7 in a few days writing

[writingworry]

Hi I've attached a pic of a party invite my 6 (7) year old

I recently moved his school as they told me at his last school he was about average
His writing was illegible

Now he goes to a new school who said he was more at the end of reception level with reading and writing and maths

Carpet time etc all the ideas are there

It's crumbling my heart

He's going to a tutor once week and his teacher is so supportive
I haven't seen her since before Christmas I was sick

But this is progress in our house

So I've asked to see the tutor for a parent teacher meeting

I am wondering about other childrens writing of this agE

We believe he is AsD spectrum and also ADhD so he has support at school but no EUHCP

I am on the pathway but will go private as it's years

He is asking about grammar school 🥹🥹❤️

I think the range of normal is huge at that age. Listen to the school, they know your child better than us.
Tbh, DD is the same age and her writing is quite a lot better than that.

That's better than my NT six, nearly seven year old son. I'm not worried at all.

My DH couldn't read till he was nearly 8. Very bright, highly educated man now.

Kids vary hugely.

So reassuring he has a big brain and I don't want him to turn off because he can't write it down poor thing

I’m dyslexic, went to grammar school and thrived. One of the things that really helped me with words was having them hand written really big on a number of pieces of paper (I used to use the old rolls of printer paper) each letter would be about 8 inches high and I just used to sit and trace the words with my finger as I’d pronounce it. For me it really helped to learn the shape of a word and then I could remember what it was supposed to look like.
there are lots of other tips and strategies for dyslexic learners- find the right strategies and I am sure he will thrive.

My DD used to transpose letters a lot, look up mirror writing it’s a thing. She’s a greater depth reader/writer now.

Just saying he may be at one end of average, might need some intervention/extra support at school, or may be something else. Keep up relations with your new school who sound much better and they’ll support.

Good luck 🤞

I don't really understand. That's a lot of words for a party invitation?

If he was writing that much for every child invited, no wonder he was struggling.

They don't start reading and writing till they're about six or seven in some countries.

That makes me feel better about it.

I focus on verbal reasoning, problem solving and logic. We've taken the pressure off actual literacy for a bit

The good thing is that he seems to have the confidence to have a go at writing and his letter formation is not too bad. Stay positive and keep encouraging him. He's still very young and with the right support things can improve.

Is that the first one he wrote? Or the last of 10 etc.

It's fine!! My boys both struggled with writing at that age. Oldest is in yr 6 now and lovely writing. On target for all SATs, so don't stress! Writing with boys takes time :)

Thank you so much for this and sharing something so vulnerable

Xx

Not sure if it's me or if your tone isn't nice but

I wrote all the invites and that was for his best friend

It means he made a huge effort and the reason it's a huge deal is because he can't sit still for more then ten minutes and we sat at the table to do it together

He is really hard on himself

Always wondered if that's just how it gets perceived

Making my kid write too many letters out..

This is a much more balanced approach

I did want to keep them both back , however I didn't realise that the children who turn 4 before 31st august 2023 would just start in year 1 in 2024....

It's very early to put pressure on children isn't it

I wrote them all for him and he just folded some of them

He then drew a few little pictures on that invite but the others were simply my details

He is telling a little story to his friend but his letters I don't know if they look average or not

How sad to feel like this

Thanks for nicer way of asking,

There's no way I was letting him use my pink posca pen, saved for special Kayshuns as they get called 🥹

It could easily be one end of the expected spectrum, but things to keep an eye on, and hope to see improvements before his birthday next year (and some may be solved by writing on lined paper - it's much harder on plain paper!):
Drifting in from the margin
Letters like f,p,g,y going beneath the line
Random capital letters
I've got a small screen, and am struggling to enlarge. Has he skipped and switched letters? Is he copying an invite, or writing a story? DS1 really struggles with copying, as it involves to much tracking and placemarking of where you are and need to be.

Biggest tell for DS1 was the massive gulf between verbal work and written work. Ahead when things were being discussed, but couldn't convert those thoughts into written work anywhere near the same standard.

