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.

I have to say that that workbook is one of the most depressing things I have seen for a while. It’s fine to ask children to reflect and think about achievements, but oh oh oh that is dull. If I was a child struggling with writing then I don’t think it would encourage me , or make me feel that there was much point in struggling on if that was what writing was going to be all about.

And those inspirational quotes..... I assume she isn’t expected to read them, but cringe at the thought of an adult reading them out to a child.

Buy her fancy stationery and pens , stickers and a lovely pencil case. Ask her to make cards, write letters to her granny, her aunts, the cat, write shopping lists for you, make up recipes, make up and write down songs, write stories about her teddies....

I see that she wanted the diary, but please encourage her to write other things.

Hard isn't it..esp if your child is more like 7 years old. We always compare with others but the more you do that, the worse you'll feel. Lots of kids are behind in the basics, they'll catch up though. Sending you hugs

One of my kids made a lot of progress with phonics, reading and spelling at a similar age using the Nessy learning game. It is aimed at dyslexic children but worked brilliantly with my non dyslexic child.

I'd pick up some fun writing tools like gel pens and post it notes.

Does she have a Magna Doodle or Aqua Mat? Mine enjoyed writing on them too.

Forget the bit about emergent writing. I’ve opened it on my laptop now and it’s easier to read. I’d still say reception, but again it’s difficult to tell without sentences and without knowing how much help she was given.

We did the first of these just before half term when we were isolating.

The second one was last week.

We try and do one set of three exercises in the week and one at weekends. I had to stop DC1 doing the next activity this morning as she wanted to try a different colour pen.

You need to work out what will make her want to practice. We started with pencil, but that went out of the window, we’re not at school so can use anything we like. I know they’re short easy words, but we’re working on letter/word formation with these. Sentence building gets done with something else.

Reception

The most important thing here is that she wants to write. As others have said - just keep encouraging her. You have had good suggestions of things to write. Just keep at it. She'll get there.

Ds was also behind with his writing, in year 6 we discovered he had dysgraphia. Might be something to look into for your dd if she doesn't improve over the years

They can write the gramophones ‘ay’, sh’ and ‘ng’ so I wouldn’t say early reception. Writing at home is often different to writing at school.

Reception/Year 1. I work with them.

Wait for the end of year school report.

She is using phase 3 phonics within her writing “ee”, “ai” and her attempts at spelling are phonetically plausible, though with some b/d visual confusion.

Practising handwriting will improve her fine motor skills and free up working memory to think about what she is going to write and how she is segmenting the words to spell them. At the moment it seems she is stuck at letter level because of focusing on formation. Once her formation improves she will find writing less laborious.

Y1 is very much about sentence level work - writing a simple and (mostly) correctly punctuated sentence and then starting to develop it using connectives such as “and”, “so” and “because” and simple describing words. E.g. I went to the shop. - I went to the shop and got a toy. - I went to the big shop and got a new toy.
I would focus on the spellings for each phase first - starting with: I, no, to, go, the
Once these are secure move onto the key words of the next phase (you can google these). Encourage use of sounds she knows for the words she does not know, but spellings she has practised need to be accurate e.g once you have taught “I” then don’t accept “igh” as errors can become habit forming. For new words stretch the word for her and write a sound at a time.
As her stamina improves, so will her writing.
How is her reading OP?

I’d really recommend keeping a holiday diary as a ‘no-pressure’ way to practise writing over the holidays. Make it scrap book style and stick in whatever you can

4/5 yrs. Though If the school hasn't flagged it to you and yours is older I wouldn't worry. They all get there. My son was atrocious until he was 6 but is now lovely.

complete aside but about hand writing
dd2 has dyspraxia her handwriting even in high school was very infantile but you could read it - in those days we did statement reviews each year & her senco & I did written comments
My husband thought it was hysterical because both the teacher & I were commenting about her bad hand writing & both of us had appalling styles! I could hardly read the teachers writing! - seriously, children fine motor skills do develop at different rates & this year has meant many children are far behind in all sorts of way. But, none the less, do contact her teacher & ask if you can have a chat.
let her write stories - try different pencils (larger ones or triangle ones or get the rubber shapes to put on around the pencil shaft) I like the idea of fancy pencil cases! dot to dots or mazes in the activity books - colouring in & encourage as much reading of different types of things (children's cookery books!) & sewing -cross stitch or those cards with running stitch
How is her physical development - was she slow to walk etc (gross & fine motor skills?)Dyspraxia

& -get her eyes tested please

I would say that that's a child who needs to build up hand strength and fine motor skills: not just practicing writing, but drawing, colouring, playing with play-doh, threading shapes/bobbins/etc, using scissors to cut things out, playing on a keyboard, etc.

I'd have assumed reception, D's is yr1 and I can decider his writing and school have worked hard on getting him to write smaller this year.

Using a larger pencil or a rectangular pencil rather than a typical pencil has helped his handwriting and it hurts his hand less to write

The stand out thing for me is none of the words appear to be spelt correctly so that's where I'd start.

Practise spelling, read lots, try a different size pencil or buy pencil grips to help her grip

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

Last year the key worker provision was only required to be childcare, but if she was in school during this school year they should have been providing education. In my school, the children in school were doing the same work as had been set for the children who were at home.

My partners daughter was really struggling, we’ve spent hours with her everyweek and it made no difference and then all of a sudden it clicked. So she might well be behind but don’t worry too much yet, as she matures she could take more of a interest in improving. Focus on easy wins, constantly do stuff she can do well to improve her confidence so she doesn’t lose interest before then gradually increasing difficulty. Take baby steps though, much smaller than you realise and always mix in something new with bits she finds easy so she doesn’t get demotivated.

Just wanted to drop by and say there are a lot of kids with some catching up to do and I'm sure she will astonish you with her ability to do so once this crappy Covid calms down 👍🏻

Thank you for all the helpful insight, suggestions and encouraging comments.

I'll try some of these suggestions, and get back to the school regarding what they think.

@lastcall

I would say that that's a child who needs to build up hand strength and fine motor skills: not just practicing writing, but drawing, colouring, playing with play-doh, threading shapes/bobbins/etc, using scissors to cut things out, playing on a keyboard, etc.

I was here to say the same thing - buy some putty - get some 'big nuts and bolts' do a 'coin flip' - (put 5 coins on a table fastest to flip all 5 wins - do left hand then right - ) anything that works those fingers :)