How old would you assume the child who wrote this was?

[AloyNoraWarrior]

My DS is 9 in Y4. He’s very upset as he said some children in his class have been laughing at his writing. I know he is behind because his school report last term said working towards expectations for every subject. But I’m thinking it must be bad if other children are noticing.

He does have ASD and we are waiting for an ADHD assessment. Last year I asked his teacher if could be assessed for dyslexia because he writes his name incorrectly, but they said they don’t assess children for dyslexia anymore.

I was just wondering how his writing compares to other children his age as I’m not sure what level it should be at. The photo represents his best effort. The second line of the poem is ‘when I am a pest’

I would treasure that poem.

I think it's wonderful.

And I would assume the child to be somewhere around the 8/9 year old age.

Lovely poem, maybe it's the lack of joined up. I don't think it looks terrible.

I think it's lovely and better than my dsc's handwriting at that age.

Think your son has a bullying problem rather than a handwriting problem.

I think schools should be teaching kids to copy type and stop obsessing over handwriting personally.

That poem is beautiful and his classmates are shits.

I'm a Speech Pathologist based in Australia.... I would be querying the statement of not testing for dyslexia anymore ad that is news to me...

Beautiful. Doesn't matter how old the child is or what the writing. The sentiment is there and that's all that counts

And why are kids so horrible to other kids 😟

It’s a lovely poem and you clearly have a lovely boy.

The teacher has already told you he’s behind though. Honestly, I’d make an appointment to see her and the schools SenCo. ‘We don’t assess for dyslexia’ is not a reasonable thing for them to say! You need to know a) why they feel he is behind, 2) how you can help him, 3) how he is being helped in school, 4) in their opinion would he benefit from a private Ed Psych assessment (these aren’t cheap, you don’t say if this is something you can consider or not, but even if you can’t afford it, I would still want to know if they felt he needed it).

That's so lovely - the boy can write poetry! Even if he is dyslexic that's a gift 💜

I know this is a question about reading age but focussing on emotional intelligence, this kid is off the scale. Be very very proud.

That’s brilliant! The writing will improve (it’s not bad, anyway. I’ve seen adults with worse), but you can’t improve on that poem!

That is so cute.

They absolutely do assess children for dyslexia. The school might not do a full assessment but they should be able to do a screen. Mine were screened a few weeks ago and we are now going for private assessment. Worth doing if you can afford it. DTs got extra time in the SATS based on their screening results. I would be taking that up with the SENCO asap.

I've no idea but my heart hurts for your boy ♥

He is probably dyslexic and needs accessing, my OH has a dyslexic GS he had specialist tuition and handwriting is still poor but is very clever and runs his own business. Make sure you get the special tuition it makes an enormous difference, these days you are probably going to have to fight for it, or pay privately.

I like his handwriting, I can read it much easier than my son's handwriting (he was taught cursive halfway through primary and I think it's dreadful).

And the poem... is so simple and beautiful it made me well up, I'd absolutely treasure it. ❤️

Handwriting in young children is something schools seem overly obsessed by, I don't understand it.

The sentiment is beautiful, but it is not all that counts.

The writing looks a little laboured to me, but then again 9 is still quite young.

However, I would definitely push for dyslexia assessment - or even just support. To illustrate what your advice might mean, here is our story:

DS was raising flags for dyslexia in early/mid primary. DS school said it would be a massively long wait for assessment. So we paid for private assessment. Private assessment said moderate dyslexia and gave lots of specific detail on why they thought that, plus suggested support things to try. School then said they would not formally acknowledge the dyslexia assessment BUT they would note that he had difficulties and support requirements that were 'dyslexia like' or had the same description without using the word dyslexia. No real idea why they wanted to do it this way, but the practical outcome for DS was overall helpful.

As an example, one suggestion was to photocopy dense text from text books to double size, to make it less dense to read. They would note that 'It can help DC to have pages copied to double size' but not that 'Due to dyslexia it can help DC to have pages copied to double size'.

Anyway, he went on to get a decent amount of support and has been granted additional time in some subjects for his Nat 5 exams (Scotland, GCSE equivalent) - this is on the basis that teachers have observed that he needs it and not because he has a report to say he has dyslexia.

I can read it, so its better than my husbands!

I don't think its bad at all. Bless him.

What a lovely poem, I would treasure that. You know what I am in my fifties and have never been able to do continuous cursive writing, I still print as I did when I was five. It never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do and nobody outside of Primary ever mentioned it and if your son only ever prints that is fine too. In this day and age nobody outside of primary does a great deal of handwriting anyway.

To add to that above, would we paid for was a private Ed Psych assessment which came back assessing him with dyslexia (and with specific detail on what his difficulties were). It is shorthand to say that it was a 'dyslexia assessment' as their finding could have been that is was something else.

At around that age the focus shifts to joined up writing and my child's perfectly adequate print morphed to an incoherent mess. He decided to join everything and his writing became one continuous, illegible stream with no word breaks.

The way we teach writing has a lot to answer for imo. Who cares how you write provided it's legible and you can do it reasonably quickly.

The poem is lovely and you clearly have a wonderful son. As for the handwriting, I would get him to practise at home, using one of the many handwriting practice books you can buy.

I would treasure the poem but would share your concerns about his handwriting. One of my children really struggled with hand writing - related to poor muscle tone from a difficult birth rather than dyslexia and no formal diagnosis of anything. Primary school was very supportive and tried lots of different strategies to encourage writing practice and also a few different pens until they found one that suited him better. Then they encoraged him to record ideas on a dictaphone before writing and considered both when marking/assessing as they had noticed he was over simplifying everything to what he could easily write in the time available. All this improved his confidence and his handwriting did get better. At senior school, speed of writing became the main issue so he had lessons in word processing and went on to use a laptop for exams.
Maybe time for a fuller discussion with the teacher.

What a lovely child.

Get your own private dyslexia assessment and if he's positive and you can possibly afford it, some coaching from a dyslexia specialist. Contact the charity. Work at home with sounds and books, just enjoying stories and rhyme. You'll get an idea of what you need to do.

You'll need to be his advocate now.