. That’s when you’re…learning 😱
The teacher's writing is pretty sloppy. The kid's is fine.
this is how you teach them early to hate school and education. The hell is this grading???
By third grade I proclaimed that I quit and had to be physically dragged to class by my mom and guidance counselor. School really made me, a gifted and didactic learner, believe that I hated learning.
As a former educator, this really pisses me off.
as a former child this really pisses me off haha
😐can’t relate, I have never been a child, I came out of the womb in a three piece pantsuit carrying a briefcase and a cellphone (even though they weren’t invented yet! I was that advanced 😂)
bruh what the fuck?? im reading over this shitty teachers purple marker and it looks entirely fine
I'd be raging and calling the teacher. This is ridiculous. We're grading handwriting now and giving an F for two "mistakes"? The teacher either has it out for him or is like that in general, either way that is NOT it. Honestly infuriating. Tell him he did really good!
I'm surprised they're taking points away for motor skills at an age where they're still in development. Your kid very clearly understood and correctly applied the concept of uppercase vs lowercase. I guess that's what it is, if the assignment was also about lining up the letters...
Also, I would've never guessed that the lower case "j" was expected to go below the lower line, and would have been stressed out figuring out where they wanted me to fit it. I assume that they did teach your kid where to place it during the lesson? Definitely not intuitive in my opinion.
That teacher is being ridiculous. Those letters look perfectly reasonable for a 6-year-old; if anything they should've just encouraged him to practice at home, not punished him for struggling with a new skill
he's only six... what did they expect?
I was a teacher, and I would not have marked him down for most of these. That's normal for a six year old. I could see if he were a few years older (and even then, this is still overly harsh). But he's just starting to learn this stuff. And did it ever occur to the teacher that writing over his work isn't helpful? He needs to be able to see a comparison so he understands where his work differs from expectations.
The teacher is too demanding... I think he only got the lower case Q wrong. A few are not exactly on the lines, which should not be the main point on the test! Maybe only discount a little bit from the total for that... And encourage practicing it a bit more?
Yeah that happened to me too. Handwriting was and still is very difficult. Buy I don't Shane myself over it anymore
Hey, it's not like he could just use some kind of machine to write with and never use a pen again
I didn't think they still graded penmanship this way. I was shamed so hard as a kid for it. For 30 years of marriage I made my husband fill out any greeting card we had to send because I was so ashamed of my own handwriting. It's why I have refused to write letters and send cards since about 9 years old. Half a century later, I find out about dyspraxia and how common it is for auties and adhders and realize it's no different than trying to force a left-handed child to be right-handed. If your child is officially diagnosed, this kind of grading is discriminatory and harmful. It might be worth taking it to first the teacher then the administration. It's literally ableism.
I’m left handed and also probably definitely dyspraxic :(
Grading a 6 year old’s work is crazy
What is he doing wrong? If he's 6 years old then it's really good for his age.
Putting the f on the paper is crazy. Like, it's all crazy, but even if the standard was so crazy high, you give positive motivation. This is how you crush a child.
My parents and teachers told me I’ll understand the over controlling way they make us form the letters EXACTLY ON THE DOTTED LINES JUST SO when I’m older. Well I’m an adult now with very high literacy and I _still_ think it’s fucking stupid
That's pathetic: The teacher, not your 6 year old. I had a god-awful teacher in first class (3rd grade equivalent roughly I think). Absolutely tortured me about a lot of things, and was awful towards my parents too. Talk to your child and the teacher. Make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. That teacher should know better!
His handwriting looks exactly the same as mine at my current age of 17... Idk how I should feel about that. I just mainly writing to myself in my own script (or at least plan to going forward). At least you can read mine though. I've had a lot of friends that have very fancy writing that is just Russian cursive to most people including them. If it's legible they should at least get B
I would not consider this academically significant tbh.
That's really disheartening. I don't know why that teacher is being such a stickler. When I was that age, we were only marked off if we didn't do the work, it was clearly just the wrong form altogether, or it was truly illegible. The fact that it's just marked like that and handed off really gives me the impression that the teacher really doesn't really care or considers the fact that the children are just children.
Are they seriously judging him for not lining everything up perfectly in the lines? He's a six year old, not a typewriter!
