Could someone please tell me if this is 'normal' or 'behind' for a 7 year old, year 2 child

[sandyballs]

I worry about her progress, her class are allegedly a 'good' class and that seems to mean that they are given weak, ineffective teachers. She has a twin (in a different class with a great teacher) who is strides ahead so it's hard to work out what is an average level at this age.

I have just found a 'riddle' in her book bag:

Guess my riddle:

"I am 2 diffirnt cullos
I have 4 legs oltger
you well find me in a fame
I have a tell
I am dlack and witow
I am diger than a pig
I am a bit small than house"

Something dd does (she is 4, 5 in August, and just finishing reception, but is a very good writer generally) is that sometimes, completely randomly, she will write from the right hand side of the page, and go backwards. And if she's doing that, then she may reverse the letters. No idea why she does it - it's like her brain just does a little 'flip'.

It looks very like what my 8yo would have written a year ago, complete with reversed bs and ds. Her writing is officially about average for her age. It's much weaker than her maths or reading.

my 6yo (yr2) still writes some letters and numbers backwards, though her writing is otherwise good for her age.

I think there are a lot of clever children on MN, and probably some who are described in such terms iyswim.

Haven't spoken with the school, not sure if it is really worth it with the present teacher to be honest, from our experience at parents evening. Nice enough chap but very vague and not sure that he really knew our DD at all!

My dd, who is 4 and will start school in September, has just started to take an interest in writing, and always starts on the right and works towards the left. My heart sank when I saw it TBH. I've given up stressing over DS because his teachers seem very sanguine about his writing, but not easy when he keeps getting beautifully written notes and cards from his friends. Ah well.

my DP's spelling is still poor, and would have been atrocious at 7. He also has a 1st in Physics and a phd.

we all have bad handwriting in both of our families. It's much overrated, handwriting, IMO.

Writing a riddle is one of the writing tasks in the 2007 SATs. (This year we could choose to do tasks from 2005 or 2007, they don't release new papers every year).
If the work was unaided (as SAT writing tasks should be) then I would say your dc is doing ok. Reversing letters is still very common in Yr 2. The riddle task is marked with a focus on content rather than spelling/punctuaion/grammar etc.
Anyway, don't sweat it. SAT scores are a bit of a waste of time IMHO. The score from the tests and tasks is not reported, only teachers assessment, which should be a balanced judgement of child ability & progress throughout the year.

Just re-read my post. It's a jolly good job that teachers spelling mistakes aren't marked!!