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?

"Write short sentences with words with known sound-letter correspondences using a capital letter and full stop." "Only ask children to write sentences when they have sufficient knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. Dictate sentences to ensure they contain only the taught sound-letter correspondences."

This is what it says in the Non Statutory Framework regarding what children will be working on in Reception class. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007446/6.7534_DfE_Development_Matters_Report_and_illustrations_web__2_.pdf

Here is information from a school selecting the relevant passage in 2014 National Curriculum for Year 1 www.oaktree.stockport.sch.uk/serve_file/100030

I haven't read the whole thread but I would say that is behind. My Y1 DD is writing stories with several paragraphs, proper sentence structure and has knowledge of adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs etc. My friends DD is also Y1, still 5 and has SEN and can write more complex sentences or can put mulitple simple sentences into a paragraph.

You say her is interest is mainly science so you've been pursuing that but written communication is absolutely essential in science! Perhaps if you do a lot of the science kits start writing down observations, hypotheses etc with her (obviously age appropriate). Perhaps a little lab book to get her interested? You can work a lot of the literature skills into the science experiements.

Op to be fair it's quite common for a child to say they want to be a scientist, doctor , vet and take a very keen interest in those topics. My ds is in a STEM Club at school and really interested in Science as well. However, that is something that might change many times and he needs exposure to a wide range of subjects.
You say your dd is very good at visual instructions to complete experiments, but the reading and writing is just as important and even more so as they become more complex. What is her reading like? What types of books does she enjoy?

That is end of 1st term in reception.

@MadeForThis
Hi, no they wouldn't spell the words correctly. We aim to have the year 1 common exception words spelt correctly but otherwise as long as all the spellings are phonetically plausible at this stage that's fine

Might be worth looking at National Curriculum and what is covered in each yr group (if you haven’t already done so) to get some idea if what is taught/expectations in school. She sounds fine to me.

How did you get on at that age? It sounds like DD is making good progress elsewhere, so if she isn't leading the field in all subjects does it matter?

I'm not in the UK and know an almost 6 year old who can only really reliably write her name, mama, and papa, can just about blend basic consonant-vowel-consonant words, and definitely wouldn't be able to write anything like a sentence. The kids seem to have an equivalent level of education by the time they get to secondary (where I teach), and higher in languages.

I just double checked curriculum expectations here to make sure she's not horrendously behind, and in her year she should have covered the alphabet (which she has), but not expected to read fluently. Education isn't compulsory here until 6 years old so I think she's doing okay.
My point is that expectations vary massively according to culture and country, so even if your kid isn't in line with her UK peers in everything right now, it's not necessarily a problem if you're not planning on sending her to school in the next couple of years and she can progress more at her own rate until end of primary.

Side note: ofc what she wants to do in future may well change, but even if she wants to be a scientist, remember she'll need more than just science GCSEs to do that, to go to college for A levels (unlikely you can provide A level grade science practicals safely at home) and uni.

I haven't read through the whole thread.
My child is in P1 in Scotland. By this time of year they're all 5 or 6. That level of sentence would be within normal levels for my child's class. Some will be a bit better. Your approach sounds similar to our school where they teach the tools they need and really have deep understanding of all the concepts.
My 6 Yr old is currently, learning how to write a sentence correctly, capital letter, finger space, on the line, full stop.
Comprehension and story writing tools. Correctly writing all common and tricky words learned. Correct formation of letters and acceptable size. They really hammer all these things as well as punctuation and are expected to be accurate in their use of this when attempting it. There'll be other stuff but I won't realise it. The national benchmarks for Scotland go from age 3 to P1. Then P2 3 and 4. The acceptable levels leave room for individual progress.
Your approach sounds great and she'll likely take off quickly from where she is. Like others have said. The fact that she's initiating it herself is perfect.

My home educated year 1 child can write more than that but is behind her school educated cousin the same age/ year in every regard for English... reading, writing and grammar knowledge/ understanding. But also she can tell you about the collapse of Rome and play keyboard a bit which her cousin can't do! 😉
But I'm not worried, I am pretty certain in my curricum choices for English and she'll be on track or ahead by end of year 6.
I'd say she is behind compared to school, but I bet your little one knows lots of other things!! She'll catch up. Progress and varied education is all that matters really.

When it comes to writing, I would discuss with her what she's going to write and then create a word bank together. So write some words for her that can't be sounded out.

Then, leave her to write her own sentences using the word bank you've created together. She will still need to add her own common words and words that can be easily sounded out.

Spelling at this stage isn't massively important. It's more about being able to hear the sounds in words, break them down and write them as you hear them. If you get too hung up on spelling every word correctly, children become reluctant to write.

Work on common words recognition and spellings regularly so she can confidently include them in her writing.

This is my 5 year, two month year old. They are in the top group in reception.

My eight year old could write a sentence in reception and my youngest is in nursery he could write a simple sentence but I know a lot of his peers couldn’t. Children have fallen behind because of COVID, I think your child sounds a little behind but I bet lots of their class is too.

If you are genuinly interested there will be lots of info available, both here on MN and internet. The OP didnt come on here for you to tell her you disapprove of homeschooling while you hadnt even made an effort to see why people do it.

No problem, I was worried I’d unintentionally offended you. I’d definitely have a look at the curriculum objectives and go from there, it’ll give you an indication of the standard expectations and you can then adapt these depending on how you feel about it. I hope it goes well. The beauty of home education is being able to focus on whatever you want / need to.

Just to add. In case people aren't aware, the Scottish curriculum is completely different to the English system with different expectations at different levels.

Whilst I don't think I could ever home educate personally, I am definitely not against it, and a family I worked for home educated their little girl, but loosely followed the NC as they always planned to put her back into school for secondary (which they have done now and she's in top sets for everything). The first 3 years she was behind, really behind in literacy, but then somewhere in the 3rd year she just absolutely flourished and everything sort of clicked and then she was ahead of the NC, reading books designed for secondary aged children by 10 and absolutely loved learning. There is no right time, just focus on her love of learning and support as best you can.

The 6 year olds in my class are learning to write simple sentences and started probably after February break. There are in a cohort who are beginning to turn 7 and some can do it relatively easily and many can't. No point in comparing. At this age the range of ability is pretty large and covid has affected things a lot too. If she's keen that's the main thing

Part of DD6 Y1 home learning set by her school during lockdown was writing a basic story with a beginning, middle and end.

I agree with @katepilar and some others - OP, with the best will in the world it honestly sounds to me like you’ve got inferiority issues that you’re trying really hard to not let your daughter develop - but in doing so you’re inadvertently pushing for something that’s just not there right now and if you push too hard too soon you could break her.

you don’t have to try and keep up with the Jones’ let alone better them…

( and calling the HE people “Lax” is very rude I feel !)

I think if you're going to homeschool then you either need to download all the national curriculum standards and expectations (the descriptions of "working towards" and "greater depth" or whatever they call it these days) and monitor progress this way, OR you need to put it out of your mind and do your own thing.

Vague comparisons from unqualified strangers are honestly not helpful. And if you asked the same question 3 times on this same forum, the 3 sets of replies would follow 3 very different paths 🤷‍♀️

Are you following some sort of curriculum or guide? Children in school write daily, they've got all sorts of lovely sentences coming out of Reception and Year 1. I'm a bit eyebrow-raisy at a 6 year old finally stringing four words together.

It's, er, nice she gets to build models at home but if you've decided you're the best person to be responsible for her entire education, don't neglect literacy and numeracy for letting the kid 'do what she likes', unless she plans to live a life of leisure.

It’s “learnt” in the U.K. mostly

But learned is correct also. Your point?