Year one boy - writing

[Mimsie]

Hi all,

My little boy is now in year one, he's 5 1/2 and we've had the first parent teacher meeting...

It went like this... Maths v. good that's his strong point. Reading v. good another strong point (knows all the key sightwords, and can sound out most words) BUT to quote the teacher "giving how good his reading is, the writing doesnt follow..."

Now they do spelling tests every friday and he has 10/10 each week so far, but when it comes to writing his news or a story he is "not interested"

He has never been that keen on drawing, colouring anything involving holding a pen to be honest and he seems to get frustrated and then bored when asked to write something. I am not quite sure what to do about it.

Added to that they have taught them script writing last year in reception and this year it's all getting changed to cursive writing progressively...

Anything i could do to raise his interest? Anything that would not look too much like homework? Or just let it be?

This issue was raised last year already. They do their news on a monday. after the last holidays I knew a "news" day was coming so I asked him what he was going to tell the teacher. We had been to France to see my family and he said "I'll tell her I did nothing" I asked him why and he replied "because she'll ask me to write it" and true to his words he did lie!!

Any ideas to make it appealing to him?

Thanks

Very very typical of a bright spark to dislike writing - reason being that everything else, including the spelling, will be coming to him like magic, but writing is WORK. Quite surprised that his teacher is surprised, if you know what I mean.

There are two ways to go: one view would be not to push it and just trust to his interest developing; the other is to put quite a bit of effort into persuading him to practise in the hope that he will start to develop a facility in writing to match his other facilities.

I'm in second camp, with my 6.5 (yr 2) ds, and things we have done:

• over the summer, we kept a "logbook" in which he had to write just one sentence each day about what he'd done. We're keeping it going, and now it has to be two sentences ...

• I give him scrambled sentences (jumbled words)and he has to figure out, and then write, what it ought to say - ie, put a mental challenge in there too;

• bribery, corruption, pleading, egg-timers.

It is getting better, but it's a really long haul because of course his reading and his maths have taken off further, so in comparison writing still feels to him like drudgery. (So that if I'd taken the first view - of just let's see - we'd be even worse off than we are, I think.)

Very good luck.

my son is on a piloted programme at his school where they do fun things that help their fine motor co-ordination which makes writing easier and not such a chore , unfortunately it tends to happen in boys more but he loves it and it entails lots of art and craft plus hand /eye co-ordination, playdough/ games with small pieces etc and apperently after this programme there is a marked improvement in handwriting skills and they feel happier about writing rather than this foreboding

ds is still a bit like this in year 3. He partly didn't see the point and partly found it physically hard work to write efficiently so preferred to do the minimum. How are his writing and fine motor skills ?

Thanks for the replies, it makes me feel better because indeed I didnt know why the teacher seemed surprised over it.

Binkie I think you have it spot on writing he actually has to work at and that's the first hurdle he's ever faced, with everything else it seem to just come naturally to him.

His fine motor skills are I think the main problem... The art and craft idea I have sort of tried, I am not exactly the creative type but I have tried to do some fun activities but he does get bored 1/2 way down a project. Maybe it's partially because he feeds of me not being that type though!! but all of last year I have made sald dough shapes, last weekend his dad got him a car to assemble and stuff like that he starts keen but we're the ones having to finish!!! (he's much too keen on the old Xbox and his computer) Are legos any good for fine motor skills because he is getting really keen on them!! So I could sort him out with legos for Xmas!! Though he does get frustrated as well :P

I really do think his problem is only the actual act of holding and controlling the pencil... he holds it too close and can't see what he is doing...

My first instinct was indeed to make him work at it, but with them going across to cursive (and not the cursive I was taught in France!!) am unsure as to how to do that. and I do think the fine motor skills needed to write efficiently he just doesnt have. He can make nice letters just not consistently.

Yes, Lego is great for fine motor skills.

Some schools allow children to use a special triangular thing that fits on the pencil so as to make learning the grip easier - see if the teacher would allow that? I think the Early Learning Centre does them.

My son went through this he is now 6 yr 2 . His reception teacher was fantastic (is it possible to love your sons teacher LOL) She gave me loads of extra work (I photo copied this so I could use it again ) only 10 mins a day it was like drawing a wiggly line inbetween two other lines . It obviously got a bit harder as time went on but it takes a hell of a lot of effort on your part to be consistant . He is left handed so I dont think that helped (I was told this is a reason for "POOR" handwriting not an excuse ) .Last night he really does the minium amount of writing that he can get away with and he managed to write a page and a half .I was so proud . LOL for home work they had to write what they like on sandwiches ,he ONLY eats philidelphia cheese and I mean only nothing else ,he said "can I write jam " lazy little so an so .

My ds has been like this too. He was quite happy to do writing, and used to annotate all his pictures, but it was virtually unintelligible, and most of the letters were formed incorrectly. I do think it's partly because the British system introduces writing long before many boys (in particular) have the fine motor skills to pull it off, so they develop bad habits which don't lead easily into fluent confident writing.

I left it for a while, and then decided to take action over the summer, using a workbook which practised individual letter shapes, working up to whole words and sentences. This is the workbook we used - there are others, but I though this was the nicest and most straightforward. His handwriting is now fine, and we'll work up to the Y2 workbook which starts off joined-up writing, maybe over autumn half-term.

It helps to do a little practice every day, as binkie says -- mine do their homework after breakfast rather than in the evening, as they're not so tired and grumpy.

DS1 (now a very young Y3) was exactly the same. Huge gulf between reading and writing abilities, though he is a very good speller. Still doesn't really produce much, though he likes the idea of writing - he is always starting novels (!) which get no further than the contents.
We've tried various things - Reception teacher said don't worry, it will come; Y1 teacher was more anxious and sent home extra writing practice which was counterproductive coz he hated it; Y2 teacher didn't seem to care much.
His writing is slowly but surely improving.
From our experience, too much pushing led to tears and frustration. We tried the arts stuff too, but he didn't really co-operate! Good luck. I think it is really common and I can see DS2 (also very young for his year) having the same problems - he can spell quite well already but can't form any letters.
Has anyone taught their DC touchtyping? I was wondering if this would help him.

ds' school run touch typing as an activity by invitation so there ia a possibilty he'll be asked at some point.

the triangle things for pencils are great for someone struggling to hold the pencil. I totally agree with the problem probably being fine motor skills. Anything which uses little bits and finger work will help. If he isn't crafty, would he enjoy something mechanical? Dismantling an old radio? It doesn't matter what it is if he is having to use those skills.

If you do practice at home, I would tend to choose the sort of workbook with patterns and shapes, following between two lines rather than endless letter practice, as that will get very boring.

I just remembered that one of DS1's teachers recommended the Write from the Start writing programme, which you can get from Amazon - not sure how to link to it. I looked at it for DS1, but it's about 20 pounds (sorry, no pound sign on this foreign keyboard).

Thanks for all the ideas, got him a "DIY door alarm" for his bedroom. It will be a little project for his dad and him this weekend. He found it at the book fair at school and seemed keen to build it.

I have as well talked with one of the juniors' TA yesterday and she said she would get me some of those line things to follow, then that she said to encourage playing with plasticine to help build some strengh in the little fingers... and finally something I know i'll have no problem to make him do... dot to dots. DS will do anything that involves number so i think i am going to start with that! and the odd book like the one frog recommended from time to time (I just know if i try and make him actually write every night it will wind him up)...

I hope I'll see the light at the end of the tunnel by the end of the year thought, he's going to need to get going by next year... I help with the year 2 in the school, and boy he needs to learn to write!