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!!

thank you all, it is really very helpful to know a) I am not the only one worried about this sort of thing and b) it is ok to NOT pile on the pressure.

My brother struggled just like this, sorted himself out at secondary. He is now a lawyer.

Honestly it will be fine, but your action plan sounds great :)

My ds is now in year 4 and used to be just the same.
He is bright and used to enjoy school. the as he went into the latter aprt of year 2 and through year 3 he was more and more reluctant to go to schol and was steadily floundering. He could spell out words and do mental arithmetic but could not write well at all.
To cut a long story, I took him to The Dyslexia Trust for assessment and they discovered that he had double vision. Now he has the glasses with dark blue lenses and is picking up rapidly.
That may or may not help your ds, but is good to cover all avenues to find the best way to help him.

thanks ladies.

Is he yr2 or 3? Mine's Yr3 now, but not 8 for a few months. He could barely write legibly or read (sub normal levels!) until mid way through yr2. His reading's now at level 4 and he's writing at level 3, so that's pretty good too. He just suddenly clicked, so it can happen.

how do you know about the level 3/4 bit??
he is in year 3 - has found the topics in ks2 more interesting but the requirement to actually learn rather than play has been a bit of a shocker for him

Our school tell us NC levels each term. They don't stress the kids about them, but it's quite useful for parents as the they make a commitment to give them extra help if they're clearly stalled over a long period. I think all schools probably do the tracking, but a lot don't tell the parents iyswim.

Hi,
yes, boys tend to develop slower than girls- that switch takes some turning on... But also worth checking for Irlen Syndrome (similar to Dyslexia). Also, would not rule out dyslexia without checking further, as it can involve quite different aspects/traits in different people- and there is a genetic component.

Main thing is to not be impatient or judgemental- he is not lazy or stupid, just has problems with aspects of writing just now. But would advise getting him some extra help so he does not get too frustated if he continues to flounder.
In the long term, he will do just fine.

Jane

thanks Jane.
we have had fun shopping for things today and tonight we played a writing game together (you know the one where you each write a line in the story having folded it over so the next person can't see what you have written?) he was happy to write and we asked him to think about his letter formations and punctuation even though it was a game.
He really enjoyed it!

My ds has simelar problems with handwriting, he is 9.

You have already had some good suggestions, but I just thought I'd add mine!

When ds has to do any piece of writing for homework, I act as a scribe for him so that he is able to get all his ideas out and concentrate on what he wants to say rather than on actually writing it. I write everything down exactly as he says it and then we go through the page I have just written together and he tells me where to put in the punctuation. We have been doing this a while now, so he usually tells me as he's talking if he wants a new paragraph or whatever. And then he copies it out himself.

I find I get much better work out of him this way because he can say what he wants to say, then have a break, and then concentrate on handwriting. It's like two completely separate excersises.

His teacher has also encouraged us to do the touch typing practice on BBC bite size, becaue it helps his typing at the same time as strengthening his hands.

thanks for those ideas IUTMKR.
I am going to hold off the typing for now - I honestly think if he feels he has another option he won't go with the writing stuff at all.
We do the scribe thing for some stuff when planning homework and the only wriitng he does is when we have got everything together. Going to feel less guilty and cheaty for doing that now.

NKU another idea to try is to get your child doodling.

Any pen use helps. Get cheap plastic placemats and write on them with whiteboard markers during meal times or while kids are sat at the table waiting for their food.

Encourage the use of the froggy legs grip but if this is difficult just go with what feels comfortable.

I use glass marker pens from crayola. They wipe off windows with a damp piece of kitchen towel and kids just love writing on windows.

Encourage children to write or doodle using the whole arm (ie movement from the shoulder). Start with simple circles, then figures of eight, make them into flowers, draw pointy upside down V shapes and make them into mountains. Lots of joined up U shapes can become waves. Just try to turn letter shapes into fun things.

Praise any effort. It doesn't matter if the outcome is not what you desired if the effort is there, that's such a big step.

I was a really bad writer at school. I always held the pen too tight and it was a real struggle but once I got to sixth form and got my own word processor (as they were called then) it didn't matter anymore. The interesting thing is that this is when my writing really took a leap forward (because I wasn't being forced to do it). I now enjoying writing and drawing but sadly my son is suffering the same as me and the school he attends insists on this type of the hand writing (google image search for schnürlischrift). And they won't allow any variation. We are finding that the above advice is helping but it's difficult to find the time.

HTH

Not sure if this has been suggested but would he enjoy creating a comic book? That would involve art and writing but not huge chunks.

Get him to write things he enjoys though.

Try not to make it a chore.

Write about his favourite toys or an adventure. Remember finger spaces, full stops and capital letters. Use an adjective for a noun or as we call them a WOW word.

I do intervention with Y1 and I had one little chap who hated writing. Within 2 days his Mum txt me to thank me for bringing so much enjoyment to her son who 'had fallen asleep writing in his diary!!!!' Dunno what I did but it worked.

My ds who is now nearly 10 had poor fine motor skills in Y1, hated writing and is now in Y5 and come out as a 4C in recent SATS test. He only needs to be a 4B at the end of Y6 so DO NOT WORRY and do not let him know you are worried.

We also got ds1 to help write shopping lists as he knew I hated it (I didnt but he thought he was helping!)

thanks guys, we are having fun with things at the moment, playing consequences and writing messages to each other instead of talking and see who cracks first.

nothing better to add than everyone else.

