English teachers please help me

[yotty]

My bright year 6 DS has a wonderful imagination, a wide vocabulary and can write the most amazing stories. However, they are full of mistakes, ie. spelling, missing words, sentences that don't make sense and sometimes go off at a tangent that can confuse the reader. Therefore, part of the writing appears to be that of a child many years his senior but is let down by the plethora of mistakes that a child younger than him should not be making.
He tells me he has checked his work, but seems unable to see his mistakes.
He is my eldest child so I don't know what level is expected of a 10 year old. He has his heart set on a very academic senior school and I am not sure how involved I should be in correcting his mistakes. I don't want to stifle his creativity but the number of mistakes are frightening.
Can anyone tell me if I should be going through his work with him or just not get involved, as I am beginning to feel like a horrible pushy mum and he is feeling like his work is never good enough?

I would speak to his teacher as your first port of call. Tell her you have concerns about his spellings and sentence structure. Ask to see his classwork and see if this bears relation to the homework you have seen. Do you know what NC level he is working at?

What sort of words is he mis-spelling: common, high frequency ones, or more ambitious vocabulary? If it is the latter, I would say the appropriate vocab choice outweighs spelling errors. Does he have weekly spelling homeworks, and how does he manage? Is he encouraged to plan work before writing up?

As an immediate thing to do at home, I would sit and listen to him read out verbatim what he's written down, and stop him every time he self-corrects as he reads through. If he has left out words in his written work, he is unlikely to read it out this way, should automatically self-correct, but may not notice that he's doing so. You can train him to listen to himself doing this. Try listening to him a few times and then let him have a go independently.

Definitely get involved! You obviously care and your DS sounds like he has great ability.

Thanks for your comments. Don't know what NC level he is now as he attends prep school which doesn't really dwell on such things. But was told by his teacher when he was half way through year 4 that he was performing at level 5 at that point. He tends to miss spell the high frequeny words and use the wrong their/there or are/our, yet if you ask him which is the appropriate their/there he can tell you. Always gets 19/20 or 20/20 for weekly spelling tests. He tends to miss out the 2/3 letter words when he is writing a composition. He is disorganised and we keep encouraging him to use a mind map before he starts writing, but he is a 10 year old boy who gets an idea and just wants to start writing. He does his homework at school, so don't often see his written work. This all came to light at half term as he was writing a story for Radio 2 500 word competition. Feel bad for having a go at him about his mistakes, when not many boys would bother to write a story during half term. He is dyspraxic which may also be having an effect.

You sound lovely! Don't feel bad for 'having a go' at him - it can be difficult when they are at prep and all work done in school, so hard for you to keep abreast of it all. Do make an appointment to see his English/form tutor and report back, if you like, what they advise you. Good luck - he sounds very able!

yotty DS2 at the school your DS has set his heart on has similar problems his spelling is awful 20 out of 100 in a spelling test of 100 commonly used words (head of SEN was surprised he did that well!) This issue was poorly addressed at his prep but us now being properly addressed. Most importantly don't worry it does not seem to be a bar to admission and it was even taken into consideration when being asked to write for his interview although he did and does have an ed psych report diagnosing dyslexia.

Thanks HG. Interview in a couple of weeks. Will let you know outcome in June.