Sentence formation and 8 Year Old Boy?

[Stylelostinlabour]

Hello

I need your help - just had one heck of a phone call with the school and need to know how to handle this.

School highlighted issues with son at last parents evening saying he was stuggling with:

Sentence Formation
Writing - not enough effort, not willing to do
Getting B and D the wrong way round
Punctuation

He's doing great on all other areas just not on the writing side, they said they would arrange for him to see a SEN but this hasn't happened as yet and I have rang for an update and really not getting anywhere with the school.

My questions are really

Would you expect an 8 year old boy to do the above with ease
Should this have been highlighted before now
What can we do to work with the school
What should the school be doing to get a plan of action together

Sorry it's long and I've probably made a few spelling and punctuation errors along the way!

Yes, I would expect an 8 year old to be able to do all of the above.

What was his writing SAT score in Y2?

You need to be proactive and take intiative. There's far more you at home can do then school can do.

Here is some food for thought about what kind of things you could be doing to help him:

dyslexiaadvice.co.uk/

I would have thought children would be able to do most of those things at a much younger age than eight. Does he get his sentences wrong when he's talking? And if he does, what are his most common mistakes? If you can find a popular rhyme which corrects his most common mistakes sing it to him when he gets it wrong. I'm teaching my daughter to count in tens at the moment. She can't count in tens but she can sing The Bloody Red Baron song, which counts in tens. (ie she can only do it when she's not thinking about it.) I find eventually, after enough practice they can also do it when they are thinking about it.

Thank you - he has no issue with speach at all and they have said that his verbal reasoning etc is beyond his years, he has the ideas but just doesn't write it down.

It's not a can't its more a won't. When doing his homework he will do it as he know's I won't take any messing around or moaning and will crack through it.

The teacher said it's like "he know what it is, she's knows what it is, so why bother writing it down" kind of attitude.

I think he's SAT writing was a 2A (I always get confused which one is closes to the next level but it was just one below level 3) because of the lack of effort.

Style my DS is very similar to your last post, he doesn't get letters mixed up any more but did for a while and although great speech, ideas, vocab, maths reading etc refuses to write. He is nearly 7. I would therefore expect an 8 year old to do all of the above.

I don't know what to suggest but do they think he is a fidget? Does he get easily distracted? These are things we are looking into with our DS with referral to an OT and dietary changes.

learnandsay you should teach your DD the inchworm song, even now I find I refer to the tune to find out about 8s "8 and 8 are 16, 16 and 16 are 32" and you can take the other part

Yes he is rather easily distracted and even says that when he's working and someone comes into the classroom and ask for something it really throws him off his work.

At home we don't really have a problem with him writing but he's really never shown any interest in writing, drawing, painting or jigsaws etc and I've always put it down to some children just interested in other things.

I do notice his motor skills are rather basic compared to his brother and sister and really think this is more his problem than anything else - but maybe I have rose tinted glasses on?

Have you asked him if writing hurts?

Is he able to sit up properly at a desk?

my DS is showing similar tendencies and the school did a 3-month study on him with an educational psychologist to identify the root of the problem. They've now told us that although he's well above average in some subjects, his problems with English might be due to an issue with his short term memory. Say he thinks of a sentence, but by the time he wants to write it down he's sometimes forgotten what he really wanted to say. He's very eloquent, so we would have never guessed.

The school has now suggested one to one sessions with a specialist to help him learn the techniques to deal with this problem.

Could suggest a similar study to your school and see if something comes out of it?

Solde you must be v lucky because we were told that we would be looking at 2013 at the earliest for an EP assessment because DS is doing ok in school. In fact teacher told us that the EP came into school a few weeks ago and teacher couldn't even ask her opinion and she isn't back in for some weeks now

Style it may be nothing but it could be something, I took the view that the teacher flagged fidgeting for a reason and researched from there.