just had parents night and I want to cry.. please help me to pull myself together

[NeverKnowinglyUnderstood]

my gorgeous bright little boy is floundering.
I have always known that he didn't like writing but his teacher is talking about him being behind what is expected of his peer group. He knows about punctuation, if you ask him about it he can explain exactly where it should be used, but he doesn't use it at all in writing.
His writing isn't far off how DS2 writes and there are 2 full school years between them.
Given that anything to do with writing is treated like torture how on earth do I get to grips with this?
he needs to work on it at home as well as school, he has always been in the "more able" groups but now his abiity to get his point across is more reliant on writing skills he is slipping further and further behind.

He is not dyslexic (brother is and there are almost no similarities) he can do it when he tries he just doesn't want to.

HELP!!

Watching with interest, this sounds like my ds2 (yr4)

This thread might help?

Does it hurt his hand to write?

Can he sit properly?

What bit of his writing is bad? Quantity? Spelling? Handwriting? Content?

Make it fun, give him lists to write, make a scrap book, anything at all he might enjoy that involves writing so it isn't a chore.

get him to read the text out loud in a normal speaking voice..he will hear when the commas and full stops happen.it sounds simple,but it does work

This isn't perhaps the answer you are looking for as I do not know about primary education but please let me tell you a.little story. I am the youngest of 4 all brothers above me with 2 years separating us each. My youngest brother had trouble with reading and writing at school. In fact I used to help him with reading even though I was 2 years younger. I was a total book worm. He didn't do well at school but now some 20 years later he is a very successful business man. He has excelled and I am so proud of him. He has the gift of the gab and is so determined to succeed and he has.

I know that this doesn't help you right now and I can see how worried you are as were my parents many years ago. They just kept up their support and we all helped and worked with him.

Is punctuation his main problem?

You could try rainbow writing. Use coloured gel pens and write each sentence in a different colour so he can see where he needs to put full stops, question marks etc.

thanks all, it is all of the above indigo.
handwriting, content, spelling, punctuation.

I like the idea of rainbow writing. I had thought that we would go to the shops on saturday and stock up on fun pends and paper
no issue with pain, he is great at colouring and drawing, and if it is maths he needs to write about we are fine

I just felt that we had our home routine sorted and once again it is changing.. it is me that is the problem, I can't cope with the idea that for the coming weeks we are going to have conflict in order to get this sorted.

bumping for more sympathy ideas

Right folks,

feeling much more positive this morning.
Have printed off some special lined paper with guidelines for writing.
Have agreed with DS1 that he is going to do 10 minutes of some kind of writing each day.
Shopping list
plans for birthday party
postcard to family member
etc

going to go shopping saturday.. is there anything else we can add to the action plan??

Like neverinamillionyears, I wanted to add that there are hundreds off successful people (including my brother) out there who were not brilliant at literacy at school, have dreadful handwriting and would fail any primary school spelling test. I can fully understand your concern - my DD could probably do well in theory at schoolwork, but she is behind in many respects, albeit for a different reason - she is ADHD and lacks concentration and simply can't keep up with what is expected. She knows spellings and punctuation rules in theory, has lovely handwriting, but in practice she rarely uses any of them.

Of course writing is important, but in the greater scheme of things you have to remember that a full-stop is only a full-stop, and a comma is only a comma, e.e.cummings hardly used them and nobody denies his greatness. spelling is practical because it means other people understand you, but for a young child maybe that simply is not that important (yet). You say he is good at maths? Emphasize those things, and let him work hard at what comes easily to him, and feel good about it, and give him support and time.

thank you Madame.
It is silly really I know all these things in reality, he will grow up into a world where typing is MUCH more important than writing, where txt speak will not be seen as irksome.

He is a smart 7 year old and I want him to feel happy and confident in being able to make himself and his mad crazy brilliant ideas understood.

It also doesn't help that his 5 year old brother writes beautifully argh!

Neverknowingly - could I join you on a mutual encouragement thread? DS is the same - really struggling with writing - and I'd tick the boxes handwriting, content, spelling and punctuation! And quantity, too. The only difference is I am looking at whether ds should have a dyslexia diagnosis - but very much still at the beginning of that journey (ie school raised it last week)

So far, we have tried

• ds has to write 20 words to earn any computer/console time. I don't do ANY correcting of this - it is just about getting him to write (& if at all possible, self correct)
• we're trying some OT exercises that I've picked up from somewhere - rubber band hand olympics; and different exercises for stregthening shoulders (eg bear walks/crab walks)
• I've bought a couple of those self completion books - I bought them at a level below/just on his ability - so he's just focusing on the writing element and has the satisfaction of "this is EASY!!!"
• doing some writing on laptop too - partly because he loves it. Partly because it shows up that he actually CAN spell/punctuate when he hasn't got the handwriting to focus on.

In the past, we've also done:

• letter writing competitions (where we both have to write say 10 'ys' and then see which ones are neatest
• story writing - where we write a sentance each of a story. Wild & wacky as you like
• cartoon drawing on HUGE bits of paper - wallpaper goes down well

What I struggle with is keeping things consistent and making him do extra 'homework' every night. The best thing would be to replace his 15 mins before bed reading (as he reads all the time anyway) - but that's a school requirement, so I;m going to talk to them about that....

(PS ds is 7, nearly 8 too)

I just wanted to say sometimes it just takes time to fall in naturally. My writing and spelling was awful until mid secondary school. I now have a masters degree. (i still have to use Big Elephants Can't Always Use Small Exits to spell because though)

It is really tough, I find myself feeling torn between letting DD just do things her way (and I know she tries hard in her own wacky way) and working on other things to boost her confidence (she does well, for example, at some extra-curricula things) and feeling that I ought to do more to supplement her schoolwork to help her not feel bad that she writes pages and pages about things she finds important, but does it all at top speed and bouncing around, the result being that punctuation, spelling, structure and coherence sort of peter out after the first few lines and then she gets upset that others struggle to decipher it all.

I just want to say that my DD in year three now...has struggled massively throughout.....until just this last two months. It clicked. I think she was immature...that's all...I played a lot of ball games with her...lots of sewing...drawing and clay modelling. I was told on here to strengthen her shoulders...so we did lot's of swimming and ball throwing and juggling games.

Her writing is now one of the nicest in year three and she's the youngest..July born.

Apples and Pears from Sound foundation is the BEST spelling and pun ctuation programme I have some across

(and believe me I have tried em all!!)

also write from the start (excercises for more fluent handwriting)

SEVEN?

Please please don't worry.

Most boys struggle, mine did terribly. He is now an a* english student at secondary school

Hully - at what age would you worry?

Ditto what Hullygully says - DS1 struggled at 7 - now year 11 (GCSE year) A* prediction in English and very adult handwriting - maybe do some practice and get a handwriting pen or pencil gripper to make it easier.

Another story that might help.

My DS is now 19. He has the writing of a 7 year old and the drawing skills to match. He has the reading/comprehension/science/maths skills of a genius (OK, 'genius' might be a bit of an over estimation but he is very bright and intelligent). He did struggle at school before eventually being diagnosed with dysgraphia. Plans were put in place to help him and he did well in his GCSEs and did very well in college. It really hasn't held him back from getting to where he wants to be it's just made the path he's taken a little less conventional.

indigo - I don't know! Depends on the child.

But boys fine motor skills don't tend to even start kicking in until around seven.

I used to tell my ds that we all had switches in our heads that went on a different times, so some people's writing switch went on at five, some at 9 etc and some people's skipping etc because th emost important thing is that they don't feel bad about something they can't help.

Do the little exercises and stuff with them, but NO PRESSURE!