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Original poster

What's your year 3 boys writing like?

38 replies

ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 21:19

Can you give me photo examples if possible, but if not just describe what it's like? I'm trying to work out if DS is behind.

School haven't said anything in particular but it looks so messy to me, with many spelling mistakes.

thank you!

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SmigeonPigeon · 31/03/2023 21:24

I read it as ‘3 year old’ and thought “that is some stealth boast” 😂 it’s been a long week!

RedToothBrush · 31/03/2023 21:25

Not great. Apparently it's normal for his year. Loads are behind 'normal' due to lack of experience with COVID

Tulipvase · 31/03/2023 21:26

I work in Reception but in my experience there will be a huge difference between the standards of writing amongst the children.

welshweasel · 31/03/2023 21:29

Mine is in year 2 and writes very legibly, in joined up writing with a decent attempt at spelling. He's pretty average within his class.

Mycatisfatafatcat · 31/03/2023 21:30

What has their sex got to do with it?

usernamechanged1 · 31/03/2023 21:31

SmigeonPigeon · 31/03/2023 21:24

I read it as ‘3 year old’ and thought “that is some stealth boast” 😂 it’s been a long week!

So did I 😂

Original poster
ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 21:33

Sadly not a stealth boast!!

I'd anecdotally heard boys writing was often worse than girls (certainly the case with my son and daughter), that's the only reason I mentioned it.

OP posts:
Ineedtoloseweightnow · 31/03/2023 21:44

My dd is 7 which I think is around the same age group. I’m also a teacher. Her handwriting is not great at all, lots of forming letters incorrectly due to not following conventional letter formation. This is due to lockdown. I’ve taught P1 five times in my career and the amount of time dedicated to each letter, its formation and fine motor skills was missed due to lockdowns and then again in P2. I tried my best at home but teaching her was much harder than a class of 30 🙈 I was still working and she refused to work with her dad so I feel I just didn’t do a good enough job!

Since Christmas I have been doing 10 mins extra every night with her. We do one handwriting page (books from home bargains/the works), 5 maths calculations (jotter layout/tidiness an issue here)and 8 common words. The improvement has been amazing. Don’t get me wrong she has a long way to go to get to a level I’d expect to see at her age. However we just got her report and the teacher has noticed the improvement too!

Original poster
ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 22:08

Thanks @Ineedtoloseweightnow getting home to write during lockdown was painful. The letter formation sheets were like pulling teeth.

I have thought about trying to get home to practice those again but I think he'd be so resentful.

We do other stuff like spellings and list writing etc.

OP posts:
ThisMustBeMyDream · 31/03/2023 22:31

I have a year 3 summer born boy. I have attached his writing. He is meeting expectations. That is the first image.

I have also attached my now yr5s work from lockdown when he was in y3. He has asd and autism and writing is his very weak area and he is working at a lower level than his brother really. Those are the other images.

What's your year 3 boys writing like?
What's your year 3 boys writing like?
What's your year 3 boys writing like?
Original poster
ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 22:33

Wow @ThisMustBeMyDream your sons writing is beautiful. I'm surprised he's not beyond meeting expectations. Thank you for the example. My sons is nowhere near that near!!

OP posts:
Nat6999 · 31/03/2023 22:34

My 19 year old still writes like a very bad Y3 pupil. Handwriting develops at it's own pace, do more things at home to develop the muscles, Lego, clay modelling, drawing & colouring.

ThisMustBeMyDream · 31/03/2023 22:49

ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 22:33

Wow @ThisMustBeMyDream your sons writing is beautiful. I'm surprised he's not beyond meeting expectations. Thank you for the example. My sons is nowhere near that near!!

My DP says he is meeting expectations in his writing too (he is a yr3 teacher!) but that is to do with the content rather than the actual writing itself. He isn't meeting the stuff he needs to for exceeding.
My other son really struggles, so I underatand your worries.

