Advice on how to improve sons literacy skills please

[dogslove]

Hi, just wondered if anyone had any advice on websites that can help improve literacy please. My son is in year 6 and has fallen behind dramatically with his literacy in the last year. His spelling and reading are ok, its his sentence structuring, use of adverbs/adjectives etc that he is struggling with. He 'waffles' on an awful lot in his writing and is struggling greatly as to where to put full stops,comma's. I am trying my best to help him,but don't feel like I am being very effective and he would be better with something else?
Any advice/ideas would be very much appreciated:)

Try writing a story between you. He can start it off then you write a sentence and then let him do the next. You can try and lead by example using good adjectives and punctuation. Make sure you ask speech questions so he has to answer. He needs to think about each sentence and if he starts waffling on you can pretend to moan 'hey, you've had your fair share, one sentence each only.'

Does he read much for fun? Might be worth increasing or widening the sort of thing he reads, I'm not sure what boys that age are into but some other people might have suggestions.

My ds loved the John Wyndham books at that age like The Day of the triffids and it certainly seemed to boost his literacy. He also like the Artemis Fowl books and any time travelling or psychic books.

The first book my friends' ds read at about that age was 'how to train your dragon which DS gave him. He had previously been very anti reading but then read them all quickly and ended Year 6 with a very good level.

Thank you for the replies:) We have got him writing small stories/paragraphs on advice of his teacher, but he just doesn't seem to be improving at the moment, but will definitely try joining in and taking it in turns to write a sentence. That might be more beneficial to him.
In terms of reading, he hates reading school books or anything like that. We really have to push him. The only books he enjoys are the 'Beast Quest' books which his teacher seems ok with.
Do you know of any websites etc which help with this kind of thing? I know there are lots about for Maths, but alot of the Literacy based ones are all for spellings, reading or phonics?
Thanks :)

Have you tried the BBC website? My DD has been using one for writing letters etc from the school but his teacher may have some resources. If you google Woodlands School, they have some good resources. You can buy the SATs help revision books that he can work his way through but they are dull. What about giving him comics or newspapers instead of books?

Look for Literacy Zone on the Woodlands website.

Look at some newspaper articles to get an idea of which parts of speech are used to good effect by the professionals. Google Creative Writing Magic Money Cards which help score the value of writing tasks and give effective tips. The BBC ?500 words? site also shows examples of good essays. Keep practising.