Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion another writing sample--what do we think?

He wrote it while his sister was working on a story--he wants to be like her.

I definitely think he is fine as in--no LDs. For sure. Just wondering if folks thought he could skip with this level of work. I would have thought this was like, GOOD K work, but not great?

I count 10 sentences, which is about the grade-level expectation for free writing in 3rd grade according to my DS' teacher. His spelling shows that he has both a sense of phonics and what words look like. He's pretty clear on capitals and periods.

This is the first half of kindergarten, at which point the rest of the class is working on words like 'the' and 'and', right? He could stagnate, at which point he'd be fine but not stellar in 2nd, or he could continue doing this sort of thing (fainting a little here...) voluntarily, and he'd be on the top side of good for a rising 2nd grader.

Bear in mind normal is a wide range. I think that's still good work for a 6yo, so I'd be inclined to trust his teacher. He might not stand out for writing if he skipped, but I think he'd be fine if that's typical of what he does now.

He is not yet 6--won't be 6 till early spring.

geofizz, he has a good model in his sister! (OT) Here's the start of what DD9 was writing while he was writing this--a story about a tern migrating for the first time:

"Caspian let out a long, harsh call. He was cold to his downy feathers. Not understanding how terns survive flying south, he let out another call to tell his flock he was directly behind them. Muttering to himself, he turned around, trying to get a last look at the home he was leaving behind."

(okay, that should go in the brag thread)

My son just skipped third and his writing was great for a third grader-but he was low for a fourth grader when he first was moved. He has slowly but steadily improved. All the other writing for content like science and reading has been just fine the whole time. Not sure about his writing in Spanish. But his essays are definitely better after just 9 weeks in the class. I figure he is squashing third and fourth grade writing growth into one year and it is probably good for him to have to work hard. I feel he will be sailing along above grade level next year with writing and this was a bump in the road that I anticipated.

That's what I immediately thought too. The spelling looks like that in a 2nd grade class, and their actual spelling words are a lot easier than the ones your DS chose...

DeeDee

That's what I meant, sorry for not being clear - that even compared to what I'd expect of kids in the year above, this is still good.

I have twins in first grade at a very good public school, and your DS's writing sample looks better than most of the first grade writing that I see in the halls. He is using punctuation and writing sentences. They don't focus on spelling at our school in first grade very much, because they want the children to write without feeling self conscious. They just started focusing in October on how to write sentences using correct punctuation and capitalizing.

The writing sample you posted would be considered very good in first grade at this point in the year.

I have to agree with the others. I for sure do not see his writing being an obstacle to a skip and looks pretty typical of what I recall seeing in dd6's first grade class. And also, from what I remember not that different from what dd13 was writing at that age and she is in 99.9% verbal and a skip. I think your older dd warped your perspective.

It looks to me like what my DD7 writes, in 2nd grade. She writes a lot of stories outside of what's required, and chooses larger words for those. She also knows how to spell the more complicated words but misspells (inconsistently, as your DS did) some of the easier ones.