What age child do you think did this writing?

[hibbledibble]

I'm concerned daughter is behind, but haven't had any communication from school, despite asking. I'll attach photos to show examples of her writing.

1. What age would you expect this from?
2. Any suggestions to improve?

Thank you.

My 7 year olds isn't as good as this. This thread makes for depressing reading.

R/Y1.

...

DD yr5 recently brought home a couple of old books from first term of yr1.
Her writing looked like your example.

I'm not going to guess on the writing - but for a child to understand the quotes at the top of each page requires good reading skills and comprehension which I think is far advanced from the R and Y1 guesses.

Thank you all, so it seems fairly unanimous.

DD is in year one, this is a recent example, so her standard at the end of school year.

I should have been clear I'm not so worried by her handwriting (as it can be better if she wants) but by the standard of the writing. She doesn't do much in terms of writing sentences, and often what she writes isn't decodable.

Would school be able to offer any support? Ie is this behind enough to warrant intervention?

We do work on her reading and writing at home, but she resists. I believe this is because she finds it difficult.

Year 1. She has tried to use phonic knowledge to build words, letters in each word are consistent in size and largely correctly formed/correct orientation.

Agree, early reception.

YR- I’m a primary teacher.
However, there are plenty of children in the first term of Y1 who write like this- it would be working towards Y1 level though.

@Mumdiva99

I'm not going to guess on the writing - but for a child to understand the quotes at the top of each page requires good reading skills and comprehension which I think is far advanced from the R and Y1 guesses.

I was just thinking that, the quotes are in my opinion much more likely to be geared towards ks2 age pupils. A 4,5 or 6 year old would most likely not be able to properly comprehend them.

With the amount of time she will have missed being in school, I wouldn’t say this is alarmingly behind.

But I would be planning how to build daily reading and writing into the summer holidays so that the ‘summer slip’ is less pronounced or even that you can close the gap a bit. 5 minutes daily is enough, can she earn screen time or points by doing some? Make it the first thing you do in the morning so that it’s over with and not something you both dread/battle over all day.

Try doing colouring, dot to dot, drawing to encourage her motor skills to develop so that she has more control using a pen.

Also don't make anything chore reading or writing . Just games for 10 min stretches. It's all about her attitude to learning. If that's good she'll improve.

My dd was considered ahead but struggled writing on paper that wasn't lined. She was not able to write straight on plain or squared paper until she was more like end of y2.

I would guess Reception /Y1

I also have a child in year 1. Try not to worry they missed so much of their first year. Ask the teacher for help but it will click. My daughters writing was pretty awful until about 2 months ago and suddenly boom it's there!

I think the spelling and letter formation is similar to my y1 6yo DN - who is doing fine with age related targets, not behind at all.
I would say fine for age 4-6.

End of reception year, though my DC both still had similar writing in year 1. I am struck by the small, neat writing for the day/date at the top of the second page, which suggests the child finds it possible, but isn't for whatever reason. DS had poor fine motor skills and weak hands and fingers, hand and finger (also more oddly, shoulder) exercises have really visibly improved his handwriting - turns out it was genuinely uncomfortable and difficult to write neatly before.

Ignore the quotes: I got her this diary as her elder sibling has it and she wanted the same. I have read them to her but I don't think she understands properly. She enjoys writing in the diary, and this is something we do together each evening.

Believe it or not, this level of writing is with me supporting her (talking to her, getting her to say what she is going to write, and trying to offer some pointers with phonics, which are largely ignored).

She did go to key worker school throughout, but I don't believe she had much education then, as it was primarily childcare.

I’d guess that if the school were concerned you’d have heard about it. Sounds like you’re helping a lot! My friend has her son go to a tutor once a week for that 1:1 attention with handwriting, and the improvement has been massive!

My y1 (7 in September) child writes like this too. I'm not worried and neither are his teachers. So many people expect children to write neatly before their gross motor skills are developed enough, and before their hands are ready. Also they've missed a huge amount of school this year.

We have had tutors as well, but it's been difficult with covid and people being understandably reticent to meet in person. DD is not at a level/age where she could benefit from online tutoring currently.

I'm not sure that the lack of communication from school necessarily means there isn't an issue, as they aren't generally good at communicating.

Not sure, I taught my Son to write when he was aged two, and his writing was great then, he could write out well written words, and small sentences. I wanted to do this for him, as it was like a pattern of my own early days, when good writing and word understanding was important, before a child started school.

I would say that does warrant some intervention. Certainly I would be expecting the school to already be doing addition work even as a group rather than 1:1.

What her decoding like when she reads? You can see the basics of some phonics in some of the words, but it does look a bit like she’s in that stage where she’s moving from emergent writing to phonetically plausible.

I'd say it's within normal range for Y1, especially after the year (and a bit) we've had. Maybe specifically ask the teacher if she has any concerns, but I should think it's just a case of practice practice practice.

Keep on practicing over the summer.
The more she does this, the better she'll get and she will pick up stuff like -ing endings.

Does she watch tv with subtitles on?
Could she write lists for you?
I used to have a whiteboard in the kitchen that's supposed to be shopping reminders and getting her to attempt a word or two will hopefully not be off putting.

My ds had much worse handwriting than this in year 1 and I thought he was behind his peers in most things but he’s in his first year of grammar school now and pretty much a genius.
Your dd has missed so much of her first year of school (no disrespect to your home schooling) so I wouldn’t worry at all about her standard or volume of work, all our children will have a bit of catching up to do but your dd’s work looks absolutely fine.