Helping a Yr1 with writing

[Swedes2]

My DD spends a lot of time writing stories at home. Her vocabulary is excellent and her stories are creative and full of interesting facts and observations. BUT. Her writing is poor. She often confuses d and b and does S the wrong way round a lot. I don't think her writing has improved at all since she's been at school. Also she doesn't leave any space between words so reading back is impossible a bit of a challenge.

How can I help her improve? I'd be really grateful for any good ideas. I must admit I've been waiting for the teachers to help her with this, but it's becoming obvious that it isn't going to happen. So what do I correct and what do I ignore? I don't want to discourage her story-writing AT ALL so I'm reluctant to wade-in with my untrained advice.

PS What do they do at school all day?

mathanxiety - eeeek. I'm too scared to ask school anything. The not clicking things sounds spot on. I feel she needs Marion Richardson and finger spacing. Which I realise just makes me sound ancient. Which I am.

DD made her father a get well card yesterday as he has a cold. It says 'to bab' but then has a redeeming attempt at 'temprachair' and lots of other lovely things BUT alljoinedtogetherwithnopunctuationorspaceswhatsoever.

She is hearing well by the sound of it, clearly enthusiastic about written communication, and understands the link between sounds and letters. 'Temprachair' sounds like a really good attempt at phonic spelling of the word to me, and fearless too, since it is a long word. The card sounds utterly charming and very sweet.

Don't worry about the spacing. It's something that can be helped with things like lolly sticks, but time and experience generally do the trick -- reading and writing can be a two steps forward and three steps back process initially. I would say relax, enjoy the wonderful little notes and cards and stories, and cherish the enthusiasm and the sincerity behind them.

"But I feel she's missing some vital input to allow her to move forward...

Really, there are too many children in the class. That's the real problem here."

I have often felt this way! Very much so when DD was in Reception and Y1, with 30 children to a teacher. This year, Y3, DD has a fabulous devoted spinster teacher, one year off retirement, the type who manages to keep a grip on every child individually. But not every year is or will be like this one...

mathanxiety - Thanks, you've been really helpful. I'm torn now between relaxing and enjoying watching her meet the challenge in her own time and the belt and braces approach of a tutor.

I would (but I appreciate this is an entirely personal position ) err on the side of caution when it comes to ensuring my children get proper grounding in the nuts-and-bolts of education. Hence tutors and extra-curricular activities galore on my agenda. I appreciate that that is both due to personal philosophy and to ability to pay, as well as a tough-as-boots DD who likes being busy!

I suppose it depends how much impact it has on her accessing the rest of the curriculum.

If it's any consolation my sis is a tutor and makes things v fun and relaxed, lots of learning games. It's more about having someone who knows what they're doing and devoting that whole HOUR (bliss) to one child without needing to attend to the needs of other children/ cooking/ telephone/ random door knockers etc. I still wouldn't do it though! Just because she is still really young, I think. My ds1 is also Y1. He writes his whole name backwards frequently. Nearly always gets his shoes the wrong way around. Struggles to concentrate and sit still. Reception teacher didn't think he was dyslexic or anything else. We'll see what Y1 teacher has to say at parents' evening tomorrow.

To make things worse for her, this year she's in a merged class: 15 of them are Y1 (her) and the other 15 are Y2.

I'm going to talk to DH about it tonight and see what he thinks. He's much more relaxed about things like this.

Would being with the older children actually help? Or will all the work be differentiated for them by Year Group?

It's so difficult- on one hand, in many other countries she wouldn't even have started school yet, on the other if the start is this slow, I would worry about reaching the required standard by 11?

Do you know what phonics scheme they use in school, and could you do that with her, perhaps to gauge whether or not it's her understanding/grasp of the concepts, or just the pace? (though her grasp sounds good considering 'temprachair')

CaptNancy - I think having older, and more advanced children in the class can't help her at all. Can it? I think she needs to go back to the beginning and go through it all again, so her grounding is secure. Watching DS3 take all the new stuff on board so readily and rapidly (he's just joined in reception) has made me see how much has gone whooooosh over her head. I'm not suggesting she's any less bright than him but she hasn't learnt lots of things. Perhaps it's a bit like me learning to drive: it took an enormous amount of time and an embarrassing number of tests but I am an excellent driver. (How's your DD doing?)

