Reception writing - what do teachers expect?

[Onelittlebugbear]

I can't get any information out of ds's teacher, if I ask if he's about where he should be she just says vaguely "they're all doing well." Yes, I haven't asked about the others, I just want to know if ds is on target! Here is something he wrote last night. He put the capital letter and full stop himself but I reminded him twice to finger space - hence why "hashorns" is all one word. The sounds and spelling are his. It says "The Thstops hashuns to difnd his suf." It means "the triceratops has horns to defend himself." Although ds said "his self" when sounding out, not himself. He decided he was going to write a sentence about his favourite dinosaur and then draw a picture.

Is this about where he should be? I'm concerned about his writing because his handwriting is random and because without lines on the page he will just basically write anything anywhere. The handwriting for this isn't too bad, on the line and apart from one back to front "s" is clearly legible.

Thanks.

PS my dd writes loads and loads, usually in the context of the c.50 cards she makes every week for all her friends. She spells most of it phonetically so often "wrong" but I don't correct her unless she actually asks me if sth is spelt correctly (on the grounds that at this age letting them gain confidence and enjoy it is the most important thing).

DS is one of the older children in reception. He enjoys writing. This weekend he had the class cuddly, and has written the following about her weekend:
hows
Molly went fensing. Molly plaied with nites. Molly wached the berds for the rspbee. Molly painted a dienosaur. Molly did a jigsor. Molly made cakes. Molly plaied trains.

I really don't like these threads. However much you try and be relaxed about your child's development and progress this type of thread niggles.
Go away with your fancy bloody sentences!

My Ds is August born so not quite 4.5. He's doing pretty well with his reading: can blend letters on words he's not sure of and remembers a lot of the tricky/undecodable words on sight.

However, can I get him to write? Can I buggery. He.just.isn't.interested.

He wrote 'moon' next to a beautiful picture of craters last week. I was delighted. Shopping lists??? Not for a while, I think. It's hard for it not to niggle, however much you tell yourself they'll get there when they're ready especially when the brightest child in the class has written a novella over the weekend

My ds is 7 in June. When he started school he didn't like writing at all (he loved reading) so we didn't push it. He didn't write much at all in Reception, or draw/colour but part way through Y1 suddenly he wanted to write and now is doing great. Agree with comment about it being a marathon not a sprint.

Thanks notjustamummy and davidjrmum..

DD's 4.5. If anyone asks her to write something, she says "why should I? Why don't you write it, if you want writing?" . She is genuinely perplexed as to why she should write anything. I haven't dared ask how the school reacts to this. It's bad enough that she is refusing to read the Biff, Chip and Kipper books "because they just say the same thing over and over again and they're not very good stories". She has an excellent memory and if she's seen a book once, she'll have memorised it. Her party trick is 'reading' the next page before it's revealed, which rather defeats the point of reading practice. I imagine that her reading and writing scores must be very low!

Sorry, had to laugh wingding! My Ds is very similar: "why don't you write it mummy? You're very good!" Argh!

Wing. DS1 doesn't understand how I know if he's pre-read the home reading book with the Teacher or TA at school.... If he reads fluently, its from memory of the earlier run through. Otherwise he's stuck.... I've written quite a few "recited from memory" in his reading diary....
He won't write either. I was very proud when he wrote his, letter by letter dictated by me, list for Santa. Just sticking letters on a page. Hmm, think were a while off that.

Wing - we've borrowed some Songbirds and ORT Traditional Tales books from the library. They have much better stories.

Ha! I have bought every single frigging phonics/early readers bookset going. I am keeping the BookPeople in business! I've amassed enough points to give out a free book to every YR/KS1 child in the school! And still she won't read. Or write. Except to her little brother - I watched flabbergasted on the video monitor the other day as she read a Julia Donaldson book aloud to him, pointing out the words and even spelling them out ("t..a..b..b..y - that spells "tabby", do you know that?" "Ess, oh dat"). Oh, and I think she writes words on the blackboard and then rubs them out immediately if she thinks anyone's looking. She wrote her own name on the bath with bath crayons aged 2.2 and then not again until after she turned 4. I honestly don't know whether she can in fact do some of this stuff and is simply and deliberately driving me absolutely crazy (can't read the words "in" or "Mummy" apparently, which 23m DS can, though she has managed street and pub signs from the car window) or whether she recognises some whole words and either can't or won't learn phonics/blending.

DD's reading diary has entries along the lines of "managed to persevere to p.2 though no letters/words recognised // LATER SAME DAY Read fluently to end of book without help, sounding out polysyllabic words. Suspect promise of chocolate buttons may have influenced sudden acceleration in abilities".

I am trying so hard to back off and let her develop at her own pace whilst privately shitting myself that she is either really behind or incredibly defiant. Oh, I can't wait till she's a teenager!

(addicted - DD made me write her letter to Santa because she "can't write yet". Then afterwards, in private, she (in)corrected the spelling and added an item . I have no idea if this was copied or from knowledge because, of course, I didn't see her doing the actual writing...).

I think reception writing varies massively. DS1 couldn't/wouldn't even make a mark on the paper in reception, but managed to scrape a level 5 in yr 6. His handwriting has been criticised all through school.
DS2 wrote well but has appalling handwriting, improving now in yr2.
DS3 is somewhere in the middle of the two but writes very neatly.

wing what happens if you leave some half finished lists etc scattered around?? e.g Pudding Mon, tues and see if she'll finish them?
She sounds great.

Wing - she sounds like she'll go far! I can only imagine how frustrating it is for you though. Have some in lieu of chocolate buttons!

she sounds great fun and very bright Wing. A bit of defiance will take her a long way in the world.

Or take drugs, drop out and worse. I am genuinely scared of where that rebellious streak will take her!

Great idea about the lists, I think I could have some fun with that. How about:

Mummy's shopping list

Daddy - coffee
Mummy - gin bananas
DS - chocolate cake
Is there anything else?

I'm certain she'd notice everyone else's name and not hers, despite the fact she claims she can't read "Mummy", and whilst I don't know how much she can read, I feel fairly confident "chocolate cake" would be one of her recognisable phrases. If she comes to me full of indignation, I'll at least know she can read a little .

Erm, if she's 4.5 and can read ch and a-e, why are you worried?

I like your list plan - let us know how it goes!

Sorry, guess I should have had a or something in there. I was being slightly flippant, based on her ongoing obsession with chocolate cake! Genuinely, I have no idea - I would guess that she probably can work out some words phonetically, but that actually she's better at whole word recognition. I'm not really worried at this point, because I have no firm evidence to prove she can't read/write, or at least won't have the capability by the end of the school year (I posted mainly because a couple of PPS were getting worried by the number of extremely advanced YR children so I thought I'd balance the numbers a bit and put forward a different interpretation).

It's also a case of picking battles at this point and right now bedtime is a bigger one than reading/writing... . I'm another one in favour of taking the long view. Right now is all about enabling learning, rather than enforcing it, IMO.