Long boring post sorry - ds's writing, is this cause for concern?

[Cat98]

Sorry about this, I'm just wondering if my ds is where he should be for writing or if there are any concerns as I feel he might be a bit behind his peers. But I really don't know. He's only just becoming interested in writing independently, and this morning he presented us with a written version of 'the animal fair' song that they've been singing in school! We obviously praised him lots, and didnt mention the spelling mistakes, but I'm genuinely wondering if it is behind where he 'should' be- though I'm pleased he tried spelling the words, he hardly ever does his sort of thing off his own back!
Here's what he wrote:
'I went to the aneell fair the brs and bees wer ther the gat ban by the tlt ov the mown comn hs rot her the mucy fll owt bl sld down efs tunc weee and he fll onto his nees bt wot becm of the mucy mucy mucy'
V sweet (and if anyone doesn't know the song I know it won't make any sense!) but should it be more recognisable at his age?
He's in year 1, age 5.
Thank you!

Compared to a lot of the Year 1s I teach that's very good. Some of them are still unable to form letters correctly. Don't worry at all, he's doing well.

Look fine for this stage of yr 1 to me. Did he have spaces between his words?

Thanks very much, that a relief.
Yes he did have spaces between the words, no separate lines or punctuation though!
Should we have mentioned the spellings? We didn't as I just want to encourage him to write at the moment!

I know he's in a bright class, and he's doing well with numeracy and reading, but I have seen some written work from some of his peers on the walls and its amazing so that's why I was worried ds was behind, also I worried about things like his spelling of 'light' - 'tlt'?! And he still reverses 'b' and 'd' sometimes though this is getting better.

Thank you :)

That is really good for first term of year 1, he is interested in writing and trying to spell words. My son wouldn't even attempt to write a sentence at that age.

Agree with fluffygal that that is an awful lot of writing for a child that age to have done - even more so that it was his free choice to have done it. There are a lot of spelling mistakes simply because it is a lot of writing. In terms of the display writing on the wall, you possibly don't know the circumstances under which it was done - it might have been copy writing for handwriting practice.

remember that he might not be remembering or pronouncing all the words correctly anyway as it is a song (my kids often get the words wrong) so his writing of it might in some cases be how he actually thinks the word is said anyway if that makes sense.

There is a huge split in ability in writing at this stage in Yr1. as you say he is only just starting to show an interest in it, my daughter is in Yr1 but loves writing and has done for over a year now so completely different and therefore her writing if up on the wall would probably look very different to some of her classmates. She wants to do it more so therefore she does it more and practices more and then gets more confident and so writes more and on the cycle goes. I agree that writing on the wall could have been copy writing. My daughter will sometimes have work up that looks worse than some of the other children but theirs is all identical sentences and hers is completely different and you can tell who copied the sentence written on the board and which children tried to write their own ones with different words in.

Just praise and praise and praise all handwriting at home. Don't worry about correcting it. You want him to be proud of it, to want to do more and to be confident about his efforts.

That's good for year one. No need to be concerned at all.

In my opinion, and that of all my primary school teacher friends, year 1 is the year with the widest ability range of any school year; so I can understand it is easy to compare your child upwards and panic.

But, what you've posted looks like a completely normal level of writing for his age and year group. Some won't be mark making at all yet - some will be writing more accurately than this.

The desire and motivation to do it is by far the most important.

I've posted this story a few times - my ds (an August baby) made no mark making at all until the middle of year 1, scraped a level 2 at the end of year 2, was above average by the end of year 6 and now at the beginning of yr 8 is described as 'extraordinarily talented' at writing, being assessed as a level 7 writer in year 7. It's all about motivation, and doing lots of reading (and some natural ability which can't be taught).

Don't correct his spellings yet. If he asks you for help, help him sound the words out so he can make a decent phonic attempt himself.

Keep reading to him and expose him to a large vocabulary and keep praising him.

My DD is also in yr1 and like peri she is very into writing (writes stories, poems, a diary at home) so her writing is very strong. But I know some kids in her class who can barely write their name.

Each child has their own strengths (DD is not amazingly strong at numeracy) but literacy is her thing.

To me its important if they (the child) want to do it (writing) as then this will build their confidence up and their stamina for writing more. I think what he has written is great

Thank you so much for the replies.
As you say, I was so pleased that he chose to do this - he woke early (before 6am argh!) and dh told him to go and play in his room until 6.30. That's when he did it, so entirely unaided and unprompted. A very unusual choice for him!
Hopefully he will continue to want to write and will then improve more. He was chuffed with himself I think :)

Yes, as others have said, that's a pretty good effort as some words are actually correct, and some others have the correct initial sound.

If you want to encourage his reading and spelling in an 'informal' way,
the Oxford Phonics Spelling Dictionary is an excellent resource. It lists words according to the initial SOUND, not just the letter as in a 'normal' dictionary. Thus, it starts with "s" sounds (sssss), words that DO start with "s", but then has words like 'celebrate; central, cereal; cinema; circle; city; cycle; science; scissors' etc that SOUND as if they should start with "s". It also gives 'plurals' of Nouns, and 'tenses' of Verbs. It will last a child right through primary school, and is under £7 from Amazon. You can see several sample pages HERE:

(And it wasn't a long or boring 'post'; it was interesting and encouraging!)

Sheesh, I would faint with delight if my 5yo y1 child did that.

My ds is very similar he is 6 and in year 1. When I saw his writing displayed in class compared to others I thought goodness some of them are so good, but then he has lots of very bright girls in his class all with lovely handwriting. I think it is great that they are trying my ds has been writing his christmas list for Santa (he hopes to be the first to send one to santa this year he must think he will get more presents) and some of the spellings are very imaginative. I don't correct him as he get get disheartened quite easily.

Thank you for the further replies!
I will look at getting that book I think, sounds good and I think he'd be quite interested.

my ds1 had terrible writing up until mid year2. he had extra help with writing in class from the ta and a book to practice at home. The thing that finally made a massive difference was some of his class getting pen licences. It was almost an overnight transformation! His teacher showed me his book after school one day as she was so suprised by his sudden improvement, amazing what self motivation can do:-) Dont be too concerned yetplenty of time for him to improve, my ds writing is a lot better now but actually getting him to write more and extend his work is the next challenge