KS1 Literacy and speed

[squashpie]

My DS's teacher has said that my DS has some good ideas in literacy, good vocab etc. but needs to become faster in producing it if he's going to complete the volume of work needed for end of year requirements(I imagine SATs tests and the regular SATS assessments). The teacher thought he got hung up on making sure his spelling was 100% correct and so we agreed that we'd encourage him to just keep going and not worry about the spelling too much.

This morning, my DS said that he hadn't finished his work yesterday because he wanted to write lots and put in lots of ideas (don't know what the work was). I don't know what the requirements are for Yr 2 in terms of literacy (I've looked at the Standards website but I'm still not clear what that means in terms of actual work). I wondered if someone could help me find ways to encourage my son to produce the quantity of work he is supposed to. I don't want to quash his enthusiasm or ideas but, equally, I don't want him to be apparently not 'keeping up' because he's not getting all those ideas on paper.

Apologies for length of message. It's clearly hereditary!

bump.

The requirement is to complete the piece of writing in the lesson nothing to do with SATs I'm afraid.

Your DS sounds exactly like my Y2 DD. She produces very little as she is focused on spelling and doing tiny, beautiful writing.

Her Y1 teacher worked hard with her, told her not to worry about the spelling and just to get her ideas down on paper.

I recently found out at parents evening that her Y2 teacher is pushing her on spellings and the quantity has plummeted again - and best of all the teacher was completely oblivious to the work that DD and Y1 teacher had put in to improving quantity .

I feel like we're back to square one and I will watch this thread for ideas on how to handle the situation ourselves.

Expectations in Y2 are that children spell common words correctly. I would prefer less writing of an appropriate standard than pages of low standard work. The problem comes when the work produced isn't completed. If the child is writing a story, for example, it must have a beginning, middle and ending. So needs to be planned for the time available.

I was told that my DS was on course for a level 3 at KS1, had great ideas and vocab and so on but needed to speed up. How do I get him to do this in the time available? How much time is available in a standard lesson? As they don't have a clock in their classroom and I'm not sure he's covered telling the time beyond half past, oclock and quarter to and quarter past, I'm at a bit of a loss as to know how to help him. He's in the top spelling group and can spell common words perfectly well. It's the descriptive, adjectival words he's using to convey his story etc. I believe he's having trouble with.

Most schools divide their day into hour (ish) sessions so after whole class input you are probably looking at half that for actual writing.
In year 2 children are expected to spell phonetically regular, or familiar common polysyllabic words accurately and make plausible attempts at more difficult words.

Thank you Mrz. That's helpful to know.

My DS (yr2) is slow at writing - his fine motor skills are fairly poor. I play games at home using post-its. Timed games such as name as many animals as you can, when the times up put the post its on the wall. Then write as many names, days of the week etc. Get DS to chose one from each bit and write me 3 sentences about them. The alphabet game is good too. Chose a letter then have 1 minute to write a boys name, girls name, food, country and animal beggining with that letter. Its helping him to develop the skill of think-write as oppossed to his usual think, daydream, then write

I use this with my class

Thanks mrz - we'll give it a go.

I start with one word in the given time and accept basic sentences such as I saw a snail. but build up to more interesting sentences The slimy snail climbed up the high wall. Then move onto two or three words.

mrz, can I ask is this year 2 you are doing this with?? My DS is yr 2 and just could not do this.

I am shocked that there is no clock in a Year 2 classroom. In my class we do a 'big write' piece of writing every friday which has significantly increased the children's writing stamina as they are expected to write for 45mins in silence (gentle music playing). I am very much feel that I would like to see quality over quantity but obviously there needs to be enough work to level. These are some of the techniques I use to encourage children to write more (while still telling them I expect good punctuation and neat writing) are:
-putting a dot part the way down the page and saying lets see if you can get to here today (sometimes offer an effort pointas an incentive)

• Getting children to plan their stories with a clear beginning, middle and end. Then giving clear time reminders. "For the first 15 min write the begining of your story", after 10 mins I will say "5 more mins for the beginning part"etc through out the writing session.

Hope some of these ideas help. I find cildren come on a long way in Year 2 do not worry too much I am sure he will get there xx

Yes mumbar I teach Year 2

I agree with montymum I have two wall clocks plus a Big Writing timer for the IWB in my room.

and wanted to say thank you mrz, loving the sentence building game.