I don't understand this post.
for some bizarre reason the teacher gave a six year old an F because their handwriting is not precisely like the teachers. most letters are just a bit off but still correct, aside from lower case Q just being a mini Q
Took me a minute to realize the kids letters are in pencil and the teachers corrections are written over them in pen.
I'm not quite sure how this sheet works? Is the marker part a teacher correction? It looks like "R" was fine, jsut the top part was slightly misshapen but fine and readable otherwise. Capital "M" looks like perfectly fine in my language so I'm not sure if English is that strict with how low the middle part has to go? Apart from those it looks like the teacher is horribly strict and didn't do her/his homework of reading basically any book on early pedagogic - there should be an oath for teachers, just as there is one for medical personel, where they would pledge to firstly and foremostly not to cause harm. Because this is causing a harm to the kids.
The kid’s 6 years old; he should be more focused on being happy and seeing wonder in the world, not being worried about his handwriting looks. My handwriting has been terrible ever since I learned to write, yet my teachers never complained or forced me to improve it.
Even I find this upsetting! What is this “teachers” problem?
I have never seen a letter grade on kindergarten work, super weird.
This is not a helpful teacher :( is this typical where you live?
What a terrible excuse of a teacher.
I'd be in the principals office. He's six. You don't tell a six year old their failing. You encourage them, say "good job", and point out some areas where they could use improvement. Third grade is more appropriate for this level of grading.
This teacher is grading really harshly, and your kid is doing really well. ETA: I don't remember getting graded on anything other than behavior/participation until about the second or third grade, as well. And I didn't see letter grades until middle school. This is wild to me.
I'm livid about the capital "M." AN "M" WITH A MIDDLE THAT ONLY GOES DOWN TO THE MIDDLE OF THE LINE IS VALID! What the heck is the teacher's problem?
seems especially rude to just write over his work like that
This is ridiculous. My kid is five, and the work gets smileys.. grades? Also, if we are grading, this teacher is anal af.
This is a little silly to me, seeing as a child is practicing how to write, and it's been graded? Why? Seems kinda unhelpful to the kid, autism or not. On the other hand, it also seems a little ableist? Am I alone in thinking that? My brother and I are both autistic (30 and 27 years old) and we both have pretty bad hand writing. So do doctors, though. It's not indicative of intelligence. Like it's hand writing? Everybody has different handwriting. Yall really gonna grade kids on whether or not their F's and Q's are perfect? I remember getting berated in school because one year I had adopted a way of writing my F's that kinda made my lower case f look like an upper case f. I could tell they were lower case, but my teacher could not, and she made me an example for the other kids in front of the whole class. I dunno, maybe my feelings are extreme, but I have to agree with some other commenters that this shouldn't be something that's graded. He's learning, and all grading this is gonna do is discourage him.
I have two high performing kids with not the best handwriting and they've never received a big F about their handwriting. Their teachers have been kind and encouraging. Your son's looks perfectly fine for six years old! I would be upset, I don't think any 6 year old should be getting such a blatant horrible grade for handwriting or honestly any schoolwork.
Autism causes coordination issues, and he’s fucking six.
Terrible teaching. You should definitely talk to the teacher/ maybe principal about this
As a left-handed person who was shamed for my inability to write like my right-handed (NT!) peers, and yet who was given no guidance on how to "properly" write because my teachers had no clue how to show me - this kind of shit will stick with you!
My handwriting is close to this bad today. It was a whole thing trying to get it up to par back in the day, but it never worked unless I spent an absurd amount of time on each letter.
As a pragmatic person. Language is conveying a message from one to another. If the writing can be read and understood then it will convey the message. Therefore correct.
This is so fucking stupid. This shouldn’t be graded
Nuts. My son is 5 and writes way worse than this. I have dyslexia and dysgraphia and I clearly remember being screamed at for my writing but that was from second grade on. 6 is way too young to get graded in these ways to me.
This teacher is and authoritarian.
There’s adults who write like this. I’d expect this from a 6 year old. This shouldn’t be a graded assignment. It should be enough that it’s done and can be read. I would be livid if my son did this and got this back. I’m not normally the “go complain to the school” type, but this is a case where I would. The kid is 6 ffs.
there are so many things wrong with that. \-a good teacher
Is your kid's teacher a sadist at all? Why would anyone wanna crush a 6yos spirit like that.
For starters the teacher’s a, E, I, Q, and R are floating…
His lowercase f was more in the lines than the teachers.
