Writing

[winterisstillcoming]

DS is Y4 currently and we are going to put him forward for entrance exams for an independent school at 11+.

He has a great little maths brain and is in top group for English. There are some brilliant girls in his class that are great at reading and writing so he is doing well to keep up. His progress reports from school put him at expected for English.

So I've got the 9-10 workbooks for English and he's doing well, so it's all looking ok.

However, I'm not sure about his writing. He is a typical maths brain and his writing lacks imagination. He has an ok vocabulary (we are working in this). I think writing is the area where he will struggle.

Any tips on how to improve his writing, or even get an idea of the standard required at 11 +?
I have descriptosaurus but today I asked him to describe a car without saying it's a car in a story and he just told me it has wheels and an indicator, what is it?

I know it's a little early to be starting, and I don't want to turn it into a battlefield, but I don't want to be panicking nearer the exams in 18 months time.

Any wisdom, resources, tips would be welcome.

Try ‘Alan Peat Writing Exciting Sentences’ book as a start, there are loads of others, but this is the one I happen to remember the name
of! If it’s too young there are others, but could be a nice confidence booster without too much pressure as you have plenty of time.
Does he read much? I’d really try hard to help him find some fiction he loves. It’ll help with imagination and vocabulary.
Does he have ideas for writing and then find it hard to put down on the page, or is it an ideas issue? If it’s difficulty getting it onto the page drawing a picture/mindmap/whatever might help before starting to try to write.
Little tasks e.g. 3 mins to think of 10 alternatives to word ‘nice’, if you read together read 2 pages and then think of what might happen next and why, look up 3 words in thesaurus and put them into 3 exciting sentences.
Good luck!

Ask him to find three reasonably complicated image he likes on different themes. The rest is up to you:

Put him in the picture without saying which one: 'You are about to drive your dream car. Describe the feeling in your stomach...' Write as many sentences you can in (three) minutes.

'Describe the car as it arrives including looks, sounds, smells.' (three mins as above). No pressure, just finish the sentence you're working on.

'Another boy in a similar car goes past.' What do you think?

That's enough writing to fill 10 minutes. If it works it will not be a conclusive response but could contain some confidence building original ideas.

It will help to remember that we're people interested in people; 70% feeling, 20% description, 10% what happens when (all approx).

If writing wasn't about people Pride and Prejudice would be entirely a Rightmove/inheritance thread.

Mrs Wordsmith website has some resources for vocabulary development.

Thank you all, brilliant advice.

I've just got the Mrs. Wordsmith notification so I'll follow that up, and have a look at everybody's recommended resources. Thank you also for the little exercises - these work well for us as they fill up 'dead time' in waiting rooms, in the car etc and can be done in short bursts.

I definitely agree that DS should read more. He does read most days, but sometimes I have to nag. I'm inwardly disappointed as I was a bookworm at his age. His argument for not reading fiction is 'but why would I read that? it's all made up'

He prefers facts, so we subscribe to The Week and he'll voraciously read online about cars, football etc. He loves doing Power Point etc.

I've found with him that with certain things we'll keep working at it and then at some point it will come together.

I'd also like to give him examples of good writing by children his age so he knows what kind of thing to aim for, and critiquing his writing as well as drafting.

I guess I'm going to be busy but thanks all especially as we haven't yet let it slip to those around us about applying so thank you for your help. We don't know anything about what to do or expect so it's a steep learning curve for all of us.