Da hopeless at writing - here is an example.

[Notmymuse]

Further to my previous thread ds (5) wrote this today. He self corrected a number of times and at the end went back and changed 'to' to 'two'. It took him around 5 minutes and says:

Jesus went into Jerusalem. He had the last supper. Judas betrayed him. The Roman king put two criminals up together. 'Which one shall I release?' said the king. Sadly Jesus was crucified.

Apart from criminals - which is spelt insanely - I'd have been able to get the rest but the handwriting continues to be horrific. He's 6 in June. This looks quite behind to me. Should I press the school for some further help? Certainly compared to all the beautiful work on his classroom walls he is behind.

If your teacher was unimpressed with that spelling of unfortunately I think she/he is being pretty unfair as well.

Handwriting is dead anyway.

I use dragon dictate.

School got a shitload nicer for me when I got to the age wheneveryone stopped obsessing over tidy writing and actually looked at the content.

They've had those results the last few years, they are publicly released after a year or so and each time 100% of children were assessed at national level or above.

I was just disheartened to hear ds was below average. I'm worried that he will get stuck with that label at school and that's how he will remain all the way through. He's better at numeracy but the presentation for that is quite poor as well.
He did not start at this school, he did reception elsewhere at a school with lower expectations. His current class had handwriting sessions every day in reception and reading books changed at least three times a week. At ds's previous school they were just happy if you turned up and he had a new reading book maybe once a fortnight. He started school with all his letter sounds and being able to blend CVC words and that's more or less where he finished the end of reception. Progress was negligible. In his 'learning journal' there were only 6 pages. That was it. The children in his current school had several books full, plus handwriting and numeracy books. So in some ways I think ds didn't get such a good start.

I also have a 13 year old DS whose writing is much less legible than yours.

My dd is only just starting joined up writing, they haven't taught them it yet, she is 7, year 3. We are in Wales where we have learning through play until 7, so slightly less focus on things like handwriting anyway until this year, but I'm rather glad about that when I see threads like this, that is a great piece of work from a clearly very bright five year old, and should be celebrated.

Oh for heaven's sake, y'all. OP said she praised him and hung it on the fridge. She's just worried and venting. That's allowed.

OP I didn't even send my son to school until 6 and they barely did any writing for the first few months. He's seven and a half now and his writing is only slightly better than your son's. But I'm not concerned because his other skills are good and this is only his second year of formal schooling. So he has to let his fine motor catch up.

OP, my DH had to attend special classes until he was nine because his mind just didn't work the way that was required of him in the early years. But he is literally a genius. He graduated in the top five of his class and has a Master's degree in literature and rhetoric. Don't worry about early labels. :)

I don't like the sound of a school where they are so pushy, making reception practise handwriting so much and making someone feel their child is not doing well when he is doing fine. I am not a pushy parent though I think there should be a lot of play and fun in those infant school years. I was happy that dd got a lot of time in the sand box and made her ta lots of "badges".

Neither of my children wrote as well as that at 5, dd needed to get everything right, so would not have used any complex words, so her writing looked quite nice but wasn't nearly as interesting as the OP's ds. My ds's writing on the other hand was just completely incomprehensible (to him as well as us, although the teacher managed to interpret it). ds turned out to be dyslexic (runs in our family) he is very verbally gifted and now he types can turn out some pretty interesting stuff. dd is now into creative writing (still a perfectionist though).

My two are now in secondary and pretty high achievers, I don't think performance at 5 predicts the future (I'm sure I've seen research that shows this too). I can understand the OP's worries though.

It honestly looks perfectly fine to me, good in fact. I have taught in primary schools for 13 years so seen a fair bit of children's writing.
There is plenty of research out there which suggests that at this age the way the brain is developing will have an influence on your child's handwriting. In these early school years the connections necessary for the fine motor skills needed for writing are only just developing and tend to develop a little later in boys than in girls. Once these connections develop then writing will improve but right now he just may not be there yet.
It makes me pretty sad that there is so much pressure about handwriting amongst many schools.

ilikemysleep Actually all your son REALLY needs is spaces between the words. The content for his age is great, and the letters are all correctly formed, although a bit uneven in size, and the spelling is good too.

I speak as the proud owner of a 17 year old who cannot read his own writing...

I work in y2. This piece of work from your y1 child is a lot better than some of my y2s at this point in the year.