DelurkingAJ · 31/03/2023 22:53

Worth noting that as long as it’s legible it won’t matter past primary school. I speak as someone who still in her 40s does not have proper joined up writing - if anything it’s a bonus because it’s so very legible compared to everyone else’s scrawl.

Ineedtoloseweightnow · 31/03/2023 22:58

ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 22:08

Thanks @Ineedtoloseweightnow getting home to write during lockdown was painful. The letter formation sheets were like pulling teeth.

I have thought about trying to get home to practice those again but I think he'd be so resentful.

We do other stuff like spellings and list writing etc.

If it’s any help I did try to address it sooner but she wasn’t ready at all. I tried again a few months later and it was the same. Caused far too much upset on top of her normal homework and after a day at school. This time she has just went with it but we have seen a lot of improvements in her generally like being happier/more settled at school. I wouldn’t overly worry about it as it will improve and some people are just messier at writing. Not so important these days with computers!

Ineedtoloseweightnow · 31/03/2023 22:59

Oh another fun thing to do to work on fine motor skills is play dough disco, ‘I like to move it’ is always a favourite, you can find them on YouTube.

newusern1 · 31/03/2023 23:01

ThisMustBeMyDream · 31/03/2023 22:31

I have a year 3 summer born boy. I have attached his writing. He is meeting expectations. That is the first image.

I have also attached my now yr5s work from lockdown when he was in y3. He has asd and autism and writing is his very weak area and he is working at a lower level than his brother really. Those are the other images.

DS is year 7 summer born and his writing is nowhere near as neat as your yr 3.

OP dS always had terrible handwriting and whilst it is much improved it is always going to be messy unless he writes very slowly which isn’t possible in school.

I tried to improve it during lockdowns and we did make progress but I think his issue stems from them teaching cursive writing from reception when his brain just wasn’t ready for it.
It took months in lockdown to teach him which letters should have horizontal joins rather than vertical joins and even now he is not very good at tall letters and completing the circles on a’s and o’s so they can end up looking like u’s. His r’s also have very tall stalks so look like t’s 😬

Original poster
ilkleymoorbartat · 31/03/2023 23:01

Thanks for your tips @Ineedtoloseweightnow , really helpful.

Im wondering if anyone's child made a big leap in handwriting at this stage or does that normally happen earlier?

OP posts:
America12 · 01/04/2023 01:48

SmigeonPigeon · 31/03/2023 21:24

I read it as ‘3 year old’ and thought “that is some stealth boast” 😂 it’s been a long week!

Same 🙄

Original poster
ilkleymoorbartat · 01/04/2023 07:46

Sorry for confusing everyone with the title!

This is my sons writing.

What's your year 3 boys writing like?
OP posts:
cheekypimpleberry · 01/04/2023 07:48

I think his writing is lovely OP

imnotthatkindofmum · 01/04/2023 07:49

This is better than my year 4 girls writing. In fact it's better than my year 9 girls writing in terms of neatness!

I think your boy is doing great.

imnotthatkindofmum · 01/04/2023 07:50

Also I work in secondary, there is much less emphasis on cursive there which often makes a huge difference to those who struggle, especially boys. In fact for those with handwriting issues (and I'm talking illegible here!) they are actively encouraged not to write in cursive. It's unbelievable how much difference it makes!

Original poster
ilkleymoorbartat · 01/04/2023 07:53

It's really interesting you say that about the cursive. This is one of the only times he's written cursive and it's way way nearer than his usual writing, I'll show an example of that too. But thanks for the kind words. I didn't expect them to be honest. We've had to do a lot of work with him generally, so maybe I'm being a bit blinkered about things.

OP posts:
Dibblydoodahdah · 01/04/2023 07:55

My DS1 had beautiful cursive writing when he was in year 3. He’s now in year 8 and doesn’t bother joining up his letters anymore! Doesn’t seem to be a problem as he’s getting A1’s in English.

DS2 is in year 5 and handwriting is still a big struggle for him. At the moment we are working on making his numbers more legible because his maths teacher is concerned that he will lose marks on exams even though he’s doing very well at maths.