How Much Writing/Reading by 1st Grade?

[Anonymous]

W cluster school. No spelling words, no quizzes. Many kids including my own have horrendous handwriting. Teachers say not to worry.

There is a lot of writing in the new curriculum but the expectations for what the kids produce is very low. You could write, The cat jumped. It was fun. and misspell everything and the teacher would probably be thrilled.

[Anonymous]

By the end of first grade, your chid should be able to write at least a 2 page essay with an intro and conclusion paragraph, and several middle paragraphs, each with a topic sentence. That would be considered average in my book.

[Anonymous]

They start to raise the bar for spelling in second grade. In K and 1 it is all about having ideas and getting them on paper..even if it is a picture for the lowest performers. They don't want the kids to be limited to word they know how to spell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Do you have a current 1st grader? My older child had spelling tests when she was in first, but my current first grader does not. It was my understanding that this was removed from the MCPS curriculum as of either this year or last year. They still have spelling words, though -- just no quizzes.

Some MCPS schools/grades/teachers have spelling tests, others don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:W cluster school. No spelling words, no quizzes. Many kids including my own have horrendous handwriting. Teachers say not to worry.

There is a lot of writing in the new curriculum but the expectations for what the kids produce is very low. You could write, The cat jumped. It was fun. and misspell everything and the teacher would probably be thrilled.

Is this for a 1st grader? I agree with the teacher, don't worry. The expectations for a 1st grader should be low. Many of them are still 6.

I had a similar issue to you, PP. For the longest time, I thought my then 1st grader's work was terrible because, like your's, I could barely read the writing, simple misspelled words, short sentences that sometimes made no sense to me, etc..., but was always told by the teacher that DC was doing really well. I finally realized -- what do I know about what is appropriate writing for a 6 yr old. I'm not a teacher. I've only been exposed to one 6 yr old's writing, not several hundreds like the teacher has. This DC is now in HGC, and gets ESs all the time in writing.

So, I've learned to relax more with DC#2 now in 2nd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The difference with private school is perhaps the wider range of abilities. My son struggled with writing, because his ADHD was un-diagnosed at the time, but he was reading way above grade level. However, since writing sentences in response to questions determines your "reading" level, he was never put in the higher reading or spelling group until recently.
So just something to think about. You could have your child write something fun during the summer.

Seriously doubtful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the end of first grade, your chid should be able to write at least a 2 page essay with an intro and conclusion paragraph, and several middle paragraphs, each with a topic sentence. That would be considered average in my book.

Sadly this is beyond the ability of most millennials with whom I've worked let alone first graders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My first grader can read quite well at this stage (end of the year), but his writing is horrendous. Spelling is ridiculous, and they apparently don't really give spelling tests anymore.

Maybe not at your school, but at our non-W cluster ES, they do. DC had spelling tests in 1st, and a form of a spelling test in 2nd (like "boot" is cvvc category).

I think MCPS does have pretty high writing standards for 1st. We moved from out of state when my other DC was in 2nd, and this DC struggled with the writing because DC was not used to such rigorous writing. DC's reading level was pegged at 2 grades above in previous school, but when we moved here, because DC had trouble with the written part of the reading assessment, DC's reading level was lowered. Luckily, it only took DC a couple of months to go back to the reading level DC should've been at. But, that year was very painful for me to get DC to be better about writing, and I don't mean penmanship.

No spelling tests at my son's non W-cluster ES in first grade. My son doesn't appear to get a "grade" of any sort on written work, other than a comment from the teacher. A friend's son is in first grade at another MCPS ES, and he gets check, check plus, (whatever) as a "grade" on his journal entries. It is interesting because her son seems highly aware of how he stacks up to classmates (or at least how his current assignment compares to previous ones), whereas mine seems to have no concept of grading / evaluation.