Sorry, its another grading question but would someone quickly grade this for me please

[writingquestion]

DS1 (lets call him Fred) and the Beanstork

Once upon a time there was a boy called Fred who had no famaly and lived all alone. At Crismass time all he got was some moldy beans. He felt cross and through them out of the window. Later he went to bed. The next day Fred woke up. He looked out of the window and he saw a hump in the garden. He rayced downsters and ran outside. When he looked in the garden he found a hewge hol. Inside the hol there was a trimendusley big beanstork. It went down not up. Fred disiyded to clime down. It took 7 ours to get to the bottom at the bottom it was all dark gloomey and damp. Suddenly he herd voyses and the sound of millions of peeple working extreemly hard. There was a crak of a wip and a deep narsty voyse said "hurry up you nasty iratayting broots!". Fred relized he was in the underworld.

Fred saw a house in the distans. He tiptowed to the house. A big gate to the house had a sine on it saying "Hades [he checked spelling] House - no slaves allowd without pumishun". Fred crept inside, and he saw the most amazing site. It was a giygantic three headid dog, with a dragons head tale snake head spikes on his back and very sharp fangs that were dripping with drool! Fred loved dogs and he said "hello doggey". The dogs masive food bowl said Cerberus [he checked spelling] on the side. Right at that momnt Hades called out "Fee fiy fo fum" quick said Cerberus 'hide under me'. Fred was running under Cerberus when Hades came dashing in. then he said I smell the blood of an englishman. Fred jumpd onto Cerberus and Cerberus ran to the beanstork and climed up it. Hades best soljurs chasd after them. Cerberus ran as fast as he cood back into Freds house they had escaypd in the nik of time. Finally they pushed an enormuss rock over the hole to stop the bad guys. Fred asked why did you help me? Because Hades was stinkey and you looked cool repliyd Cerberus.

Meanwile Fred relized that he wood have to find some muney to buy food for his enormus new dog. He thort it was not going to be easy he looked on Youtube and disiyded to make a videeo called cerberus and Fred meat again. it was a massiv hit and evryone in the world and allso some aliens payed to come to see cerberus and Fred perform there rock song.

And they lived happely ever after. the end.

[There are probably about eight reversed letters in here. mainly bs and ds and the two zs]

Thank you - very grateful for the assistance!

possibly 2b /2a ...

Thanks Crazzybabs, what would make it a 2b/2a rather than a 1a (or is that not a straightforward question)?

I'm not questioning the teacher by the way, this hasn't been graded by the teacher. DS is having problems with writing and story telling and at parents evening two weeks ago we were told he is behind and at level 1a. I've been trying to get to the bottom of whether he's struggling to make up a story itself, or struggling to write it down or both. He's very negative about writing and says he's stupid.

Would anyone be able to explain to me what he has to demonstrate to move up from a 1a to a 2c/b/?

I'm not a teacher.

This looks at a higher level than dd who is predicted to be on a 2b/c for SATS. I'm not sure what level she is on now though...

That piece of writing is higher than a 1a. It's a secure 2b, with elements of 2a ( this is on first reading). Now, that obviously levels this piece and not your ds as a writer.

What's the background of this piece?? How independent?
The biggest thing that marks this way higher than a level 1 is the correct use of full stops which is almost nearly fully correct (maybe totally correct?) It has a good structure, starting to organise in paragraphs, uses good vocab, shows awareness of the reader...he writes consistently in the correct style for the genre using 'story language'...happily ever after, he replied, etc. he's using a variety of sentence openers....this us a good piece of writing.

This piece has many elements of a 2a actually...

If he's writing this by himself...even with a bit of support he's not stupid!!!! And it's such a shame he's got negative feelings towards writing :(

They said he was behind?? What year is he in??

FWIW I started reading that for the cute spellings (love kids' spelling) and finished it because I wanted to know what happened! It's fab, whatever level it is.

I liked it too Dontcallmebaby!

Mamma he's six and a summer born year 2. Teacher said he needs to get more down on paper and that's his biggest problem. He gets the least down on paper in the class. For the past couple of weeks we've been having writing races in the evening where I time him and see how many words he can write down in a minute. He seems to have enjoyed that and managed to speed up a bit.

This was a piece of homework where he had to take a traditional tale and change it. He came up with all the ideas himself. He told me the story first and we then said "great now write it down". Presumably that makes a difference? He asked for the spellings of Hades and Cerberus but otherwise we left him to it. We did tell him we wanted to see lots of writing and to make it his longest ever story (which it is by far) and I promised him banana cake if he worked hard at it .

