My mother's horrifed, but I think it's brilliant!

[manchestermummy]

Reception DD1 came home with a piece of work about her favourite game:

The duc duc goos I luv the best.

My mother is disgusted and thinks it's appalling she's not being taught to spell properly, but I think it's ridiculously cute and I am so proud of her.

Bit of a stealth boast, but there you go

Seriously, this is okay, isn't it? It's very neat.

She's in Reception. Does she even know about the K on the end of duck yet?

Yeah gods.

Be pround of your girl!

Knowing that ck often go together isn't the same thing as knowing that it goes on the end of the word duck. There's a chance that she may know it if she's familiar with the pair.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Fantastic!

Hi Manchestermummy:

It is brilliant. I'm presuming your DD is 4 or just 5.

In most countries school doesn't start until the year pupils turn 6 or 7 - so your DD is doing great.

I think what's coming from your mother is a reflection of her own education - it's annoying that she reacted like that - but it rather sounds like every time she spelled something slightly wrong, rather than any praise for the attempt she was told she had done it all wrong and to start over. Years of being treated like that will make it seem perfectly natural.

We are all products of our time and much of our attitudes are formed in our youth. Times and attitudes change, but it can mean that us oldies are slightly behind the times.

What I will add, is focus on where your Mother is great (maybe baking with your DD, or playing with her, or taking her on outings, etc....) and ignore the bits that annoy.

Personally, over the years I've developed a 'code' with my perfectionist & hypercritical mother - 'Thank you Mother'. It says I hear you but also gently says that's enough now!

In such cases do the grandmothers ever actually say anything critical to the child in question? And if so, what does a mother do in response?

No its great, the main thing is that she is writing and making sense, that is one of the first steps to writing 'properly'. Spelling etc come later.

God yeah, that's great writing/sounding out for reception age. My ds is in Y1 and although he's improved a lot recently, up until now it's been really hard to work out most if what he's written.

Well done your dd!

I think that's excellent for a child who is only in Reception. The spelling is completely consistent and sensible. Tell your mum if she can't say anything nice she shouldn't say anything at all!

Okay, I am reassured! My mother's a loon - all the way through school every time I got any sort of result it was always "where did that put you in the class". I got 98 per cent in an end of year exam once and her only comment was "Why did you miss that two per cent?".

FWIW my mother isn't British and has always been full of disdain for the English education system. She still pretends not to be able to read my writing and bemoans my lack of knowledge of British monarchs. She also thinks it's dreadful that I can't do trigonometry because it wasn't on the GCSE maths syllabus. The fact I left school 15 years ago is irrelevant

MIL on the other hand thinks school isn't right for small children and had a cat's bum face when I told her that no, I hadn't kept her off due to the inch of snow we had.

There's no hope, is there?!

Your dd is doing brilliantly (tell your mum she is near the top of the class ). And tell your MIL that your dd just plays games at school so its alright, really.

Teach your dd to write "Grandma is a loon".

The duc duc goos I luv the best.
I think it's fantastic. It shows that she has a very good grasp of basic phonics.
It also shows how easily all children would learn to write if it wasn't for the idiotic complications of English spelling: comic - duck; bus - goose.
Masha Bell, aged 68.

As a PT Reception teacher (I add PT to explain why I'm on here at this time on a Friday ) I can not only understand your DDs writing but know which game she is refering to too!

I would be particularly impressed if she got the capital letter and the full stop too

Well done Mini-MM

that's lovely!
I love the things DS2 wrote in reception, the teacher used to photocopy his whiteboard so he could bring it home. He still has this amazing phonetic spelling that looks like gobbeldy gook until you say it out loud and it all makes sense. Encourage her & keep it. I have a sign which says "no going in hier the flaw is wet"

And duck duck goose is a fave here as well.

Ds is 6 and insists on writing 'wiv' for 'with' . It reads like a mini chav is telling a story but never mind. He does it because its how he pronounces it - he's perfectly capable of reading 'with'.

Last year, DD made an art gallery and wrote 'No ftogrufee With out pumishin' beside it. It made me smile.

There's nothing wrong with that writing, manchestermummy

And she's not wrong. Duck, Duck, Goose is a great game!

Haberdashery don't you love how when you look at that writing your initial thought is "what on earth has she written?" and then when you sound it out it makes perfect sense!

That is one of my favourite things about teaching in reception

That's excellent! And that's how they are taught to write in Reception.

Tell your mother to fuc off and come back when she can say something nice about her granddaughter.

dd7 wrote about 'early earth' the other day - my favourite word in all of it was 'consikwintlee' fab!

Thats lovely and very good for a reception class child.
Tell your mum to stop talking nonense!

I used to be a rainbow leader and some of my five year olds wouldn't lift a pencil without me spelling words out letter by letter. She's had a very good go, and frankly at 5 if you can read it it's a bonus. Well done your DD