Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Grade-appropriate writing for first grade

DS6's verbal IQ is 150 and he reads easily at a 5th grade level (hard to completely know). He is at a Title 1 school where expectations are pretty low. I am having a hard time knowing if his penmanship and writing are okay, considering his other skills. This is NOT his handwriting, but his penmanship looks much like these samples (word choice/sentence construction is better):

http://oar.nipissingu.ca/images/V823-Post-test_narrative.jpg
http://corbettharrison.com/images/writer/favorite_foods_2_lg.jpg

Penmanship is big and shaky-ish and he is still forgetting capital letters about 20% of the time. He still mixes in the occasional uppercase where he should be using lowercase, too. His spelling is very good and his sentence construction and punctuation use are good, but he does not choose to write more than a few sentences at a time.

Is this within the range of appropriate for a very bright male child with high literacy or should I wonder? DD was knocking it out of the park for writing at this age, so I can't compare.

DYS DS6 has a similar profile and his handwriting looks like what you describe. He also forgets capitals, but his teacher is calling his attention to it (with my blessing), because he is probably ready to learn this. I am not worried about it at all. His thinking skills are advanced...his writing skills, not so much.

I think part of the reason that I am not worried is that he seems similar to what I saw with DYS DD9, who is now doing fine with writing.

I'm not a professional, but in my observation the penmanship in the samples is, at the very least, right about on target for the typical first grader at this time of year.

The writing is supposed to be large at this stage, because the teachers are telling the students to use two lines, using the one running through the middle as a guide to keep everything straight and roughly uniform in size. That relative uniformity in size, keeping within the lines, maintaining proper word and letter spacing, and proper letter shapes are keys they're looking for. The samples have all of that. The capitalization mistakes are normal, and you can expect your teacher to be correcting and reinforcing that throughout the year. Shakiness is expected because writing is still a laborious process, the students haven't fully committed the letters to muscle memory yet. As long as the shapes of the letters are easily discernible (as they are in the samples), no worries.

First-grade spelling is a disaster in my experience (aka "inventive spelling"), so if your DS is spelling well, he's way ahead on that measure.

That writing sample is readable! My now 3rd grader still does not form letters properly. He learned to print using D'Nealian and when he went to kinder they wanted him to use block letters. He has had a hard time ever since

Well, I understand worrying about writing, but if his writing is similar to the samples it looks like he's way ahead of my DS6. And his grade 1 teachers don't appear to be concerned at all.

My DS's writing is much more varied - sometimes really tiny letters, sometimes huge letters. Sometimes - and this drives me nuts - experimenting with huge bubble letters (for fun? to make the work more interesting? because he's having trouble with normal printing? I've no idea)

I also have a hard time knowing where he's at because DD10 did not have such a hard time in this area.

Re: spelling - I agree with Dude. DS had better spelling in SK. I thought the teachers must know what they were doing when I heard about 'inventive' spelling when DD was in grade 1, but now in grade 5 she still misspells words, so I don't know (mind you it's French Immersion so that probably also has an impact).

Those handwriting samples look lovely from my world. For comparison, scroll down to figure 3 (Molly's Sample) on this page to see what my almost 9 year old's handwriting typically looks like:

http://www.nha-handwriting.org.uk/p...ting-problems-in-children-with-aspergers

What you are describing is probably normal, but I'd keep an eye on it. If I compare DD's writing from first grade to third grade, I don't really see any progress. DS7 has developmental coordination disorder and he can write neatly, with approrpiate spacing, letter formation, etc. but has to put an unusual amount of effort into it and he can get very sloppy. His pencil grasp is very awkward looking, he is stiff, tongue sticking out, etc. His writing from K and early first grade looks shaky, but he had a traumatic brain injury at that time so it's hard to tell how much is from that. He also has a tremor (that is not obvious to me).

Thanks. It may just be that I know where DD was at this age and he is nowhere near that. Interestingly, her verbal IQ did not test as high and she was not as strong a reader at this age. But...she has great fine motor skills.

I might mention that DS has a bit of trouble with a few fine-motor tasks. He is a messy eater and he also still sometimes struggles with buttons and zippers. He just learned to tie his shoes. He seems to drop things a lot. However, his large motor skills are very good and he is athletic. Other history is that he was diagnosed with hypotonia as a baby and had PT for about 9 months, after which he was discharged for making good progress. I have asked him if writing is hard or if it hurts his hand, though, and he says no and looks at me like I am nuts.

Hmmm - you are really asking two separate questions and an accurate answer to either one depends on more information than contained in the sample.

Your first question is whether the handwriting is within the appropriate range for a very bright verbal boy. However, graphomotor ability is not related to verbal cognitive ability so the question is really whether this handwriting sample is typical of fall first grade. I would say that it looks low average to me if that was a concerted final effort and high average if it was a quick rough draft.

Your second question is whether the substantive writing is within the appropriate range for a very bright verbal boy. However, output requires more than input so even in the absence of 2E, that range is extremely wide. I would say that particular sample would not suggest high verbal ability to me, but I would not be shocked either if I were told that the writer is a verbally gifted first grader.

Quantum--Sorry...that is not his actual work. Those are web samples that look like his as far as penmanship. His writing is better in terms of sentence structure, spelling, and vocabulary but might lack some capitals or even be somewhat messier.