Would you expect that a five year old coming to the end of Reception should be able to write all their letters correctly?

[SleepFreeZone]

I’m pretty shocked. My DS entered Reception very behind in certain areas, particularly writing as he had refused to do any mark making throughout his preschool time. Instead opting for building toys and play kitchens etc.

His recent report expected him to hit the government targets, which is much better than we thought he’d do. At one point we thought he had ASD but after an assessment they ruled that out. However I sat down with him today to finish a little craft project we’d been working on and realised he really couldn’t write certain letters at all.

He is writing some mirrored, but some just completely wrong. I’ve been so focused on getting his reading up to par I feel like I've totally dropped the writing ball. Do you think he’s going to really struggle come September once the workload jumps and they start doing a lot more table based activities? Should I be doing regular practice with him over the summer holidays? Is it worth trying to discuss it with his teachers so late in the academic year?

Sounds totally normal to me. Ds was still writing some letters back to front up to 6 months ago (for Christmas he wrote a list which stated he wanted a bog....he wanted a dog 😂😂) and he's about to finish year 1. I raised it with his teacher and she wasn't worried in the slightest, sure enough he's absolutely on point now.

I refuse to put too much pressure on him to get it right, I certainly wouldn't be doing practice in the summer holidays, he has enough years of schooling where the pressure will increase and he's so little that he needs to have an element of enjoying the learning process.

Thank you New I feel slightly less 😱 now

My baby will be 6 in July and just finishing P1. He can't write every letter and sometimes doesn't recognise every letter when it's written. He's fine and his ability is totally normal. Try to relax (this is my fourth child so im totally chilled about it )

My husband had a succession of FD cards addressed to Dabby, Baddy, Dubby. Obvs nowadays they're all RG material (this is a lie).

Completely normal. DS is now coming to the end of Y1 and only muddles or reverses b/d and p/q although still have to think about less common letter shapes like z. DD is coming to the end of Y3, achieving above expectations in all levels and still regularly reverses capital J.

Mine wrote some letters wrong and some reversed until the end of P2 (so age 6.5). A year later and all are perfect. His teacher said it is quite common, to carry on practising and not let it slide but not to worry

The early learning goal is to write most letters correctly iirrc.
In year 1 they learn to form all letters and digits correctly.
Definitely worth asking his teachers if he'd benefit from a little practice.

There's no reason you shouldn't teach a letter a day throughout the summer. Wouldn't hurt

No.
Very normal to have lots of reversals, etc into Yr2

Mine are end yr 1 and often reverse letters and numbers.

My DD is now in Y7, exceptionally bright. Her writing was shocking until Y5 - sometimes mirror writing, sometimes just plain illegible. Then it all clicked and she has beautiful writing. Don't worry. Is he left handed? That can sometimes slow down writing.

He is right handed. I had a very brief chat with his primary teacher today who seemed really surprised I thought there was an issue as she thought he was doing fine. Perhaps my expectations are too high or perhaps he has forgotten everything after one week off school. I don’t know! 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think there's no harm in doing a low key 5 minutes a day exercise during the holidays if it would settle your mind, but there will be plenty of children whose letter formation is less than perfect at that age. Ds1 who at 14 is now on the gifted programme, got taken to an Oxford open day etc was doing some mirror letters as late as y2. Reading is more important imo so as long as you're doing that I'm sure it will be fine. He's still very young and a crucial thing at that age is not to make learning stressful because that can genuinely have long term effects.

My DS is now 14, so I think expectations have changed since he was in Reception. However, his Reception teacher told us, that of the children that were late developers in mark making (mostly summer born boys ...) they aimed for them to be writing their name by Christmas and to be able to form all letters by the end of the year. DS (and others in his class) could form all letters in a mostly recognisable fashion by the end of the year, but they certainly weren't all correct.

I don’t think it’s at all abnormal. I know this makes me sound a bit tiger mother (I’m not), but we get DS to keep a diary each summer to keep his writing ticking over. In reception this was no more than sticking in one found thing (a bus ticket, an ice lolly wrapper, a drawing) and writing the date (numerically) and one or two words (literally) about it.

Ps meant to include: focus on finding an interesting thing rather than on writing 🙂

I know nothing about what he ‘ought’ to be able to do but if he likes practical stuff could you in the holidays do things like writing the letters in sand, or with paint, or chalk outside or shaping them out of play dough - or even bread or cookie dough and baking them, or icing or sprinkles on a cookie etc etc, so it’s fun and he sees the latter shapes more rather than making it regular practice? I guess not all of these help with the actual pen control and flow of making the right shape but I’d be worried that lots of ‘sit at the table and write this letter’ type practice might put him off more. He could help with things you need to write though, shopping lists, cards, notes for daddy etc.

My dgs also started Reception in September rather behind in his pencil skills as it is something that never interested him - he prefers to build, play in water or sand etc. At the praise assembly before half-term dgs won an award for excellent independant writing ( his only other award was for improved writing)

This morning he wrote his name and all his d's ans s's were reversed. Also I have never seen anyone else write a lower case K starting with drawing a circle then adding the straight lines in moreorless the correct places. All the other children on his table also had at least one incorrect letter when writing their names as well.

DS2 is just coming to the end of Y1. His reading and maths is very good, well beyond expected levels. His letters and handwriting still require a lot of practice though! We still get reversed letters occasionally and it's all different sizes - he hasn't grasped staying in the line yet either. Some of his classmates seem to have lovely neat writing in comparison. His teacher isn't worried at all, just said to do lots of things at home to improve his fine motor control.

If you spend time doing crafty things like drawing, making things out of tiny beads, threading stuff into laces to make 'jewellery', things like that - it will all help improve writing. Often they do know how to form the letters fine, but struggle writing a piece within a set time. So they rush, or their hand starts hurting, which then distracts them and they get letters wrong.

One of my DCs did reverse letters for years and even now as an adult his writing if worse than bad and he forms letters in an odd way. For example he will start writing a 2 from the bottom up. Once they get a bad habit i think it's hard to change it and I wonder if we should have done more work with home when he was little. He definitely lost marks in exams due to his terrible writing and it was always the very first thing mentioned at every parent teacher interview we ever had.

Long term I don't think it mattered as he is brainy and doesn't need to write things down. He got through uni and a PhD 💁🏻‍♀️

No. Even as late as ks2 I see a lot of letters mirrored, written backwards or otherwise incorrectly formed.

In foundation stage, children are beginning to form letters correctly, to write on the line and to control the size of their handwriting.

In year one, children are still learning how to correctly form lower case letters in the right direction and with the correct start/end point.

In year two, children learn to join their letters and to write in a cursive style.

Teacher here who has taught from nursery up to year 1. Sounds perfectly right to me, so don't worry! By the end of year 1, we'd be expecting children to be able to form all their letters correctly. Great achievement on your son's part to be working at 'expected' after only choosing to mark-make this school year - just another child proving that we are so wrong to assume a child is 'behind' after their nursery year!

Sounds fine to me. Some can do all. Some can't at all. Some have a few "bugbear" letters that they haven't got the hang of.
Read to your child. Show them you love books and letters . Write their name loads. Make mad shopping lists (or not mad ones).

Thank youcarringtonm ❤️

SunnySomer what a bloody fabulous idea!! We could definitely do that and our current craft project is kind of similar at the moment and I’m really enjoying it, so it would be a nice idea for all of us 👍