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 have realised from this thread that "writing" in England has a different meaning than in my home country. What you talk about is more in sense of creative writing, creating sentences and stories. For me writing is the physical action of creating the letters and words. We have a different word for writing stories/texts and children start learning that at much later stage at school, in their fifth year of school at the age of about 10.

To be honest I was going to post and echo other people's thoughts on the fact you don't seem to ascribe to the viewpoints more commonly held by those who make the choice to Home Ed.

However, I'm not sure I'll bother offering much in the way of support, encouragement and other advice because whether you mean to or not you are coming across really abruptly and being quite rude to posters who are taking their time out to offer you advice.

I didn’t think I’d been harsh, just simply answering your question, in what I thought was an honest but supportive way.

For my children reading (and enjoying reading) were the key to literacy.

I was writing and illustrating stories at that age.

I didn't mean you, you probably did and I appreciate it.

I agree. I think there is really no gain trying to make children, who dont have the motor skills to hold a pencil, write. I feel sorry for all those children being forced to produce shaky wobbly letters before they are ready for it.
My German charges in a waldorf school learned to write "printed" letters in their second school year, aged 7/8 and joined-up handwriting in their third year, aged 8/9.

Sorry, just meant in general I wanted to get harsh judgement so came here. The advice I've got is really helpful and will inform how we move forward.

My almost 5 year old in reception will write ‘stories’ eg ‘Once upon a time there was a man who liked to plant seeds. Every day he would check on his seeds and one day there was a flower’. She will use capital letters, full stops, finger gaps etc and the structure will be right but her spellings are all over the place and very phonetic for now. I imagine by year 1 and age 6 she would be quite far beyond what your DD does. I think DD is fairly bright and loves school but I don’t think she’s light years above her class they all seem similar!

This. I’m a teacher of 16 years and be pro home Ed too. I’m a bit concerned by your responses saying ‘thanks, I need a push’ as it’s what SHE needs that’s important surely? Thinking about each sentence in terms of how many conjunctions, adjectives etc is the kind of mechanistic approach you have the prime opportunity to avoid. You said she likes science experiments. If she wrote about an experiment she’d just carried out she would almost certainly include more complex sentences naturally, to say what she wanted to say. Concentrate on rich experiences and opportunities for real writing rather than getting hung up on levelling. It sounds like you’re both doing fine!

*Very pro home Ed too!

It strikes me that she hasn't used any digraphs in the sentence she wrote and it's all one letter or cvc words. Has she learned these (such as th, sh, oa, ee, and so on)? If she only knows the alphabet it might be more difficult for her to figure out how to write more complex words at this stage.

Is she using more complex words and sentences in her speech? That would be the first step to writing them. If not, look into how you can increase her speaking and listening opportunities. You can use her interests for this, such as by reading science books together and discussing them using new vocabulary.

Read her poems and rhyming books, again and again, so she can understand the patterns that go into these words and phrases.

I'd build writing into her science lessons. Have her write a hypothesis and then report whether it went as planned or not. The children in my Y1 class love science and it is much easier to get them to write up a scientific report at an appropriate level than it is to get some of them to write in their books.

Yes you're right. Thank you. No, I didn't mean it's all about me. It's just my responsibility and I want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

She resisted learning to write for a while, so the writing up of experiments in the little clipboards you get, she didn't want to do it.

But now that she's got the basics she will probably be more open to it and I'll approach it that way and things like projects and stories.

I think we are doing fine, but having an idea of how other children her in school are doing (as opposed to the ones we know in home ed, who are very varied) is what I was looking for - something a bit more real world than just looking at the standards online.

Ok I’m ready to get slaughtered - but I just don’t get the home education thing. I appreciate in some situations it’s absolutely the right course, but just to deprive your child of school just because you want to sounds nuts.

I know I’m going to get all sorts of abuse for saying so, but school has so many benefits, peer interaction, learning different boundary’s, structure, coming out of your comfort zone, never mind the learning aspect.

