Just been to a workshop at Ds's nursery and am a bit concerned now

[NuttyMuffins]

Ds is 4.6 and starts school in Sept.

When I went to his last nursery meeting, his teacher raised concerns about his lack of pencil control and interest in writing and drawing, but said they would be addressing it at nursery, getting him to do activities using the same position he needs to hold a pencil in etc.

Anyway, I went to the workshop today and various activities were set out around the room. Ds was fine with the activites that were toys to play with, and was also fine on the computer, and with the sand, water play etc, but with the drawing, writing, painting and jigsaws he just could not do it.

He painted me a picture, i asked him what it was and he said an alien, and then he just painted straight lines. I said what about his face, and he said there it is and pointed to one of the lines.

He then had a go on the blackboard. I said i'd draw a letter and he could copy, and he basically couldn't copy any of them at all, not even ones in his name.

Then he moved on to the tracing activity, anxd he had to trace a picture of a policeman. I explained what to do, and he picked up the pencil and just looked at me like he really didn't understand what I meant. I explained again and showed him and he picked up his pencil and scribbled across the whole piece of paper.

Lastly he did a jigsaw and again he just didn't seem to understand that he had to find the right piece and put it in the right place, and even when he got the right peice, he couldn't get it to fit, and this was an incredibly easy jigsaw.

I spoke to his teacher about him, and she said that really he hasn't progressed at all since she last spoke to me about it and that she had been writing his report recently and that in the area of writing, drawing etc he doesn't meet any of his targets for his age and isn't even close to meeting them. He cannot even draw shapes, he can tell you what the shape is, but cannot draw it or even copy it.
She said he is fine with recognising numbers and number work if he hasn't got to actually write the number, but letters he still struggles with, and if they ask him to write any letters he just can't.

I am now really worried that in reception he is going to be so far behind he will never catch up.

why don't you start with the duplo? Ds still enjoys it (he can make bigger things ).

Get the bigger lego - the duplo stuff - DS still plays with his. The smaller stuff will prob frustrate him more.

And forget the Nursery 'Targets'.

So long as you've got no real concerns about him, and it sounds like you haven't, then don't get drawn into other people's 'targets' for your child.

My Target for ds at Four was and is purely for him to have fun, love his life, and make some friends.

He's achieved all that and that is all that matters.

i believe that when children have the internal impetus to do something, they do it much faster and better than if they are kind of forced into a narrow little band of expectation. Be strong nutty and have faith in him. Sounds like he'll be fine, well - he can't fail to be, with you this interested in helping his development. x

I agree, get some duplo and if you can, a base plate for it (so that precious constructions don't fall over and get broken). Also, just wanted to chip in here and say that when my ds1 was at nursery, I was told that he wasn't able to pick up move the string on a sort of puppet he had made. The keyworker was very concerned etc. We walked outside and ds1 turned to me with the puppet in hand and said "look mummy!" whilst moving it up and down perfectly . Our nursery (which sounds a similar set up to yours) was really concerned about ds1 and gave him a dreadful report because he couldn't demonstrate a lot of things to them but he did eventually do them all and his reception teacher was fantastic and saw through the rubbish report and brought him on loads.

Erm... my mother always says how frustrated she was at my drawing skills when I was that age (she is a teacher) while my sister was producing some early masterpieces. 30 years on my sister is still doing those "early masterpieces" while I'm a graphic designer.

So... not much help, I know, but just wanted to say that the problems he is experiencing now doesn't necessarily mean that he has a permanent problem.

My sister told me that a lot of children scribble over their artworks - they've expressed themselves and 'don't need it [the picture]' so they scribble on it, it's no value to them anymore. She's worked in several day-care settings and they used to watch the known scribbers, grab the artwork when they were done and keep it safe so their parents would have something to look at on open days. I'd suggest making an appt with the reception teacher and possibly ask the nursery teacher to step in as well to address your concerns. Don't forget there is 3 months between now and Sept - you might be surprised how much more ready he appears in Sept than he does now.

I would not worry atall, DS1 started school in Sept last year and he was 5 end of April, he scribbled all the time, right up until XmaS and is left handed. I think it is far too early at pre-school to be doing all of this stuff, my son was not at all interested but loved school and now nearly at the end of the school year, he can hold a pencil, write his name and some numbers and lettere, can colour in really well. Reception year is all about time, patience and getting the basics established. Some of the girls can write their own names in full and others can manage just the first name. I would not make too big a deal of it all, you don't want to push him to hard too soon, he's still so tiny, enjoy the Summer, he will love school and really come on - I PROMISE!

Please don't stress Nutty...enjoy your lovely little fellow...and monitor, that's all. Earlier you mentioned lots of things he WAS good at...I wold focus on those and encourage his skills and interests by building on those...much more positive than pathologising him....
Don't worry about 2 year olds who can do 50 piece puzzles...this parenting lark is awash with stories like that...