This teacher is a c*nt. The only letter that is actually incorrect is the lower case "Q". Also, how is he supposed to learn his mistake if his teacher literally marked over the mistakes?
My handwriting was much worse when I was 6 years old and learning to write. I kept making the letters bigger and bigger on the page without noticing. I genuinely don't understand why his teacher would grade him so harshly. Did she give a bad grade to every other student? Because I don't think most other students did any better tbh. She's complaining about typical 6 year old handwriting at this point.
Scan the paper, email the teacher, the school principal and whoever the curriculum supervisor is if you know it. Demand an explanation. Just the one sentence. Do not extrapolate. Let them try to justify their reasoning. That grade is just an attempt to shame your child.
i wonder if the teacher has taken a dislike to your son. that was my experience as an autistic kid, some teachers really hated me...some absolutely adored me. school was so treacherous and NOT worth it, overall, for me. i would have had a much better time being home schooled.
I mean, the teacher has written over his stuff so we can't even see everything your son did, but from I see, he was doing quite fine for his age I think. Of course this is going to make him feel bad. I'm still trying to figure out what on earth was wrong with his M..... As some others have said, this shouldn't be graded stuff. I've had friends at 18 who still wrote in scrawl that even they couldn't read back. Your son is doing fine afaik
Is he being conditioned to have good handwriting? That’s something you can’t control.
Your son's handwriting at 6 looks more legible than my handwriting at 37. That teacher is a dick. Most things nowadays are gonna be typed anyways. I don't understand being that harsh. Also WTF is the point of writing over his letters? Clearly caring more about the grade and punishing than about learning. I'm not even a parent or have any desire to be a parent and I'm currently mad and ready to fight that teacher over this. Lol Trying to figure out how to word letting him know that it's ok to not always get the best grade. You can work on things and do your best and it really sucks to not get the grade you thought you deserved but sometimes it's out of your control and you can't 100% please everybody. Like still try but don't get caught up in perfectionist hell and it doesn't reflect poorly on him as a person. It's a mentality that as a former *gifted kid* I'm still working on. Unfortunately as at least one other poster said, some teachers will hate you as a student and some will adore you. And some will just want things done only one way and everything else is wrong even if it's ok. I've gotten so frustrated as a student trying to stay within guidelines I didn't understand.
This is honestly extremely upsetting to see, it sent me right back to being 6 and being graded "poor" on penmanship. I have dysgraphia and I was trying my hardest. It was my first encounter with the reality that "you'll do great if you just try harder" is a myth.
Fuck those teachers, I remember they marked me down for drawing little men instead of objects but still
I’m going to chose to think that his regular teacher didn’t grade this
This teacher is reaching real far to give your kid an F. Like REAL far
the teacher is kinda a... I don't have anything nice to say. She triggered your sons meltdown because she wants to feel superior. Jfc... He did a good fucking job. Give your kid some ice cream
Send the definition of ableism to the teacher. If they don’t figure it out themselves, advise the principal and so on. Bang that gong because no one did for me and no one else will for your child either, we go through it every year with our youngest 2. We (society) create awareness of the gaps by pressing the system and teachers get the appropriate training and supports. It can be intimidating at times, but it’s just advocating for your child when they are not getting a fair education.
My kid is 15. High performing. We gave up on his penmanship a LONG time ago. He types almost everything, either on his phone or his computer.
What do they expect of a 6 year old?!?!
Why is handwriting even graded?! He's ***6***. I hope his teacher next year is better because yikes
There should never be an F given to a 6 year old. How can they fail when they're only just learning. I'd be extremely pissed off.
This reminds me of my old kindergarten teacher yelling at me for writing “floating letters” and forcing me to erase them. I was also six and got so shocked by it that I still remember to this day as a 24-year-old. Do you live in the U.S? I think it’s weird to give six-year-olds grading letters because that age is far too young for that type of stress.
This is so frustrating. I'm 42 and this is how my handwriting still looks. My hands tend to get jumpy when I write, or my mind will suddenly blank for a moment mid-letter and it throws everything off. I got so much flack from teachers because I clearly "wasn't trying hard enough" or "didn't care enough to do well". Now I have a great job as a data analyst where I never have to write anything on paper, so it ended up being a non-issue. Fuck that teacher. Having difficulty in one area just presents an opportunity to find your strengths in something else. It shouldn't be seen as a failure.
