help p1 child has to write a story

[jumpyghostface]

my DS is in (P1 Scotland) and has been struggling a bit with writing and expression. today the teacher gave me his workbook and said he was asked to complete a story without any support entitled "My day at the Olympics" and unaided he barely completed half a sentence in the hour allocated.

She wants me to encourage him to come up with the first draft for tomorrow morning but I am at a loss as to how long a piece of writing should be at this level or how accurate.

I should have asked her more questions but she just caught me in the playground by surprise. Any help from P1 teachers or parent would be really appreciated.

Ds is also p1 and has never had to write a piece of work unaided of that length. He has a few spelling words and a book to read and that is it. They are only learning to read and spell at this age (5 or 6) so I would expect my ds to struggle a bit too.

I would just let him take in what he has done without hel, even if it is only half a sentence. It sounds a pretty tough task for a 5/6 year old boy

Well I am sure DS2 in reception wouldn't be able to spell Olympics for a start it would be Olumpicks. If DS does a piece of writing for fun at home e.g. if he writes what he did in the holidays he would write about 5-6 sentences unaided, his spelling would tend to be phonetically correct but not accurate other than words he commonly comes across in reading e.g. he can spell 'what' because he sees it regularly but may use 'ur' at the end of words where it should be 'er' if it is a less common word he wants to use e.g jumpur. His level of literacy is considered good in his class though (although we are Wales so not as academic as England early on, and don't know how Scotland compares at all).

What a ludicrous task to ask a P1 to do. And odd that she would just let him sit there for an hour when he obviously wasn't able to do it. I would just write a note to say your weren't sure what was expected and you will need more guidance on how to go about it. It really is nothing to do with whether he can spell Olympics or not. The more I think about it, the more riduculous it seems to be, unless your DS is exceptionally able.

If you don't mind me saying ...what a bliddy stupid subject for a child who obviously hasn't spent a day at the Olympics and quite possibly hasn't got a great deal of understanding of the subject prior to the event.

sorry unhelpful

He is doing it now and i am aiming for about 6 sentences. He really is struggling with knowing what to write (creatively) but we have drawn a little story about going to see the diving competition and now he is grudgingly happily writing some sentences.

Looking at his workbook his writing is way behind his reading ability you can see him losing concentration after about three words.

Writing often lags behind reading

That's what I thought at first, mrz. He would have only been 1 or 2 when the last Olympics where on. However, they may have been doing it as a topic in class. Though even it was a topic, it is a big ask to then expect such a young child to write about it unaided.

My ds is P1 and really quite able. I just asked him what he would write if he was doing the story. He said "what Olympics". I would send a note with him tomorrow asking for more information.

They have been learning the Olympics for a couple of weeks now but I think when left with an open ended subject he has struggled. He really had no idea where to start. but i am a bit annoyed that he was left unassisted to what is a known problem and a unqualified person has to get him to do it not knowing if I am pushing him too much...

Looking at that last post the lack of capital letters, poor grammar and use of punctuation its a bit like the blind leading the blind.

I am a dyslexic typist really.

Can't believe a child of that age has been given this to do. Would you have time to see the class teacher or write a note saying you don't feel your son has enough skills yet to do this piece of work and doesn't know enough about the topic. He's five for heavens sake. Is she a very new teacher or at least inexperienced with that age group.

My dd is in P3 (NI), she is just about to turn 7 and has only started work like that. For example as part of her homework this week, she has to write 5 facts about the USA - her school sports day is next week and her class is the US (as part of the Olympics they are all different countries).

Dd1s teachers from P1 onwards have always told us no more than 20 mins on one bit of homework, any longer than that and it just becomes a nightmare for all concerned. They just ask that you stick a wee note in their homework book and say what the problem was/what the child got stuck on.

That does sound a bit mad. dd is in P1, and has just had to do a talk on an olympic hero, but there was lots of info about what was expected, and they were given two weeks to do it; it's also clear there has been much talk on olympic heroes, as many of the class had to be dissuaded from doing Usain Bolt...

He did it - once I had drawn some lines on his page his writing even appears more legible. Why unlined paper - is this a new thing?

Anyway he has tried and seems to get Capital letters and full stops and has had a good go at spelling. Good enough.

To answer some questions the teacher seems very experienced she isn't new to the role and always seems to take P1-3 I think. She is very approachable and has said that he is in a literacy group with "a smart bunch of cookies". So the bar may be set quite high.

Certainly the last topic they had was the Ancient Egyptians and that surprised me because I thought it might be "Seasons" or "Castles" or something like that. Perhaps I set the bar too low.

Our head never provides lined paper either. Many of the teachers complain too. I've been grrring since the deputy head left and we got the airy fairy one!

Thinking back to when ds was in P1, he used to write stories such as "The tooth fairy came to my sister and left a pound!" and that was that.