What is your child's writing like at the end of reception?

[NumptyNu]

Decent spelling effort? Good spacing, full stops, cap letters etc? One long line of random letters? Somewhere in between?

[chuckeyegg]

one long line of letter with a few words I could recognise. Still not brilliant at the end of year one but give him time.

[Campaspe]

No, DD's writing at the end of reception was a reasonable beginner's effort. She could form most of the letters clearly, and could have a go at writing a phonetically spelled sentence. Full stops and capital letters were conspicuous by their absence. I think end of reception is too early to worry about DC's writing really, and you will find the teachers really up the ante with writing in Y1.

[mixedmamameansbusiness]

Ds2 currently sitting at the laptop writing a story. Only three words spelt correctly but I can read the entire thing. It isn't hugely coherent but a good effort.

I agree reading is the focus of reception with Y1 really getting to grips with writing.

Absolutely no punctuation.

[TattyCatty]

All letters pretty much formed correctly, although still some reversals going on. Capital letters, finger spaces and full stops most definitely in evidence though - this was drummed into them from day one, and mistakes were corrected. Spelling was starting to come on - she could pretty much spell all of the Reception key words by the end of the year. She was in the lower end of ability for her year group though - the vast majority of her peers could read and write before they even started school.

[TattyCatty]

I should add that DD wasn't able to recognise more than about 3 letters and was unable to even write her name before she started. She showed no interest in wanting to learn, and I knew that her school was going to be a pretty intense learning experience in Reception, so l didn't push it.

[IceAddict]

Some words spelt well others barely recognisable. Still messy and large mix of capitals and small, although ds knows capitals at the beginning he slots a few in.

Teacher told me they're looking for, finger spaces, capital letters and full stops in the right places but spelling doesn't matter as long as they can form the letters properly, i.e. up, down and around etc. don't stress about it too much reading develops faster than writing

[Periwinkle007]

not seen what she is writing at school since February as we haven't been shown any but at home she writes quite well, normally with spaces and punctuation. Letters are well formed but as they don't often write on lines I don't think so the sizes of what sits on the line and below the line etc aren't always correct. She will attempt to spell everything and it may not be right but is always phonetically plausible and easy to read and understand. She does however love writing and she is a september birthday which I think does tend to make a difference still at this age.

[DontCallMeBaby]

I found a card from DD that I think was written right at the beginning of Yr 1 (not the end of Yr R as it features the kittens we acquired over the summer) - it reads "grajlaishoons yes you hav been a very good mummy all this time". The writing is HUGE but very legible. IIRC she had a tendency to reverse numbers at that age, but rarely did it with letters.

[Periwinkle007]

just looked in her notebook next to me and found

Once upon a time therewas a bee that was the queen bee's dorter

[DeWe]

My dc were totally different at the end of reception.
Dd1 was writing long stories, half a side of A4 and more. Beginning to join up and very neat. Punctuation (Capital letters, full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, some speech marks) well applied. Spellings pretty much all correct because she'd look up any that she didn't know. Not a lot of tricky vocabulary though because she didnt want the risk of getting a spelling wrong.

Dd2 wrote also long stories, probably longer. But she wrote in a stream of consciousness, which meant that there would well be no punctuation, and, although the spellings were usually phonetically correct, even simple spellings that she knew would often be wrong. But lots of tricky words Handwriting mostly joined up... sometimes across several words.

Ds didn't write unless he had to. If forced he might manage. "love you love from ds" with objections... Capital letters a bit random (the letters that he thought were easier capital would be capitals, others lower case, so you'd get things like "lovE"or "cAmE") and b/d were sometimes reversed. Generally the letters would be properly formed though, and generally neat. He was being taught to do letters with a loop, ready for joining it up. Spelling, some phonetic, some just begiinning and ending letters, except those he knew where he would be consistantly correct.

[ShatnersBassoon]

Technically OK, but very reluctant to write more than the bare minimum.