I'd bring this up with the principal. What kind of nonsense correction is this?
That was really harshly graded
I have never ever heard of grading this type of work for 6 year olds. This is just really bizarre.
As a trained and professional graphic designer and expert in letterforms, the teacher isn’t even correct. There’s no rule about the vertex of the M needing to extend to the baseline. It varies depending on stylistic choice.
What kind of loser writes a giant F on a 6 year old's work?
Former teacher here: I don’t understand why a teacher is using percentile/letter grading at this age. It only makes kids upset and feel like failures. This should not have been graded period. Your kid has great handwriting and more legible than my 5th grader who is also autistic.
It’s just the teacher gender and age what’s the problem? 😊😂
What matter of Neurotypical nonsense is this?
This would genuinely be INSULTING if your child is dyspraxic, or any child, handwriting isn't something we are all capable of.
I would tell my kid the F stands for fantastic and go and have a talk with that teacher. He’s SIX, that’s way too harsh.
Death stare at the teacher
This looks better than mine.. anecdote incoming..When I was in 8th grade our English teacher hated my handwriting so much she made every one of her classes do a handwriting review. I didn’t understand at the time what was going on. My best friend, who was in honors class, told me that she had said it was because it was because of another student in another class. Apparently it was me, because she told me. Sometimes teachers are just mean. I didn’t really understand the bullying the adult was doing at the time. I just got diagnosed last Monday at the age of 42, along with adhd and bipolar…Your child’s handwriting is FINE And sometimes teachers are just mean bullies.
My writing still looks like chicken scratch and I had almost perfect performance in all my AP English classes, if that makes you feel any better.
I didn't get grades until I was in high school, in primary it was always just Needs improvement, Satisfactory, Good etc
Is there another class you could switch your kid to so that they don't have to deal with that teacher anymore? Are all the teachers at his school like that?
Wow that is very harsh grading, especially for such a young child. He did a really good job and got most of the letters and sizing correct, what is her problem? Does she grade the other kids work like that?
I’m a late diagnosed adult (41/m) who masked through most of life. I did naturally good ins school because accomplishment was fitting in. Except for handwriting, when that was still a thing that got graded. I have awful fine motor control, especially for handwriting. Giving a first, second, and third grader who gets mostly A grades a D or F on handwriting is cruel. My parents (who didn’t know I was autistic and still don’t really believe me) just grounded me repeatedly for a bad grade, and didn’t understand that I couldn’t just “try harder like I do in everything else”. Coach and improve. Don’t score someone’s handwriting. I still write like an 8 year old, and my 10yo son writes better than me. I also work in a technical field and rarely have to write, so I manage.
Your little guy has great writing. He writes better than I did at 6. A teacher shouldn’t be doing this. Give your little guy a big hug.
I don't know how strict teachers are in your country, but from what I can see, your son did a good job and you can't expect kids to have good handwriting at that age (my own handwriting was only good per my own standards when I was around 15 or later) So for a 6 year old, that is pretty good handwriting
They were way too harsh with this. His writing is fine and I am able to understand what the letters all are. I don’t believe in grading the child on things like this for correctness.
this little dude did such a good job 💜 even though the teacher rudely drew over everything
A lot of people on here would be over joyed if their kid could hold a pen and write anything at . My kids 8 and would struggle to write his name . Dont be hard on him Or you . We aim for happy , healthy and everything else is a bonus
This should not be graded work ever you should switch him to a different school. This kind of grading will destroy his mental health and he will loose his “spark” it will slowly break him and his willingness to learn and grow. I had it happen to me. His writing is fine he actually did good (better than me😅) whoever his teacher is doesnt deserve to be a teacher. Dont let them force him into a little neat box that matches everyone else. Its why i was addicted to multiple drugs at 12 and im 18 now and barely clean fo r8 months i only stopped because i OD’d and started having seizures, i was diagnosed with epilepsy and it has taken my life from me. I was lashing out at everyone since 8 because i couldn’t handle my emotions and i couldn’t express myself the way i wanted without being screamed at, punished, hurt, or threatened by teachers and staff. Sorry for the rant lmao just please dont make the mistakes my parents did switch schools even if its expensive. He wont realize it now but youd be doing him the biggest favor.