start right if you want to start early

we have pretty much entrusted the system for sienna's education. she started printing letters and numbers before she turned 3. she went through about 20 weekly workbooks. i showed off one of those to her new school teacher, not so much about WHAT she could do, but HOW she could tirelessly and persistently work on something so tedious.

ms ahmed at her new school pionted out though that she had the formation wrong. i only realized this fully today when i was watching her doing her homework. for numbers, she can do well with "1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7." but she drew two circles for "8" and the "5" didn't carry big enough a bag underneath. "9" was done the other way around like a "p" and "0" looked ok but was circled wrong way as well.

i explained to her the formation "8." suddenly she told me, "mommy. i'm going to start with an 'S' and finish it from there!" smart kid! she immediately grasped the formation of "8". and she is really getting there with "9" and "0" too.

if you cannot start a kid the right way, there is not point to start at all, unless you think correcting a bad habit later is a fun thing to try.