Gosh- I can't believe your DS3 has started R already! Smaller age-gap than I remember ... but I don't need to tell you after 4DC that they all 'get' things at different rates. Will she be upset having to cover old ground again, particularly if her brother is doing it alongside her? I do hope not, and I am wondering that if her brother also will want to do some work at home now consolidating his learning, she will be encouraged to go over the phonics, but I don't know how competitive they are with each other.

From what you've said she sounds bright, and the reading thing will just be a matter of time.

My DD is well thank you, and enjoying school immensely. She can't tie shoelaces though!

"It's so difficult- on one hand, in many other countries she wouldn't even have started school yet"

Honestly, this is irrelevant. English (and, to only a marginal extent, French) is a much harder language to learn to read than Italian, Spanish, Finnish or German, hence needing to get an earlier start than other countries in order to gain sufficient fluency in reading to move ahead.

And, while French children don't get taught to read until the equivalent of English Y2, they learn to write by drilling in the equivalent of Y1 (GS). Literacy is taught quite differently.

"Watching DS3 take all the new stuff on board so readily and rapidly (he's just joined in reception) has made me see how much has gone whooooosh over her head. I'm not suggesting she's any less bright than him but she hasn't learnt lots of things."

The fact that her little brother is so close behind her is another argument in favour of giving your DD a helping hand (yourself or with a tutor), IMO.

This is completely normal for yr 1. They will learning how to construct a good sentence and use full stops etc.

Getting b and d mixed up and s back to front at this age is normal.

That's not to say you can't ask her teacher how you can help her a bit with her writing but I suspect the teacher will say she's fine and to encourage to keep on reading and writing freely, whether or not she makes mistakes.

(I only replied to the OP so may have missed some other worries etc)

Getting b and d mixed up, and writing s back to front, is "mirror writing" and a clear sign that the brain has not yet learned writing conventions - it is still seeing letters as images that can be turned around and viewed immaterially from different angles (as you would any object in real life).

This is a normal stage, but really should be overcome by Y1/age 5.

Bonsoir, do your kids go private? Just wondering as your expectations seem a bit different to most other people. My ds1 still writes his whole name backwards (it is not mirror writing as the letters are the right way round but written right to left). He also reads and writes b and d the wrong way. No-one seems to have picked up on that.

My children are all in the French system, so they all follow the French NC where expectations are totally standard across the board.

Wow! So by 5 in France they really don't mix up those letters!

In Y1 (Grande Section) they learn to write by drilling but they don't do any free writing - the big advantage of this is that they don't mix up their letters.

If your child is dyslexic, there is a big advantage in learning to write by drilling before learning to read and doing spontaneous writing. It helps overcome dyslexia faster than the English system where children are encourage to read and free write before learning penmanship.

I think they do some writing by drilling. They have a handwriting book and have to do letters one at a time, over and over. But obviously this isn't done all day every day. They seem to play lego quite a bit!

Lego is very good for fine motor control - it strengthens the fingers.

It's very hard to make comparisons between countries when it comes to developmental milestones - there are so many cultural conventions to take into account. But having been very closely involved in literacy in both English and French for the last few years, I do think that both the UK and France have got a lot to learn from one another still.

Oh good. Ds1 spends most of his freetime playing lego, but he still struggles to write. Maybe I need to do a bit more drilling at home. You should develop a system to rival Ms Miskin's. You'd be loaded.

Boys tend not to get as excited by drilling as girls - all the little girls in DD's class were very competitive about their drilling books and which page they were on, whereas they bored little boys to death.

Has your DS got a blackboard? Writing on a slanted board is supposed to be very good for their motor control.

I feel strongly that DD would benefit from drilling. I remember doing pages and pages of Marion Richardson loops, whole exercise books full of patterns copied from the blackboard. It was all very industrious. I have a feeling everyone's writing was more fluid and secure. Why did we abandon that method of teaching writing? DD's exercise books are almost empty, save for a few stuck-in worksheets.

I remember if we finished our pages of drilling we were allowed to decorate/colour-in the margins. And I distinctly remember Mr Salmon holding up my exercise book to show the class an example of neat work.