Anonymous wrote:I was wondering the same thing. My 2yo can write I & O, and sometimes writes other letters by chance and then says, "I wrote letter xyz". I'm thinking around 3 they can start to get the hang of it.

Big red flag--your kid has a gambling problem. She's trying to write an IOU to the bookie.

I was wondering the same thing. My 2yo can write I & O, and sometimes writes other letters by chance and then says, "I wrote letter xyz". I'm thinking around 3 they can start to get the hang of it.

I think it mostly depends on whether they have been taught (like any good parlor trick).

Our first nanny was constantly teaching our DD to write her letters (against our wishes!) so she was writing all of the letters by 2.5. Then in Montessori preschool, she was also constantly learning to trace letters as well, so it was reinforced. We switched her to play based preschool, and it's just not an emphasis there, so while she can write very well most kids in her class can't.

For what it is worth, I don't really think it matters that much. Most kids learn this eventually.

My almost 3 year old can write his name and seems pretty advanced in that regard. He also learned the letters early.

Then again he is miles from potty training and a bunch of his same-age friends have been trained for months. Different interests/developmental schedules.