To ask how old you think the child is who wrote this?

[Fluffylikeacoconut]

I suspect I might get some snarky comments but I’m genuinely curious - people with more experience than me (which is zero) - what age would this be ‘typical’ of. Handwriting is joined and very good.

I am typing it exactly as it is written - spelling and punctuation.

The fire lit a spark - not only in my mind but in a foot deep pile of sharp kindling. It began its first meal, desperate for the first taste of fresh air. It ate and ate until it was sated.
You could feel the tension, taut in the air as the fire grew and grew. Below, the river looked up mesmirised as it slowly crossed beneath a bridge.
The fire danced on, waltzing with the twiggy fingers of the trees, the soft silky coccoons of leaves and the old, moldy, spiky kindling. Ash floated around me like little fairys and once again the fire opened its menacing jaws. As soon as the fire strocked a bright leaf dripping with sap, its thin flamey hands turned to a cold silver and then to stone black. The fire turned and tried to flee before it suddenly disintigreated.
Now the old forest is gone but the ecosystem begins again, I watch the very first bud blossoms bloom. I savour the moment and watch as the old forest rises again, new and beautiful.

So many jealous parents on here tonight….!

Mumsnet isn't representative of real life. People on here will always guess younger which in turn will put people off guessing older.

Your DC is very bright, the sentences are not exceptional in themselves but the vocabulary like sated are not words I hear used by primary (and older!) children.

I would have guessed around 12-13 before seeing your update.

Eh? It's a lovely piece of writing but it's littered with spelling and grammatical errors.

Thank you.
I think because my parents were pretty dismissive of me (would have said I was average at best, even though my exam results weren’t average and consequently I would describe myself as being not very bright, or on a bad day ‘stupid’) I don’t want to fall into the same pattern.
She works harder than her brother too I think.

Although she did this independently I can see that the overuse of adjectives and descriptive language is a definite primary thing - where they are encouraged to use different words and things like similes and metaphors.
She said it was about a fire burning down a forest and everything it came across before burning out and the forest rising again from the ashes. The heavy descriptive stuff does take away from the sense of the writing but I guess that will come in time.

Which is expected for someone who has only been writing for 3 years.

I guessed 8-10 years. It’s about what you do with this from here. You should have DD enter writing competitions to see how this writing and other stories stand against peers. They offer feedback too that may help shape her writing even more. It can only grow from there (like the fire!).

Are you kidding? It sounds nothing like a year 3 or 4 level work? No child I know (and my children are avid readers with a wide range of vocabulary) could write this?

I agree. I was responding to the comment about the piece having 'excellent spelling.'

The thing is, it's not actually a nice piece of prose by adult standards. It is, of course, very accomplished for a 9 year old, but clearly one who is being taught that elaborate prose is good prose and who has been encouraged to stretch her vocabulary beyond words and concepts that she can fully control or understand.

Fires don't light sparks. Kindling (dry) can't be mouldy (damp). The mesmerised river metaphor is meaningless. Flames don't turn silver or black, etc.

Rather than teach kids that high-falutin' words, complex sentences and poetic subjects are the goal to aim for, why aren't we teaching them to express their actual feelings and experiences in language that they understand?

I work in the creative industries, and half of my battle with "smart" young people is to get them to unlearn the pretentious, vacuous writing style they've been praised for during their school days. If this intelligent young writer is writing this sort of prose before the age of ten, how will she be writing at 20?

8-10. I remember writing a story for my eleven plus, aged ten, called "Golden Lights in a Green Night", which was atmospheric like that one. How old is the child? It's very good.

I too agree that this is the result of scaffolding at school. A method by which children are given a framework on which to build a piece of work. They may be provided with an example of 'fire poetry' and discuss the structure, vocabulary etc. They then use this to construct their own version. It's prescriptive and controlled and not a true reflection of original thought and genius. Though I don't wish to be offensive or detract from the work in question here, it doesn't look like a completely unsupported effort.

10/11

12-14

It doesn’t totally make sense but her range of vocab is lovely. I’d be delighted if my 8 year old wrote anything like this. It’s lovely she’s thought of all the things they’ve been doing in their fire poems at school and come home and written her own piece.

I teach English to postgraduate level and these people saying that writing is typical of an 8-10 year old are so full of shit and flat out jealous. That is an extraordinary piece of writing. She is gifted.

Thank you!
I totally agree, mumsnet is bonkers at times.

I don't know what that means either.

Are you a teacher? Why do you assume everyone uses teacher jargon?

In this instance it was unsupported (at home, whilst I was doing something else), however I don’t know what she’s done at school exactly.

They said gifted at her Year 3 parent meeting but I tend to brush it off as being something they just say.
And she does work hard - which I do try and praise her for because working hard and having a good attitude towards learning is more important than anything else really.

But I think I also underestimate her. A lot. Across the board.

9

It could have been written by an adult. Too many adjectives but some very good elements in this piece of writing.

@Fluffylikeacoconut Christ!!! Congrats OP. She is incredibly gifted and clearly very thoughtful and imaginative for such a little one. I hope you nurture her wonderful talent. (Never mind the jealous posts)

You mean envious?

That's incredible for an 8 year old. Better than some of my Year 11 class are currently writing actually, sad as it is to admit!

Yes, I understand that. If she has written it entirely out of the blue without any influence from anywhere, it is indeed excellent. However, it does appear to be influenced by an outside source to me