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

Forgive me yammering on about this, but we are still trying to figure out what to do with DS5. His weakest area is writing. He has improved since starting K, but I am still not clear where he stands, because DD was, I now see, extremely advanced in this area in K--not even in the same ballpark. He will be 6 in early spring. Here is something he wrote today for fun. Does this look like he could make it in grade 1 now or in grade 2 next year? His teacher thinks so, but I feel quite unsure. Reproduced exactly as written. Don't ask me what is going on with the Spanish chapter titles.

Chapter Uno 1

Once upon a time ther was a octupus. His mother lived on land. He ate fihs that were small Like him.

Chapter Dos 2

Ther was a treasure he had to find to undo the spell put on his mom. He searched evry inch on the ground, searched under every tuft of coral.

Chapter Trace 3

Just then a sharck swam past with a diamod on its back. The octopus chased it but Never caguht up. Finealy the sharck stopet to take a breaht. It droped the dimond off.

Chapter quatro

the octopus caught it and threw it to his mom who caught It. the end.

Here in Lake Nogebow, everyone's weakest area is writing.

Seems well past K level writing. Good complexity. Even if it didn't all make it to the written word, you can tell he has bigger story in his head. It's also a well formed story with the right beats.

Not sure what you mean by that, 22B, but it is definitely not my daughter's weakest area; probably her strongest.

I think that is quite rare.

Many talented children can learn to read music earlier than usual but how many of them are ready to start composing at age 5? I think the same goes for reading/writing.

Your DS's writing right now is pretty average for mid-first but he seems to have potential in this area too. I wouldn't hold him back from a skip to 1st grade based on his writing. Even if his reading, math, and other areas might be ahead of 1st grade, at least 1st grade writing instruction should be appropriate to his level.

I think writing talent is less common, but not at all unheard of for verbally gifted children. I was similar to my DD in this way and won various writing contests as a child. To some extent, writing talent can be tied to a gift for imitation.

Going back to DS--his other skills are definitely much stronger. His teacher seems to think his writing is very good. It may be that I am just totally warped by DD. I find it a little concerning that he is still inconsistent with capitalization. He does use periods all the time now. Commas are inconsistent. His spelling has improved. I guess the strength of this bit is that it makes sense.

What I meant was, it is quite rare or at least I have not seen any K students being able to write with maturity, if that makes sense. I would say even for gifted students, in most cases, their writing does not start "shining" until 2nd grade.

Your DS is showing signs that once he is a bit older, he is going to be a strong writer. He is just not there yet.

Seems great to me but my kid has dysgraphia so my measure might be off. I will say it seems better than the written work on the wall in my kid's K class.

How did this happen? (if you are comfortable sharing.) My son has been "writing" since he was 4... and I am a little worried this will happen to him, too. How does one prevent this, I wonder....

He wrote that *voluntarily*?

He's fine.