A Letter to Our Parents on How We Teach Writing and Numbers

Dear Esteemed Parents,

We have listened carefully to your questions about how we teach your children to write and to work with numbers, and we are grateful for them. When a parent asks why this way and not the other, it tells us you are engaged and invested in getting this right for your child. We do not take that for granted, and we owe you a clear explanation, not just a request for trust.

We know our methods differ from what feels familiar, from what you grew up with, and from what is common in schools around us. That is a real adjustment. This is not new thinking on our part; it reflects established practice in early literacy and numeracy development, and here is exactly why we hold this line.

1. On lowercase before uppercase:

Almost everything a child will read for the rest of their life is written mostly in lowercase. Lowercase letters also carry more distinguishing detail. Small features like tails and sticks help a child tell one letter from another, whereas capitals are largely uniform blocks that look alike.

A child who learns capitals first usually carries the habit well into Primary school, and teachers then spend real classroom time undoing it. Starting with lowercase means reading and writing grow together from day one, instead of one having to catch up to the other later.

2. On correct letter and number formation:

This is not about neatness. It is about the hand learning one consistent path for each shape until that path becomes automatic, usually within months.

An 8 built from two 0s stacked, a 0 traced clockwise instead of anti-clockwise, a letter begun from the bottom instead of the top: each of these gets the shape onto the page, but none of them trains the hand the way correct formation does.

Once formation is truly automatic, the child stops thinking about the shape and starts thinking about the word. When formation stays inconsistent, the hand never fully automates, and small habits become harder to untangle later, precisely because the wrong path has already become the natural one.

3. On place value versus quick number naming:

This is the heart of it, and the easiest to see for yourself.

Ask a child to write forty-two. A child who has only ever learned the four-two makes forty-two shortcut often cannot do it, not because they cannot write digits, but because they never learned that forty-two is four tens and two units. They learned a chant, not a number.

Say four and two separately, and suddenly they can write both digits. That gap, comfortable with the chant but unable to produce the number itself, is invisible in Nursery, where every answer looks the same on the page.

It becomes very visible in Primary classes, when regrouping begins in addition and subtraction, and a child who only ever learned the chant has to relearn the concept from the beginning, under far more pressure than they have now. We would rather close that gap while the stakes are low.

4. On speed:

We understand the concern when a child seems to move more slowly than a mate elsewhere. But speed built on a shortcut is often borrowed speed, and it usually has to be paid back later, with interest.

Real, lasting speed comes after correct habits are automatic, not before. What looks like being behind in Nursery is very often what allows a child to move ahead comfortably from Primary 2 onward.

5. What we are asking of you:

Patience while this method proves itself over time, and consistency at home. When assignments come with a suggested method, following it, even when a faster route is available, helps your child build one steady habit rather than two competing ones.

We know home routines are not always entirely in your hands, especially where grandparents or other relatives are closely involved in a child's day. We understand that tension, and we are glad to work with you on simple ways to keep home and school pulling in the same direction.

An invitation:

If you would like to see the method for yourself, letters and numbers in hand, please feel free to ask your child's teacher at any time. We are always glad to walk you through it individually, so you can see the difference and support it confidently at home.

Our aim is not that your child writes and calculates early. Our aim is that your child writes, reads, and calculates well for the rest of their schooling, and enjoys doing it.

Thank you for staying in this with us. We are building this together, one child at a time.

Warmly,

GHSI Management