What age child would you think wrote this?

[yoozer16427942]

My DS wrote this and after my DM saw it and made some comments I'm looking for some outside opinions! So what age would you think he is if you saw this.

I think that there's such variation at that age. The spelling and grammar to me is that of a 5-6 year old and the handwriting of an 8-9 year old. The teaching of English is certainly better in terms of spelling and grammar than it was 20-30 years ago. I would have expected at least capital letters at the start of sentences as they really drum those in at school. His school work might not be reflective of ability because teachers often put tricky words up on the board for them to copy or they copy their friends.

Agree with PP who said there doesn't seem to be as much emphasis on spelling as there was 20 years ago.

Just had parents Evening and my Yr 8 child's English teacher said most of the years grades were pulled down by poor spelling accounting for 1/3 of their grade, but that it only accounts for around 4% of the grade at GCSE.

6

Yes I was going to make this point as well. I am not a teacher but have heard teacher friends (and commentary in the news) about how educationally behind that cohort are.

I think the effects are just now being identified and understood.

6-7

The handwriting is MUCH better than my five year old's but the spelling is similar to what she would likely come up with. But she wouldn't write that much in one go either so I'll say 7/8?

The handwriting in parts looks about 10, but the spelling in not fantastic for that age so maybe 6 with good writing or 10 with bad spelling?

I would say age 6. Nice handwriting at that age with some attempt at punctuation. Needs to do some work on high frequency words e.g girl but spelt many common exception words correctly e.g was, they. Also need a little work on remembering capital letters. I’d say they do know where correct capital letters should go as they remembered a capital T early on but have forgotten as they carried on writing. A few tweaks should see a good improvement.

Easily 8/9. Looks a bit like my 8 yo who was just diagnosed. Similar spelling. Lovely story - shows great imagination.

Interesting seeing all the mentions of dyslexia as it looks a lot like me ASD 8 year old's handwriting. She can read really well and no one has ever mentioned dyslexia but she really struggles with spelling.

6/7

I tutored some 6/7 year olds in 2021/22 and their parents thought they were dyslexic. They all quickly caught up and I could see the phonics gaps were down to Covid. If your DS is 8 he would have been 4/5 in Covid at a guess. ASD assessors don’t usually have dyslexia assessor qualifications so they will only be able to signpost you to dyslexia assessors. Following with interest as these are my areas of specialism. Many autistic children have handwriting difficulties (not all) and this is good handwriting for an 8 year old with Covid gaps.

I think people who aren't familiar with how phonics are taught now are out of touch with how kids progress.

This is what my DD (just turned 7) does. She consistently gets 8-10 / 10 in spelling tests, but doesn't seem to retain the information & makes up all sorts of weird and wonderful spellings when left to her own devices. Y2 teacher was not concerned but I'll keep a close eye as she goes into Y3. Her reading is very good interestingly.

I'd have said 6/7 based on seeing a lot of handwriting/spelling from children aged 7-9.

7 or 8. Spelling is poor but phonetic so they are thinking it through each time which is good. I would love to live in a kotig like that 😁

Zombie thread....

I'd guess around 6ish