Writing sample - how old is this child?

[MrsIssissippi]

I’d be really grateful if you could say how old you think the child who wrote this is?

The task was the children were shown a photo on the whiteboard and told to write a description of what they could see.

I think the child may need some additional support, but I’d be grateful for feedback from other teachers/parents.

Thank you

[Susie53]

As a graphologist I would like to say that we cannot tell gender, age (group) or handedness. Children, especially, develop at different rates in different aspects of life, some are quicker at fine motor control and others are quicker at maths or sport, for instance. Even when developed we do not all reach the same level of maturity in all parts of our lives eg music, sport, literacy, imagination etc. I agree that some writers are lazy but those writers (including adults) whose writing is not "neat and tidy" usually have many other strengths.

[Hulaballoo]

I'd say year 2 level but could be an older child needing some support with stretching sentences.... Adding interesting descriptive words etc...Very simple sentences with no conjunctions and only a few adjectives.

[LaContessaDiPlump]

That looks like something my 6yo would produce; maybe even the 5yo on a good day when he's concentrating. Not sure why people upthread are mocking the 5-7 suggestions

[RainbowGlitterFairy]

children are encouraged to write phonetically these days - at least in YR and Y1 they are and most of it makes phonetic sense, pritty for example, but are is one of the words they are expected to learn quite early on.

[user789653241]

I just signed up to pobble( have been using for resources but never knew about sign up!), and you can see lots of writing done by children of different ages, how the teachers marked their work, etc.

[Norestformrz]

Katherine I Teach Y1 and taught reception for many years ...I wouldn't accept our for are because the longer it's left uncorrected the more fixed it becomes and handicaps the child. If the teachers have allowed this to go unchecked for four years they seriously should look at their phonic knowledge.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

I read that line the same Katherine.

The light’s on the house’s windows our yellow. There our some pritty flowers. The our some funny looking trees. There is a bridge next to the house. there is a verey xxxxxxx stream. The house made off brickcks. The sun is setting behind the house. The river looks verey storange. I can not see any grass. The chimni is bigger than the window. Thhre our lots off plants.

The missing words and the couple of times a grapheme/ Letter is repeated make me think this was a bit of an effort for him. Almost like he’s focusing so hard on getting it onto the paper he’s losing track of where he is.

[strangerhoesagain]

Around 7 but clearly below national standards. Any learning difficulties?

[KatherinaMinola]

Oh it should, yes, but children are encouraged to write phonetically these days - at least in YR and Y1- and how a word is phonetically rendered will depend on their accent. And in some cases the wrong spelling sticks. It takes a while for spelling habits to be ironed out (if they ever are - look at the number of adults who write 'definately' ).

I read that line as The lights on the house's windows our [are] yellow.

[Norestformrz]

Are is a common word regardless of accent so spelling should be correct.

[Norestformrz]

The lights a house's windows our yellow. There our some prity flowers.

[raindropsandsunshine]

Between 7-9 I'd say, depends so much on the child's abilities so it's hard to say really.

[KatherinaMinola]

In some accents are/our are homophones so that probably accounts for that misspelling (and some children do get into spelling habits).

The piece is list-like but I wouldn't have said disjointed or stilted - there are thought-connections, and I quite like the rhythm of the sentences. A common problem with children's writing is monotony, which I don't think is a problem here - although the sentences do follow similar constructions, they are rescued by variations in the rhythm and a feeling for language.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

That’s why I wondered about a different task mrz. Whilst some children will write a descriptive paragraph if given a picture stimulus, I think there’s a danger it ends up as a bit of a ‘There is... There are...’ list with each idea given it’s own sentence.

It makes it easier to get the full stops, capital letters in the right place and possibly explains the silted, disjointed tone of the piece.

[Norestformrz]

I'd ignore the handwriting although it will need addressing at some point as it makes it difficult to read. I thought the piece posted by the OP was stilted almost a disjointed list. Some sentence structures are incomplete and the use of our instead of are very odd.

[KatherinaMinola]

Interesting. You see, I think the example of 'higher level work' is deadly dull. I suppose it gets points by being technically correct (nothing actually 'wrong' with it) and using the 'right' range of grammatical constructions for the year group in question . But that doesn't make it a good piece of writing.

Whereas I think the piece posted in the OP has something to it - a bit of mystery. The first line is evocative with a nice rhythm - almost iambic pentameter.

[RainbowGlitterFairy]

My school teach cursive right through from EYFS so that is a red herring.

On plain paper the handwriting is similar to a lot of my year 2 children, but being neat on plain paper is hard, what is their writing like on lined paper? I would be slightly concerned by a year 3 not knowing how to spell of and are, and would expect to see a couple of slightly longer sentences, unless the lesson focus wasn't on the description and they were asked to quickly jot down what they can see in the picture?

[Norestformrz]

Probably not a popular opinion but I don't think the expectation is unrealistic.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Even if the expected level isn’t realistic, that isn’t at the expected level, it’s working towards.

I’m not sure it’s at the expected level for the end of year 2 under the previous curriculum either.

[Sostenueto]

Nope.

[LordBuckethead]

Do you think the government expected level for a 6 or 7 year old is realistic norest?

[Norestformrz]

Try the expected level (again a single piece of work) published exemplification for assessing Y2 writing.

[Bowerbird5]

Hanging
Two of us that work in schools are predicting about 9.


Well we don't see many of those in our school Norest.
We have had a few very bright children but I dont remember any at that level.

[Norestformrz]

I don't think anyone has ever equated handwriting with intelligence.

[Sostenueto]

My dgd was taught cursive from year 1 as the school thought it a waste if time to teach printing then cursive. She's 16 now and prints! And minute writing! She is a leftie! Handwriting is not an indicator of intelligence, content is though.