Poor kid!

Year 1 Expectations for Handwriting:

Statutory requirements
Handwriting
Pupils should be taught to:
? sit correctly at a table, holding a pencil comfortably and correctly
? begin to form lower-case letters in the correct direction, starting and finishing in the
right place
? form capital letters
? form digits 0-9
? understand which letters belong to which handwriting ‘families’ (i.e. letters that are formed in similar ways) and to practise these.

Notes and guidance (non-statutory)

Handwriting requires frequent and discrete, direct teaching. Pupils should be able to form letters correctly and confidently. The size of the writing implement (pencil, pen) should not be too large for a young pupil’s hand. Whatever is being used should allow the pupil to hold it easily and correctly so that bad habits are avoided.
Left-handed pupils should receive specific teaching to meet their needs.

For the writing requirements, see pages 12-15: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335186/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_English_220714.pdf

You can then see for yourself if you think he is behind national expectations.

Year 2 is when they focus on evenly sized letter formation more.

Handwriting
Pupils should be taught to:
? form lower-case letters of the correct size relative to one another
? start using some of the diagonal and horizontal strokes needed to join letters and understand which letters, when adjacent to one another, are best left unjoined
? write capital letters and digits of the correct size, orientation and relationship to one another and to lower case letters
? use spacing between words that reflects the size of the letters.

OP that is way better than my DS could do at that point, way better. He's yr6 now and, whilst his writing is still scruffy, he's likely to achieve level 6 for both English papers and had just flown through his 11+.

Please don't worry, just keep reading lots of books with him so he carries on with the great sentence structure and keeps expanding his vocab.

It looks messy even though the content is ok!

It really doesn't look messy.

I don't think I have any idea of what the handwriting looks like of my dc's classmates, apart from the occasional thankyou card!

Jesus Christ (pun intended). Your poor, poor ds. Imagine that kind of pressure at five.

As everyone has said, his writing is fine. More importantly, at his age he is MUCH more likely to be influenced by you, your feelings and your perception of him, than he is by a school report. He needs to sense that you feel positive, not worried or disappointed.

He knows where he is in the class. He's perceptive enough. Even before parent's evening I knew roughly where he was because he'd say 'x group is the clever children' 'x group had to write sentences but we just ordered pictures' etc
I've certainly never mentioned his ability to him except in a positive way and I tend to praise effort and perseverance anyway. Then worry internally.

Hi OP,

I had similar worries about my DSD when she was this age. She's also the youngest in her year, and it was frustrating to see her peers miles ahead of her. I think part of me was under the impression that if she wasn't the best in class, then it reflected badly on me and DH somehow - as though we must not doing enough at home with her. I was convinced for years that she must be dyslexic. DSD also knew exactly what level her group was, and was sometimes discouraged by that.

The stuff you said had you worried, IME, will probably work itself out over the years with good teaching and maybe the occasional bit of encouragement at home.

It looks like your son has understood a lot of whatever piece he read (or was read to him). He must have been really paying attention. Having been through watching my DSD learn to read and write, I'd say comprehension is even more important than spelling. Listening to DSD decode, because we put so much emphasis on decoding phonics, and then not have a Scoob about the story, was painful.

But DSD's spelling has improved as her confidence with reading has grown; the more she reads, the more firmly the words are in her head. She is also being encouraged to use a dictionary, now that she's 9.

As far as DSD feeling discouraged about being in the bottom group, that has eased off as my DH and I have changed our attitudes about it. He and I were in middle and top primary school groups without trying, and praised for being where we were. It took us both a while to see that DSD was making a lot of great progress, year to year, and that being in the bottom set wasn't hindering her in any way.

I think you to get over yourself need not worry.

DS age 5 had parents evening. Indie school, v. relige. DH and I both went expecting confirmation of imminent Oxbridge interview. Met by two scarlet faced teachers who handed us DS's writing book.

He had attempted the word "can't"

It was the boy word on the page, in the middle.

The vowel was incorrect.

I screamed with laughter while DH died a thousand deaths.

Boy = only stoopid illiterate Ipad.

i said i wasnt going to do this.

But you know what, i'm angry.

Your childs writing is fine, its more than fine, for a 5yo thats awesome.

My 8yo has dyspraxia, this is what his writing looked like when he was 7.