DD's very keen on writing - but all over the place, and should I correct spelling mistakes?

[ChristianaCatesby]

DD's started primary school and is getting on well I think, learning to read etc. She turns five soon so is young for year (we're in Scotland)

I was wondering about her writing. She is very enthusiastic about it and I encourage her as much as I can.

However the words are all over the place on the page, and hence I find it quite hard to read, and of course her spelling is completely out too, but the sounds she is making with the letters are good.

She becomes very frustrated if I can't read her letter of love/ christmas list for santa/ sweet little things she writes.

Was wondering:

1. Should she write on lined paper to try to keep things in lines, school seemed to suggest line-free paper for the beginning.
2. What do I do about correcting spelling? If the sounds are right do I just leave it?

I would be more anxious about ensuring correct letter formation and getting her to write on lines than on spelling, at this point. It is very hard to correct established poorly-formed writing, whereas spelling gets better naturally the more they read.

I'd agree its better to focus on getting the words into lines, and the letters readable, and leave the spelling till later. If she's guessing spellings, you'll probably be able to work out what each word is anyway as it should "sound" like a real word.

I don't know why they don't like lined paper, but they seem to think it better to let them start with plain paper for now, so I'd stick with what she does at school to avoid confusion.

If you want to encourage her to get the words in a line, you could draw some pencil lines across, but very wide apart so she still has loads of space to make each word, but they line up a bit better.

My dd (starts school in Jan) does this too eg 'ov' on top of 'los' on top of 'luv' means lots of love... I am inclined not to worry too much and let school sort it out. It's fun, isn't it? My fave word so far has been 'eropleyn' (aeroplane!)

We have had "zee grut" (secret) on a bedroom door!

ds is in year one now but was v much encouraged just to 'have a go' with writing throughout reception. Their spelling was never formally corrected - but if they did a class writing session then the trickier words wer put on the board.

Did his confidence the power of goood and actually the spelling does start improving as their reading progresses.

Lined paper was not widely used to start with - gives them more scope to be creative? (although sympathise with you on the legibility thing)

my favourite was 'beyootifou' for 'beautiful' - we're from saaarf east london!!

If you ask her to read it to you, it solves the problem of you not understanding, then you can sneakily read it back with your best 'wonder and awe voice', knowing what every word is!

love 'beyootifou' and 'zee grut'!

Thanks for the tips

Apparently her toy rabbit

'wod lick a present achklee i am geti a brilent stck mshen'

= "would like a present actually I am getting a brilliant sticker machine'

imnotacelebrity I've tried that, but she's having none of it... She believes it's perfectly legible...

IME I would just say lovely encouraging things to her, especially point out when she does things correctly e.g. 'that is a lovely a' or 'I like the way you started that letter on the line'.
My dd2 has just turned 5 and is learning to write. They do proper formal stuff on lined white boards to practise letter formation but the rest of the time they use plain paper. Her Christmas list was really funny as she hasn't got the idea of a list yet so all the items were jumbled all over page (and not all in the same direction). She is getting loads of praise/encouragement and is loving learning.

DD1 meanwhile learnt at a different school where they were really fussy about letter formation and size right from the start and absolutely hated writing, she would not do it at all until we changed her school and her lovely new teacher encouraged her loads and pointed out when she did things right.

dd1 (7) still has very random spelling but we mostly just ignore it as long as it is understandable, there is plenty of time for her to improve.

I just tell dd that mommy's eyes are very tired and then not working very well ... seems to work. Then she is quite happy reading it out. Mind you, after a while it becomes easier to read their writing when you start more thinking in phonics yourself. I try not to correct spelling (hard sometimes), however, for the X-mas cards I wrote the greeting down and had her copying it (which does mean that words like Christmas she can now write correctly without any help/example). Still, I think it is brilliant that they can already write whole stories whilst still so young, no way I managed that when I was that age ...

DS1 (5) sidled up to me the other day with a piece of paper on which he'd written 'I dont lik mi litl bruvr'.

Poor old ds2 has no idea.

At 5 the main focus is getting ideas on paper, developing and building the story.

Letter formation is important and where it appears on the line.

Spelling is introduced later. If you correct too many mistakes early on it can demotivate and switch children off. By all means, go through the work after they have written it, and talk about words that she may have learnt at school. You will see teachers may write the correct word above what the child has written (so parents can read it).

The children are to write what they phonetically hear and quite often will miss off the e of common words.