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

Joined up writing is a red herring.

Exactly, Much. handwriting is something that can vary from school to school and between children.

The think that leaps out in this piece of writing is the lack of variation in sentence structure. That’s what places it firmly in KS1. Use of conjunctions to begin to form compound sentences and starting to vary sentence openings is a big focus in year 1 and 2. It might just be that he hasn’t managed to demonstrate that in this piece though.

I'd say that's not bad personally, my ds is the same age and nowhere close, can't even do joined up writing yet.

Wtaf wat all those posters saying 6? None of mine could get much legible down at all by 6

I sometimes want to go back to school and sort my shit out when I see my 6 year old's stories. I often wonder if she got swapped at birth to be fair.

handwriting is something that can vary from school to school and between children

Agreed.

Depending on the child and any siblings, and what they do at home, its not unreasonable to see joined up writing in Y2 from the odd few children either.

Has his handwriting got worse since he's been taught joined up writing? A lot of children write perfectly legibly in non-joined up writing then regress when the insistence on joined up kicks in (which the government insists on, it's not the schools' fault).

If he struggles with joined up writing, gridded paper may help, the kind they use in many European schools. It helps worth the width and height of letters.

Also, if it was a timed task without teacher input (independent writing) it will probably be worse than a less stressful situation (e.g. if you're sitting helping him with homework). The children may be encouraged to write a certain amount within the time and therefore may be rushing and forget basic things (like where he's left out the word 'is'). This isn't hard to correct, he just needs to be reminded to read through the work carefully after writing.

It's not all that different from my writing when I'm rushing

(I'm 32)

FWIW, my 8 yo's handwriting is MUCH better than my 18 yo's. Honestly, my 18 yo's is not much better than the OPs photo. He's studying engineering at Southampton so it hasn't held him back.

I think what he needs is lined paper and a bit of practice. I think each letters are formed pretty nicely and legible.

Relieved to see it's your child, OP! I would have said 8-9. The handwriting's not great but the spelling's not bad (from what I can make out) and the punctuation and sentence structure are decent. But the thing that most strikes me is the great sense of atmosphere .

For Y3 I wouldn't worry at all about the handwriting. Lined paper and regular practice.

My ds hates writing on the unlined paper. If he needs to write on unlined paper, he always use ruler to make lines first. Otherwise it will be similar to your dc's writing.

8?

My son does way better on lined paper. He’s Yr 2 and behind in writing. I can’t believe the school don’t give lined paper to him given the struggle - I always rule out paper if we write at home.

I was going to say Y2 and you’ve said he’s Y3 so that’s not way off. Some of the Y3 in my school write similarly and are assessed as below expectations. They are the ones who got working towards in Y2 assessments.

By ‘way better’ I mean does way better than he does when using plain paper. His writing is not as good as your child’s.

Wtaf wat all those posters saying 6? None of mine could get much legible down at all by 6

I think Y4. Y2 low ability is laughable they are not joining up at that age at all

I teach Y2 in a fairly average state school and the above piece is similar to my middle writers. If he were in my class he'd be doing extra handwriting practice and I'd be asking for at least 1-2 conjunctions in each piece of writing. Plus spelling 'are' correctly!

As I said earlier, he's not far behind and I'm sure he'll catch up with support, but it's not MN exaggerating to say this is around a 6 year old level.

I'd be asking for at least 1-2 conjunctions in each piece of writing

That's to do with the constraints of a very particular (and rigid) educational marking system though, rather than what constitutes 'good writing'.

Difficult. One of my children had good handwriting at age 5 but the other one had gigantic writing which didn't get better until the end of year 2 when the school started using smaller paper lines. So at first glance I thought about 6 for the writing but about 8 for the content.

I would have guessed about 7.

Based on my daughter I'd say 5? But then if it was on lined paper and neater I'd say older as the spelling is very good.

That's to do with the constraints of a very particular (and rigid) educational marking system though, rather than what constitutes 'good writing'.

Not really. The vast majority of texts use a variety of sentence structures and children are gradually introduced to them. Using ‘and’ or ‘but’ to connect a couple of those sentences would make it sound a bit more natural.

You said you are a teacher op, so you may already have these, but it helped my ds when he was starting to write independently.

displays.tpet.co.uk/?resource=387#/ViewResource/id387

5

What was the answer? 25?