Awful writing skills - does anyone else have a DS/DD with a similar problem?

[sageygirl]

DS is 8 and in yr 3. He learnt to read easily in the Spring term of yr R but has always disliked reading and does not read for pleasure at all. When he reads it is disjointed, with no expression, and he doesn't follow the punctuation - sentences flow into each other or he stops just where you shouldn't. He has a reading age of 10. If asked to explain what he was reading he can - very fluently - but he hates doing it.

His spelling is excellent. He has weekly spelling tests, never learns his words, always gets them all correct. Generally outside of tests he spells well too. Handwriting was poor but is rapidly improving and is now legible most the time, he has worked on this and it's not a problem any more.

But now I can read them, it is the content of his writing that is worrying me. He can't write sentences. His writing is non-sequential, he doesn't seem to realise that actions happen in sequence and you need to record them in sequence: he starts in the middle and then goes back and forward seemingly at random. He doesn't use punctuation unless reminded and then it is awful - incorrect and in the wrong place. He often writes speech (though minus the speech marks unless prompted) and can't grasp how to write indirectly or describe things. Tends to use names rather than pronouns.

Example taken from recent homework: "Tom falls off the tree and hurts his hand tom help me please I have hurt my hand climbing trees is fun. tom likes climbing trees. Mummy tom you should take care and not fall off the tree this is the sixth time today you need to wash that cut and put some antiseptic cream on which will destroy any germs on it. The tree is an apple tree and Tom's baby Sister is collecting blossom and making perfume with it and chucks it all over Tom hee hee hee you smell beautiful now."

He stopped and asked me how to spell antiseptic and beautiful while he was writing.

Is this a problem in yr 3? His verbal vocabulary is increasing and probably OK for yr 3. I suppose my worry is that there seems a marked mis-match between his speech, which seems as mature as other kids in the class, and his ability to write.

Anyone else out there with similar DS/DD?

If it's relevant , he is good(ish) at maths and science.

Apologies, long essay.

Hi OP, I don't know if you are still following your original post but I've just seen it. I'm afraid I don't have a DC of the same age but it's not a scenario I have seen a lot. I've heard of something similar with a friend's DD whose language skills are at the bottom of her class (she's about 9 or 10) despite her mum's efforts to help -turns out she's a gifted artist and musician. Your DS seems to be able to think of very complex words and ideas but it's almost as though several stories were getting mixed up into one. He sounds advanced in his ability to read or comprehend but not in expressing himself. I suspect he doesn't want to read out loud because it seems very childish, and he just needs to find some books/stories in topics he is interested in.

I'm not a teaching or education professional but what I might do with helping him to express his thoughts is to try some exercises in learning to put thoughts on paper - such as copying paragraphs from a story book. Short sentences that might be similar to what he would write himself. It's like learning grammar - you can't be "creative" with it, you have to follow some conventions and rules. Once he's learnt the conventions of writing sentences he can be creative with his stories. If he won't do any writing or reading practice, incentives/prizes always work - has to be something he wouldn't have normally eg an outing, a trip, money to save towards a toy/game he wants.

If that doesn't work, it might be worth asking an experienced English teacher at his school how to get around this problem. Have you asked his class teacher if she has seen lots of this? (or if not, then the headteacher). HTH!

Can he tell a story in order orally or does he confuse it then too? Can he hold a complete sentence in his head while he writes it, or does he keep forgetting half way through. If the latter, he may need practice in that specific skill.

It sounds like he could do with some teaching on how to plan stories. Maybe using storyboards, or flow diagrams or mind maps or just section headings. I'd start with the very simple "stories should have a beginning, middle and end." Divide a paper into 3 bits and talk about which bits of the story need to go in which section. To begin with (if he really hates to physical act of writing) you could scribe for him. Make notes of his ideas about what happens in each part of the story. Then get him to formulate complete sentences for the ideas in each section in turn ( where again you could do the scribing). Then gradually get him more involved with the physical writing.

If you can find a cheap gadget that records voices, children generally love working with these. Once you have practised activities as above, he could record a couple of full sentences for one of the story sections on a voice recorder, then play it back as many times as he needs to write it down.

I'd do it in bits. Plan the story one day. Write sentences for the "beginning section" the next day etc