I think he enjoyed doing this which is encouraging since we've had lots and lots of tears recently whenever he talks about writing at school. Still need to overcome the issue of not writing enough at school though.

maybe I provide a daily supply of banana cake...

Omg!!!

If he can produce that then he is no way behind at year 2 (start of)!!!!!!! I'd be delighted with that!!

The talking/ telling orally first is excellent- and is something good teachers would do. Children should act out their characters/ orally tell the story/ orally practise the phrases from stories they've read etc etc.

Children love competition- especially boys. The 'lets see if you can get ALL of your story written down, bet you can't' approach is a winner!!!

Did the teacher say what he/she was doing to encourage longer pieces??? In my school our head teacher would say "ok, this boy is not producing much, you think he's behind. What are you doing to turn that around?'. Telling the parents at parents evening is one thing. You've obviously taken it on board and got the gist of how to help at home. Now, if you haven't already been told, you should ask what support/ scaffolding he'll have in class to help him.

• you know oral rehearsal helps him, let the teacher know.
• reward chart for finished pieces?
• teacher photocopies finished quality piece for him to Bri g home to you. Goes on fridge...smiley mummy :)
• an he be sent to head teacher with a good piece, receive a head teacher sticker
• get to publish his finished story on the pc as extra incentive
• write his stories on pc if it seems to help...

There's loads of ways to get him going. It didn't seem to take much when you did it...either that or your banana came must be something out of this world :)

Honestly- if he's doing that at home then have faith that he has the ability. I promise you, he is not behind!!!! Also- finishing a piece is obvs important but writing loads and loads isn't always necessary. If he's writing a report say, and he includes all the features they've looked at and it's only over a half page long then that could be fine. Quantity not quality.

:( at tears about writing at school

I think you should buy a folder/ scrap book and start writing fun things at home. Let him make a book of amazing writing and boost his self esteem that way.

You can write anything- a poem about the rain outside, about your trip to the park, he could write a retell about the cartoon film he watched...anything he wants.

That's definitely not 1a. It's at least a 2b I think and I'd be looking closely at criteria for 2a/3c.

What makes it not a level 1 for me is that the basic sentence structure i.e. full stops/capital letters are correct and punctuated throughout the piece. It also has a clear beginning, middle and end and has developed that with more detail. He's also got a good range of sentence starters and is using some good vocabulary.

I would work on using conjunctions to move from writing simple sentence to compound ones and spelling polysyllabic words. Possibly the letter reversals as well.

X posts. Just about everything that mamma said. If he can write that he is definitely not behind. That is a good piece of writing. I think you need to try and investigate why he's doesn't seem to be able to reproduce that at school. He clearly has the ability.

It's an awesome story! I loved his spellings of 'hewge' and 'pumishun'.

'giygantic' was my favourite. I'd quite like to find out more about what Fred and Cerberus get up to next.

That's great work I would say! Similar to my Dd who is also y2 (but winter!). She ended y1 on a 2c, so this is at least that if not higher. Obv one piece does not a grade make...... But he should be very happy with that.

Thanks everyone that's really helpful. I will definitely use some of those techniques and ideas mama. I've bought him some story cubes for Christmas and so I'm hoping we can use those too for when he gets all negative.

Phew, feel a bit better knowing he can do it when he tries!

He's teacher should use some of those techniques.

Seriously upsets me that he feels negatively about writing at school...a tragedy when he can produce such wonderful writing.

Wish I was his teacher :)

• his

It was banana cake induced writing though .

I'm going to talk to his teacher again about it just to see how he's progressing and to let his teacher know how upset he's getting about it. He has come on a lot already in Year 2 but I don't want him feeling like he's the stupid one. He talks a lot about the fact that he's not in the top sets because he's not clever. He has always been rather dramatic though!

I'm afraid I don't know anything about grading but I just wanted to say that's a lovely story and I'd be delighted if my 6 year old produced something like that. You sound lovely OP and so supportive of your DS. I hope he stops thinking he's stupid very soon.

You can tell him from a stranger on the Internet he is very, very clever.

Sending him a virtual sticker for his jumper :)

thanks mama

I should say that his teacher is fantastic and I am delighted DS is in his class. He really inspires them and gets them interested in learning (its just that DS has this mental block about writing and is in a class full of very bright children.)

I think that's really great. My oldest-in-the-class DD who is Y2 and supposed to be one of the best at English in her class would not produce anything that fluent or exciting. Truthfully, her spelling is probably a bit better but not vocab or ideas. I don't think you've got anything to worry about apart from the fact that he cries about it . He's got great imagination and can write a great story with decent structure and grammar. Pretty amazing for a six year old, I think.

I'm not a teacher so don't know anything about levelling but this is what struck me as a parent with a child in the same year.