Year 1 writing - what's expected and what do your DC manage

[tiredbutnotweary]

Inspired by the reception writing thread because (summer born) DD writes very little at home.

When I've asked her to write a story (only 2 times in last 6 months or more) I've been surprised at how much she has written, although the quality of her writing noticeably goes downhill about half way through her 'story' - like she completely looses steam after a great start.

So I'm just really interested to know what's expected and the actual range (as I'm sure it's quite wide at this point in year 1), particularly how much your DCs can write in one go?

DD1 is also a summer-born. She is quite reluctant to write at home and I doubt I could get her to write a story! She has to write about her reading book every week and will manage 4 or 5 simple sentences, but witha fair bit of eencouragement. (I talk to her about what she could write and we make a plan).

Having said that, she does seem to be taking off a bit with her writing, and gaining a lot more confidence.

Depends on day, week, time and lunch...but sometimes she writes quite a bit. She's always happy to do whatever homework has been set and, as far as writing is concerned that is less than ten sentences. (The actual number is specified in the blurb.) I think, for various reasons, writing takes lots and lots of energy and concentration. If she's allowed to say the story, exercise, answer (whatever the challenge is) out loud, her answer can go on for days. But, if she has to write it down, it manages to shrink miraculously.

DS is year 5 and his writing gets gradually worse the more he writes, I think he just gets bored of concentrating on keeping it neat.

I can't remember what his writing was like in year 1 and DD's reception but I was doing some writing with my rainbows last week and the year 1's varied from a short sentence with just about legible letters all different sizes and nowhere near on the lines to one girl who was starting to do joined up writing on the lines and equal sized fairly small letters, no idea how much she could write as I'd only asked for a few sentences (although hers was better than the yr 2 girls too so I'm guessing she's not average).

By the end of reception dd's school wanted all pupils to be able to write one sentence unassisted and the top pupils to be able to write a paragraph (3-4 sentences). I guess year one is moving those who could do a sentence onto paragraphs and the top ones onto more paragraphs.

Thing is, there is no point writing pages if it's all nonsense so they work on spellings and punctuation at dd's school. They don't really say "write as much as you can about your weekend" it'll be more like "write a couple of sentences about your weekend" and there will only be space for a few words anyway - depending on size of writing etc.

i know my daughter's yr1 class are being encouraged to use connectives in their writing. she doesn't mention much else although she does tell me if she wrote 3 pages etc. depends on the size of the page though how much this is of course.

Ds is a young year 1 but I think his writing is comparatively weak. He doesn't like writing. His teacher says he is struggling with 'keeping small letters small and tall letters tall' and keeping writing on the lines, punctuating etc.
his spelling can be good but varies wildly. For example the other day he spelt 'angry' correctly but spelt 'footballer' like this - 'futbwlee'?!

He keeps his writing concise when writing stories - doesnt try and use any sort of impressive language, just as short sentences as possible.

No idea how he compares to his classmates, but he's doing really well with numeracy and reading, however his teacher is less complimentary about his writing!

One sentence for homework with bonkers but phonetic spelling is all she can usually manage but she loves writing 'books' with a picture and a sentence on each page of 10+ pages at home, 1-2 times a week if the mood takes her. Big exuberant often reversed letters, rarely on the line!

I don't know what's expected, I don't see that DS birthdate has anything to do with how he does. He can write a long sentence very clearly, but he needs a lot of help with spelling. He can't read.

DD (yr1) loves writing and does quite a bit at home. However, her writing at school "big write" is much better than anything she does at home. She is encouraged all the time to think of better "describing words" and sentence connectives.

DD's writing is very neat and small and she does write quite a lot each time she is asked at school (had parents eve a few weeks ago). Her spelling is not bad either but if she doesn't know how to spell a word she will sound it out ie "rist watch" and "Teddy had a cof"

Thanks for all replies so far

I think of all the areas where birthdate plays a role, writing is the most likely candidate for being impacted. The difference between my DDs writing between reception at 4+ and year 1 at 5+ is just massive. At the end of reception her writing was huge with letter size all over the place. At 5 she suddenly got interested in colouring in and her writing skills began to improve in conjunction with this. Now she can (but doesn't always) write with a neat script (all joined as this is how she's been taught from the beginning). Of course it depends on the particular child but as a generalisation I think writing would be more affected by age than say reading or maths because I think physical development is more dependent on age than mental skills. Could be wrong of course!

DD's story one has 14 sentences so amount wise it sounds like that's more than ok.

It would be good to know what's expected and whether much more is expected in the new national curriculum once it comes in later this year.