Six year old just learned to write a sentence.

[clairemaddox]

I would like to gauge an idea of whether my six year old needs more work or not. She has been concentrating on sums and learning how to write.

She just turned six and she wrote 'i got a bag' on her own without help.

This is the first sentence she has written all by herself in her book unaided.

I know every child is different, but is this "behind" or not?

I work in year 1. We would consider this level of writing to be behind (sorry). Most of ours know when to use capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. Most can use adjectives and conjunctions. As well as writing questions or using exclamation marks.
I do find with writing though they can seem behind and then all of a sudden make loads of progress.

Thanks. Yes, I know other countries do play-based learning until about age 7.

I just want to hold myself to a high standard for her and don't want to fall behind unintentionally.

The home ed community are very lax in their approach but I don't want to be as lax as them that's why I sought input from parents who use school.

Don't be sorry. Knowing that means I can remedy it.

This is the thing; she makes very fast progress.

Your input is very helpful and I can now focus accordingly. Thank you.

Page 14 outlines expectations of writing: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/335186/PRIMARYnationalcurriculum-English220714.pdf

Certainly she would be doing far more complex writing in school. Whether you're happy to sacrifice that in order to develop in other areas is of course up to you. But the fact that you're asking indicates you want her to at be at the same level as her school-attending peers. So perhaps something has to give?

Thank you :)

I think she is doing really well but since she's the light of my life and I adore her and she's my only child I feel I need outside input, also input that isn't the general line of the home ed community which is 'she's where she needs to be' - I agree with this but also like to have harsh criticism so I can 'aim for the moon fall among the stairs' sort of deal.

An example sentence would be -
On Saturday I went to the shop with Mummy and got a yummy ice cream!

That's average. Our highers would be more -
On Saturday I went shopping with my Mummy and she got me a delicious chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

But our highers are writing paragraphs rather than sentences at this point in the year.

It's a level expected of children at the end of Reception/start of year 1 so yes by our current educational standards she's a little bit "behind"
In reality though, you have chosen to home school her presumably to escape those unhelpful comparisons. If she's keen to learn and making progress then I think that's good enough for a just turned 6 year old.

Also if I helps at all, I think we focus way too much on writing and I think they should still all be playing! It would take much less time to teach all this stuff if we waited until they're ready!

You can’t expect her to be at the same stage at a schooled child unless you are recreating school at home and following the National curriculum. It seems unfair on your child to do so.
Having home educated for a long time now, I understand the wobbles you sometimes get as it is a huge responsibility but really you would be better off asking in a home education group where you will get a wide variety of answers on what other 6 year olds are doing, some more than your child and some less.

Have you had a look at the national curriculum documents for her age group? They outline what would be expected progress for a child at school at that age.

This looks like the right document but maybe a primary school teacher can clarify. I teach secondary so I don’t make use of primary documents often. National Curriculum KS1/2

This is a link to national curriculum, if you look from page 12 onwards that is the year 1 writing section

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/335186/PRIMARYYnationalcurriculumm-Englishh_220714.pdf

Thank you. As I said above, she's interested in science so we have many kits and a subscription from MEL and she puts things together. I think with things like pictorial instructions she has no issue and can put together her kit alone, which I found impressive.

She struggled with writing and I found this difficult because it's something I am good at. She struggled less with numbers, so adding and subtracting again she can do alone.

She can do division also using physical coins and tell me the answer to 12 divided by 4 by sharing out the counters and giving me the answer.

I'm more looking for what's expected of me than her :)

Thank you so much for taking the time to do that for me. It's really helpful.

I'd have been thrilled at that. Mine was not home educated.

What do you mean by "she does rainbows" op?

I am actually thrilled because she did it all of her own accord and came to show me.

We've done lots of stuff together and I've been trying to just hammer into her about how letters make sounds and sounds make words, and this was totally spontaneous so I was over the moon.

I'm happy with the input I've received here because it's given me an idea of where I should go when we start again next week. She's out this weekend with family so Tuesday I will start again at the next level.

You could also look at the lessons on the Oak National academy to see what level is being thought in classrooms and what the expectations are.

classroom.thenational.academy/subjects-by-key-stage/key-stage-1

"The home ed community are very lax in their approach but I don't want to be as lax as them that's why I sought input from parents who use school"

Why don't you want to send her to school?

She is in Girl Guides. For age 6 it's called Rainbows. It's an hour long session each week.

DS1 (11) has dyslexia, so has taken a long time to catch up to average/ expected standards within the school curriculum. But the school curriculum can be very prescriptive and one-size-fits-all.

At 6 his writing was hard to read with poor, inconsistent letter formations/ spacing, flipping letters and very phonetic spelling. He got a Star of the Week late in y1 because he'd written a paragraph and the teacher could decipher it all for the first time. He's always found the grammar content of the curriculum difficult.

In home education, you don't have to compare to the curriculum which caters poorly for children being "ready" at different times. The learning experiences of reading, being read to, drawing, mark making, writing and fine motor play (e.g. picking up beads) are very important. In another year or so, the differences of maturity in readiness for formal learning balance out a bit and many make leaps forward as things click together. It's for this reason that dyslexia testing starts from 7, because it filters out the slow starters that just needed a bit more maturing time. You also have the advantage of playing to their interests.

Independently writing is a great thing.
Many children can write more than a sentence. Some still struggle.
There are lots of features to a sentence (hand writing, content, understanding) This sentence is a simple one, but its a foundation, and the satisfaction of realising you can make your point in writing is a powerful motivator to keep learning.

I'm not assessing where she's at here, just that the range at this age is broad and progress happens at different rates even within one class sharing a teacher.

Here are the end of year expectations for a child in Year 1

Probably similar reasons to why you want to send yours to school really.

Why do you want to send yours to school?

Have you tried story dice as they can help formulate thinking rather than just what's down on paper