Year 2 writing

[RapidlyApproachingEndOfMyTether]

Copied & pasted here for traffic as not many replies on the education board.

Can anyone advise me, how far off expected standard is my DS (7)'s writing? And how best can I help him? He's in year 2 and will be 8 in the autumn.

It seems to me there's quite a few issues:
Letters not placed on the lines correctly
Erratic full stops & capitals
Inconsistent shape and size of letters. E.g. tall letters the same height as small ones, descenders not going below the line.
No joining up - he does put spaces between words but because he's not joining it's hard to make them out.

He's a good reader and although some of the spellings are incorrect I'm less worried about that, perhaps wrongly so?

This is after weeks of extra writing practice at home, workbooks, letter formation practice, we've done the majority of the write from the start programme, all with very little improvement.

I guess I'm wondering, is this still in the scope of "normal" or would it be time to seek further assessment - there are other areas of his development that make me wonder about dyspraxia. I'm worried about how he will get on when he goes into year 3.

Thanks for all possible advice, he's my first so I don't have another child to compare with, it may be he's entirely normal but I just feel that he's probably quite behind when it comes to writing. Happy that be told otherwise!

I’d work on size and formation of letters - at the moment they are erratic, you can get some handwriting paper and get him to practice making tall letters tall and letters to sit on the line etc. He should also try to improve the use of capital letters - where they go in a sentence and which words need capitals etc. To be honest the finger spaces and spelling isn’t so bad, it’s letter formation and placement which need work.

don’t worry too much about joining for now. Twinkle have some good resources but make sure you use the correct ‘type’ ie not continuous cursive!!

it’s not miles and miles off what I’ve seen before with year 2 children.

what does his teacher say? Does he show any other signs of dyspraxia?

My Dd is yr 3 but 8 in July .. her writing was v similar last year in fact spelling was much worse, she’s come on so much in the last year and is one of the few in her class to get the “ handwriting pen “ and her writing looks like an adults when she takes her time, my friends Dd same age goes to a different school and was miles ahead progress wise but she’s at a very small school think 40 in whole school, where there’s 30 in my daughters class so maybe that’s why. In yr 2 the teacher said my Dd was very behind with reading now she’s top 3 in class .. I wouldn’t worry just yet, maybe speak to a teacher if you are concerned see if he’s where he needs to be .. but if he’s anything like my DD one day it ll click just takes some a little longer I think.

I think some of the kids in my dds classes had writing like that in y2 and even into y3. They could all write fine by y6.

does he struggle with other fine motor stuff? I’d be more concerned if he also struggles with buttons, zips etc more than he should for his age.

I would focus on the full stops and capitals before anything else. Can he edit/correct his own work with your help, to help his future writing?
Is he school or home educated? If school, I imagine he will be starting joined up/ cursive in September, if home, then maybe you can start? Then just concentrate on sizing etc there. For example you could get the CGP Year 3 handwriting book (pretty sure this is where joined starts!) but be pretty strict and erase and re-do sections where the sizing isn't correct as in what they're copying.
Copying sentences ideally with handwriting lines is so beneficial for this.

Focus on speaking and listening (esp using ‘the’ and using correct tenses/ modelling correct tenses - not correcting him but repeating back correctly), reading and fine motor skills like using scissors, tying laces, playing with play dough etc.

Hard to say from just one piece but I think he’s ‘working towards’ which means not too far behind. Also remember, this y2 have been most affected by covid due to being in nursery when it first hit. They’re massively behind with spelling and handwriting. I’m a y2 teacher and we’re seeing it across the whole cohort.
If you can do one thing, focus on the reading ☺️

Ps - I wouldn’t advocate for lots of writing practice at home. I think it’s counterproductive x

The thing is, we have been working on exactly all that you say, he'll trace the tall and short letters etc but then as soon as he has to write it freehand he's back to square 1. It's as though he can't translate what he's seeing/tracing into what he's writing himself. And he academically knows the rules about capitals and full stops if you ask him, but as soon as he's actually putting pencil to paper it seems he just can't reliably apply it.

I'm meeting with the teacher next week so I'll see what she says.

Other signs of dyspraxia/motor things - really poor at catching and throwing. Can't reliably kick a ball. Struggles with buttons. Can't do simple sewing activies. Very messy eater and only learnt to butter his toast age 7. Often puts clothes on back to front. Seems not to understand instructions about where to go /how to play a game during sports. E.g. at sports day yesterday he couldn't line himself up in his race and ended up colliding with another team! He also did a whole event facing the wrong way, all the other children seemed to know which direction to face! He did a term of after school tennis, and never once hit the ball. Slow to learn to swim. But can ride a bike well and rollerskate (just!) Avoids all arts and craft activities - I know this is a vicious circle but it's hard to break

He also (I think) has ASD traits but as he causes no problems in school I don't think they really register that and I don't think he'd meet the threshold for an assessment in our area.

Looks fine? My son's is much messier, he doesn't take care and goes too quickly sometimes, it's not particularly legible. My mum worried a lot about my brother's handwriting, he never joined his up, but writing has been a big feature of his life (published articles etc). Neat writing has not contributed or distracted from any of his success.

I have no idea how this is in relation to year 2 as my son is older but just in case you haven't heard of it have you considered dysgraphia?

My son has dyspraxia and has worked hard on his handwriting over the years. He can do cursive etc.

However, he still struggles with using appropriate punctuation, including capital letters, full stops etc. we googled this and dysgraphia came up. Had never heard of it but it seems to fit so we are getting him assessed for this.

Hopefully all will just fall into place as yours is younger so still could be perfectly normal.

To be fair my sons writing in year 2 was way messier than that but from what you say he sounds just like my son. Particularly the not really knowing what way to face etc.

Could be worth an assessment from ot ?

Thanks all, lots to think about.
To those suggesting OT assessment, I think I will ask the teacher about this next week.

Hi OP, I'm a Year 2 teacher of very many years. We have just submitted our end of year data after being externally moderated. This year has been particularly stressful as we've had the 'knock on' with this cohort from the Covid lockdown. These were the little ones who missed out on their pre-school years as well as over a full term in Reception, so they had all of that early gross and fine motor learning lost as well as phonics and writing skills in EYFS. In my 30 years of teaching I've never had a cohort with so many referrals for dyspraxia/dyslexia and social/emotional needs.

From this one piece it's actually hard to give a real judgement, but I would say (in this alone) your son is on the lower end of Working Towards the end of Key Stage Expectations (which is like saying he's at an early Year 1 level).

It does sound like you could do with some support from your SENDCO though from reading what you've put about your son's sense of spacial awareness. I hope that you get some answers...be aware though that some councils have now stopped accepting referrals for and assessing for dyspraxia (where I am no longer recognise it 🤷‍♀️) so our parents either have to get a private diagnosis or accept that their child will get no support as we can do very little other than 'quality first teaching' and 'our absolute best with no resourcing or funding' 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I wish you all the very best for you and your son ♥️