Gut instinct - based on nothing more than that one sample of work, which isn't enough to conclude anything - is there is some learning difference there. It could be the ASD/ADHD. It could be dyslexia/dysgraphia/dyspraxia/similar.
It could be a combination. And there is absolutely nothing stopping any of those being combined with being bright and grammar school material.

Totally off topic: if your other child hasn't started school yet, you can ask to defer school entry for summer born kids, and they start in reception, one year later - so are a couple of months older rather than the youngest in the year.

My sons writing was like this. Have a look at the national handwriting association, they have alot of practical support for handwriting. It has really helped my son.
most important thing is to encourage him.

I'm not saying that your son isn't (also) autistic, but to me this looks more like dyslexia or else just poor teaching and serious lack of practice at writing.

Being straightforward, this is extremely poor writing for a child of his age. My older child is a year older than yours and writes fluently. One of his classmates (still 7) has an ASD diagnosis and writes very well. My younger son is not a great writer (not one of the 5 or 6 best in his class of 20) but the letters are the right way round, joined up, and most of the spelling is correct. (At the start of the year that wasn't true.)

May be going against the grain here, but I think you need to do some serious work on writing at home.

Are you a teacher?

I read at four. My DH at seven.

We now both have degrees and postgrads.

@sylvandweller

Yes, at university level. A humanities subject. I've also published a few books.

I don't need a PhD to tell me that this is poor writing from a child of 7. Most of the children in my younger son's year 1 class (at a pretty average state primary in central London) are much better writers. The content seems quite complex and thoughtful, but there are serious problems with phonics and letter-formation. Nothing about the sweet note to his best friend suggests autism to me, but I'd be amazed if this child isn't dyslexic.

I’d say the current school are about right with their judgement of that being reception level. Is he having intervention of some sort in school as well as seeing a tutor outside of school?

Do you have anything written on lines? It can be quite difficult for young children to write legibly on unlined paper.

Random but my writing is awful and always have been. Was a very early reader and I realise now it's because I can't write fast enough to get my thoughts down on paper? If that makes sense
So my brain is going a million miles an hour and I'm trying to scribble to keep up and not concentrating on how it looks

If we were to focus on handwriting alone, my son's handwriting has always been awful. He went to private school from an early age until he graduated, but that didn't help his legibility at all. However, he's doing an engineering PhD now.

Having guidelines across the page would assist your DS to know where the letters should begin and end.

Well, to me this is a child who has tried hard to write letters neatly and correctly and nicely. It’s good letter formation for his age and it’s evident he holds his pen well enough. He has tried and he has taken care over his work. It doesn’t matter too much at this age that he hasn’t got all of them right, that will come with practice. It’s also very difficult for children this age to write on blank paper.

The worrying thing is that he has written gibberish. Apart from “total” at the beginning, this looks like a random assortment of letters and numbers, with no attempt at word separation or sentence separation. Do you know what he was trying to write? Was he copying the invitations you’d written?

How is his reading? How much practice does he get with reading and writing?

I’m NOT an expert, but to me this looks like a child who wants to, and tries to, but can’t do it (yet). What does he think of his work?

Best of luck with the ASD / ADHD assessments, I'm glad to hear your son already gets support from school and has such a lovely teacher. He obviously has great support at home too, you sound really caring.

My DS is now 17 and his handwriting (despite many, many interventions over the years) is still largely illegible. He's autistic and has always struggled with other coordination-related tasks too (eg tying shoelaces). Since Year 10 he's used a school laptop for writing tasks, but most importantly, he was able to use it in exams.
We and (most) teachers have been very encouraging and supportive of him. Obviously I'm biased(!) but DS has fantastic, unusual ideas and is really intelligent, he just struggled to get it all down on the page! It was important to me that he didn't lose heart or switch off from learning and thankfully he never has.
Just wanted to send you and your DS my best wishes and solidarity really!

This writing, if it is a good example of his writing generally would be judged as pre key stage (one) at this point so the school are right, lack of finger spaces, some letter strings etc. but his letter formation is ok so there is a foundation to work on. What is his phonics like?