Can most 5yos draw a diagonal line?

[Aranea]

My 5yo forms her letters well and is keen on writing and drawing. But despite her best efforts, she cannot manage a diagonal line. Which means she can't really write x or z or k. Is this normal? I probably wouldn't give it a second thought, but she has coordination issues and is currently being assessed by an OT for these. It seems to be just her gross motor skills that are affected, but I am now wondering whether her problems with coordination are making it hard for her to draw diagonal lines.

Does anyone know about this at all? Or any suggestions on how to help her master it? She is so determined to get it right, but she just can't seem to do it.

Not at all unusual. I get many x's written as a + in reception.

I work in a Y1 class with 5/6yos. It varies a lot, some can, some can't.

Oh good, that's very reassuring. Thank you!

Just ignore as she'll get there soon, but if she's getting frustrated, put dots on the page for her to draw between maybe? Or get her to put her pencil on the page, put your finger diagonally where the line needs to reach, then tell her to hit your finger with the pencil. DS loved doing that when he was having a mare with 'k'.

Ds is the same - doing ok with other letters such as s but struggles with straight diagonals so can't really do k, x and z (x is done as a +)....yet.

I feel much better now (hello grammer! )

Smee - I do dots for her sometimes and that works fine, but she just gets so frustrated about not being able to do it on her own! Still, I suppose the more she keeps on trying the sooner it will come. Fingers crossed.

Have no idea if my 5 YO can.But they do x as 2 cs back to back and z like a back-to-front 3