1st Grade Reading & Writing

What a great question and one often asked and hotly debated among teachers. Let's consider - if you ask your child's pediatrician 'at what age should my baby walk' - you will get a very established answer. Pediatricians will tell you that most children walk between the ages of 9 months and 14 months - with some exceptions of course. But those are the parameters for the developmental milestone that is walking. (which does not mean to say if a child is not walking by 14 months they will never walk!)
So - what are the parameters for writing a complete sentence with the right punctuation and spacing between words?
The short answer is - no one knows. Unlike pediatrics, teaching is not the same level of science - it does NOT have the same kind or amount of research that stands behind the answers your child's pediatrician will give you.
This TeacherParent is amazed at modern expectations - there are schools out there that expect 1st graders to be able to write a complete sentence with the right punctuation and spacing between words. I will always find that remarkable but there are always children out there who can do it at that young age. Having taught all ages over many years, I'd tell you - I had high schoolers who could not yet do this. I taught college students who could not yet do it. I taught middle schoolers - where most of them learned to do it if they hadn't learned it before.
But there are children with underlying learning differences - recognized or not - that make this seemingly simple task a hard one for them.
But if Your child cannot write a complete sentence with the right punctuation and spacing as a 1st grader - I'd say - it is an inappropriate expectation to have of every 1st grader. yes, there are some who can remarkably do it but there are just as many that can't.

I have yet to meet the 1st grader that really understand what a 'complete sentence' is - most of my middle schoolers couldn't really explain that even if they write a complete sentence. Let's remember that casual conversation is usually not in complete sentences - your child hears half- sentences - it's how we speak though it's not how we're supposed to write. Rules of punctuation are rather complex - most adults don't fully understand where the commas go and very young children are struggling to remember to put their period at the end of their sentence. Spacing - I could write volumes about spacing - children perceive spaces in a very different way.
One scholar called writing "The Great Juggling Act" because it asks that a child do about a thousand things all at once- think, anticipate the next word, write the word, think of the letters that spell the word, write out the letters one by one, do it all again with the next word, remember to put the space, hold the pencil properly not writing too hard or too soft, what letters are uppercase and what aren't .....
But in these modern times, tasks that were once expected of 4th and 5th graders are now expected of 1st graders. One of my own children struggled to meet those expectations while the other child seemed to breeze through them.
There are some good books out there about children and writing - that can be very reassuring to parents. Why Johnny Can't Write is one - good luck!

second grade.

2nd Gr.

i would think about second are third grade. was this helpful?