writing 40-60e

[daisyboo72]

Hi, I could really do with some ideas on what you would expect to see in a nursery child who is working at 40-60 emerging in writing. The reason I'm asking is I feel F2 are expecting quite a lot more than before. All replies much appreciated

[catma]

If you consider typical child development in C+L, physical and reading/writing skills I would expect a child who has control over the pencil (or similar) and can make reasonable anti clockwise and retracing vertical movements. This in my opinion is not focused on enough before reception and children develop poor habits which are not corrected. Moderating writiing I see so many children in reception who have the phonics skills to write but really do not have the fluid movements that will enable them to sustain writing for longer periods as they move into KS1.

 

Children will also have developed awareness of sounds in speech through a good phase 1 focus on oral segmenting and blending. So many problems with reading and writing at the end of R are as a result of racing to PGCs at the expense of deepening and gaining mastery of being able to hear and identify all the sounds in a word.

 

Coupled with this sound awareness, some children might be beginning to hear and write initial sounds and maybe other consonants, but would generally be developing their awareness of writing as recorded speech - they might write "sticks and circles", random letter strings for example or use the letters from their name. In my nursery class adults didn't write a child's name on their work for them - we expected them to write their own name, even if it was simply a signature squiggle. All of these are around this age and stage of writing development.

 

A rich diet of story and literature is also important so that children have awareness of book language, story structures etc which they can bring to their skills of writing narrative later on. Having an awareness of print as a means of communicating information is a key concept.Equally being able to listen attentively will be crucial for when the specific teaching of phonics begins in R.

 

Emerging into 40 - 60 is just that - if you look across the linked skills in 40 - 60+ it's about emerging into all of those skills which they will develop across Reception.

 

Cx