How, oh how, do I get my ds to use capital letters, full stops and connectives?

[bodiddly]

Ds is in year 2 and in our meeting with his teacher we were informed that he was most likely going to be marked down from a 2b/2a to a 1a simply because he was not consistently using capital letters, full stops and connectives. He is doing well generally so I would hate for this to hold him back when his general reading is excellent and comprehension is good in SAT type papers. Ds knows the theory of their usage but I cannot, for the life of me, get him to use them reliably and independently. Does anyone have any idea how I can help him remember them?

Firstly his reading level is completely separate to his writing level so don't be concerned about that.

Secondly this is my year 1 ds's target at the mo and I write jumbled words down without capitals and get him to put them in the right order and put capitals and full stops where they should be. He seems to be getting the hang of it and prefers it to actual writing.

I was told similar for my dd2. She would get so carried away with the story she forgot all punctuation. The teacher said that if she didn't consistantly use full stops and capital letters then the maximum she was allowed to give was a 1a.

Basically I told her what the teacher said. And the teacher would remind her before she began each piece of work.

Um - since most of his writing is done at school (I presume) then there isn't much you can do about it. Maybe ask the teacher what their strategy is to address it ?

If he writes a lot at home (not something any of my boys did willingly at that stage) then I would just check through when he is done, and point out punctuation etc if he has missed any.

Ah, these are pretty much my Y2 DS's targets at the last meeting. Using connectives, adjectives, full stops and capital letters I think. I don't do much about it as my DS does not like writing at all and I would have to force him!

Anyway, as we already read, practice spellings and do some maths every day, I don't think I can ask him to do more.

But next year we will have to look at his writing.

Thanks .. its frustrating - I did a few SATS papers with him in the holidays and he was getting a 2a so its obviously something he needs to work on rather than be marked down as a 1a. When he does workbook specific capital/punctuation work he can do them - he just cannot get it to stick in his head.

I am tempted to say the sats grade he gets makes no difference to him personally. It is used by the school to grade effectiveness of their teaching, and if it is sufficiently below where he would be expected to be then they would be targetting that for future progress.

Leave it to the school. At home encourage him to write if he wants to and point out mistakes in passing, but don't make a big deal out of it. Notice punctuation when reading, and leave it at that. He will get it in time.

That is interesting to hear throckenholt ... it was the school that asked me to work on it with him - I will start to point out more when reading I guess. I am probably being precious about it but when they say he is doing well, 1a doesn't seem like it!

So many children have problems with this. The only way to solve it is to get them to notice them on everyday life. So when reading actually say "full stop, capital letter" before starting the next sentence. It's annoying but after a couple of weeks it is second nature and they tend to start doing it in their own writing. Also if your child is a "doer" or kinaesthetic learner an action associated with saying it can help.

Feels and sounds stupid, but it is the only way I have found that works with 9/10 yr olds who still don't use them.

HTH