I just don’t get how keeping everything so insular does any sort of service to the child, eventually they’ll have to get out in the real world with a real lack of experience in it!

sorry I hope it goes well but I genuinely don’t get it

The things you've mentioned there are things my child gets. We are not insular, I am very against being insular.

She plays with children who are home educated, and those who go to school.

Boundaries are important, she spends time with family and friends and learns about boundaries. Safety is very important.

She is in the real world and experiencing it; in clubs, classes, which we pay for varied things.

It's just not in a school setting, and it's not 9 - 3 Monday to Friday.

This won’t be comparable as my son is at school but just to give you an idea.

My son turned 6 in February and is in Year 1. He can write longer sentences and paragraphs using capital letter, comma, full stop, finger spaces, good spellings and adjectives. His handwriting is great but we did get help for it as he did the magic handwriting course. He’s also an independent reader and brings home books which are Lime + and for independent reading.

How is your daughter’s reading? I think once the reading happens, the writing follows.

No he is not behind now. He may have been at “working towards” rather than secure at a younger age in terms of curriculum standard though. However none of his teachers were overly concerned at all. I would say that his teachers never said that they expected him to be writing the kinds of sentences people are citing here in year 1. He is way ahead in maths and also ahead in reading so I have no concerns although I’m not sure he will ever have neat handwriting. They learnt joined up handwriting from reception which I really believe was the wrong thing for him. I would add though that there is also a big difference between girls and boys in writing when they are young.

I think what you describe is definitely at the lower end the of spectrum but children develop at different rates so that isn’t cause for concern. What is cause for concern I think, is that you are their main teacher and you don’t really have a grasp on expectations for the age and therefore can’t necessarily direct your child’s learning sufficiently. This is the problem with much home education. I’m absolutely not against it, but only where parents understand how to support a child’s learning effectively. I’m not trying to criticise you here, but I think you need to do some more research and learning yourself.

What makes you think that home educated children lead an insular life with no interaction, structure or experience of the real world? I can only presume you have very limited knowledge on this topic.

Reception teacher phonics lead here... Are you following a phonics programme with her? Because it is absolutely useless and unfair to ask her to write and read things that she hasn't been prepared for.

For example, the sentence that she has written has one "tricky word" and two CVC words. The children in Reception (age 4/5) who are most interested in writing will be able to write this by the end of the first term in Reception. There are others who will still be copying CVC words and only beginning to segment and blend by July. By year 1 summer term even the "lower group" should be writing sentences using tricky words, high frequency words, phase 2 + 3 sounds, capital letters and full stops.

This sentence that you ask whether she should be able to write "I took a pink bag to the shops with my dog on a lead" has four "tricky" words in it, two vowel digraphs from phase 3 phonics, and "w" and "th" sounds which are also from phase 3.

So what she can or can't write / should or shouldn't be able to write is of course limited by what you have taught her and where she is up to within the phonics programme. The rest will come with practise and time. Remember that phonetic writing is considered "correct" also, at this age it isn't about spelling e.g. "froot" would be considered correctly spelt for "fruit" because it is phonetically plausible.

Here is a link to an example of the year 1 phonics screening that she would be doing around this time were she in mainstream education : www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2019-materials

I work in year 1. We are looking at the book Rapunzel. Yesterday we did character descriptions, I modelled Rapunzel with the children's help. We were also focusing on using the conjunctions and/because to extend their sentences. My top pupils were able to write a paragraph independently, writing sentences such as: The witch has a long pointy hat and beady eyes. She is evil because she trapped Rapunzel in the tower. My lower pupils needed more support to write more simple sentences. I would say she is working towards expected standards currently. However, if that was written completely independently you will see a big improvement in her writing over the next few months as she has a secure understanding of the sentence structure. What you are doing in science sounds amazing, I wish we could have more time in schools to focus on subjects like this to really spark their learning. It sounds like you are doing a good job xx

Out of interest do you have the curriculum for the Uk that states this?

Not at all. My 7 year old nieces can barely write their own names yet. Every child is different and their brain and motor skills develop at different paces. Try to stay off of Google first and foremost.

Additionally, if you feel that DC is ‘behind’ then try to spend more time with them at home, writing, doing homework together and so on.