I just wanted to say that you aren't alone. my DD is in year 2 and has only just clicking with reading and writing. Last year was really stressful as i kept swinging from worrying/not worrying and trying to work out what was the issue.

Like Indigo said, when do you start to worry that there might be a problem?

She seems to have made lots of progress this year and has pulled herself back up to average (I think). Hope all goes well for you and your DS

My DS is the same as in he has all the ideas but can't get them down but when he writes (hardly ever...it's like pulling teeth getting him to write a few lines!!) he overpunctuates with things like brackets and slashes. He gets that from me, I love a comma! It's the words that are the problem and putting them in a story format.

I have had a moderate amount of success by buying him some fancy pencils, we went into WH smith looking for one of the chunky supports and bought these: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0017HEUFG/ref=asc_df_B0017HEUFG6622054?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B0017HEUFG which I love writing with, they feel lovely. Also a big chunky one like this: www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails.aspx?productId=31091633&utm_source=Google%2BProduct%2BSearch&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Product%2BLink which he finds comfortable to use and likes the fiddle aspect of it so he was happy to sit for only about half an hour, without tears, before grudgingly writing a sentence rather than a whole hour

Who knows if it'll work, I'm willing to try anything!!

Good luck to you and your DS

Sympathy to you NeverKU, it is a worry. The amount of writing expected in Years 5 and 6 is considerable and I don't think you should be complacent about it. We had this problem too and it dogged our DS right through KS2. There were a few strategies that helped. We set up a star chart with a list of various options that earned a star: writing out a paragraph from one of his favourite books, writing a story (specify length), working through a test in a Bond English book... He could choose. We also added typing getting to 10 w.p.m. and moving up a level on Typing Instructor. The incentive was suitably large to act as a real motivation (a DS big timewaster, and I'm sorry now that he has one! Maybe go for a watch or something more constructive like a big lego set). The punctuation I think is less of a problem than speed and neatness. If you can get him using full stops and caps at the beginning of sentences in the first instance, that would be good. Then work on commas and more advanced punctuation. A timer for homework also helps (don't make it too pressurised. Agree a time with your DS that you both feel is a reasonable amount to get it done.) There is hope! For a boy that didn't seem to be able to write more than three sentences an hour, my DS is now able to cover three-quarters of an A4 page. Not brilliant, but acceptable.

Just wanted to add, that writing with a pen was much easier for my DS than writing with a pencil.

try a 2B rather than HB pencil as they are softer and move over the paper more easily.

I wouldn't push the writing at all at home. You don't want him to loose his love of learning. What I would push is a love of reading books. Find books that he can't put down. Use the on-line catalogue of your library to order in whole series of books he likes. Take him to the library and also borrow books from friends. Let him catch the reading bug. Captain underpants, Saxby Smart investigates, Horrible histories, Horrible Science, Mr Gum, Diary of a Whimpy Kid, Philip Ardagh, Roal Dahl. Have half an hour or so reading time just before bed - he can read or you can take turns reading a page each. After a while this bed time reading will sift down to his school written work. It did with my son. It all clicked in year 4.

Also try to do some creative fine motor skills with him. This could be using match sticks to build a house or creative doodling.

thanks all. we are doing well. he is very happy to do the writing with us, it is just about fine tuning the skills.

Reading more will help fine tune the writing skills - they are really linked

Hi NeverknowinglyUnderstood

It sounds to me like the content of the writing is o.k. it's actually the penmanship.

In Y2 my DD1 (a leftie) really struggled to write more than a few words at a time. She would moan for England. We found that working on her hand skills/ strength helped.

We invested in more challenging colouring books with lots of detailed geometric/ fine patterning to colour in and invested in some crayola colouring pencils (Twistables). It sounds mad - but she will happily spend ages colouring (waiting at the doctors, in the car on trips, on airplanes, in front of the tv, etc...) and we found that this helped with her motor control.

Some great colouring books: www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=geometric+colouring+books&x=0&y=0

amazon also sells the twistable coloured pencil pens from Crayola.

I love the consequences game idea and may use that myself.

In terms of encouraging writing: we had DD1 send postcards whenever we had a day out or went on holiday (even sending them to school).

we encouraged DD1 to write in (rather than e-mail) to competitions in various children magazines or book series she reads

We encouraged DD1 to make home-made Birthday cards and write more than just 'Happy Birthday' - at first it was 'Enjoy your day' but now there's usually something like 'Have a wonderful day. I hope that all your wishes come true.' or 'I can't wait the hear what you think of this present. Mum and I found it in town and thought it was you all over!'

We had DD1 write thank you cards for every present, day out with relatives/ friends, etc...

We never forced it. If it took until end of January (as it did this year) to make thank you cards for all her relatives/ friends that was fine - it was a nice little project and she would work on it as and when she felt like it.

I understand that it is upsetting to realise your child is struggling - and sometimes it's the shock of absorbing that everything isn't ticking along swimmingly (that was part of what upset me when I realised DD1 couldn't subtract). The teacher is right to say this needs a bit of attention - I don't think she meant to upset you. Personally, I'd have been grateful if a teacher was as honest and up front with us about DD1 earlier on. I think you should see it as a request for a bit of your time and attention to get your DS back on track. I'm sure with your help and support your DS will be fine.