Improving DDs writing skills and concentration

[hillbilly]

Having a battle at the moment with homework for DD (9) who is in yr 4. Last week English HW was to make a plan for a description of a character from The lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and then do the description. She spent 5 hours doing this in total and came up with the plan and then three quarters of one side of A4 page for the description. Clearly far too long. Had a chat with the teacher and it appears this is happening in class too. She is very creative manually and I think finds it hard to focus on one thing particularly when it comes to written work.

I am goiung to find comprehension exercises for her to do a few times a week but how do I encourage her to speed up? I'm concerned that she is going to struggle in yr 5. Any advice gratefully received!

Hi hillbilly:

DD1 hit this problem in Year 5 - oddly enough with exactly the same book.

My solution came from a friend who teaches secondary English. She suggested writing using your 5 senses:

So describe the character in terms of

what does s/he look like
what does s/he smell like
what does s/he sound like
what does s/he taste like (o.k. a bit weird but hang in there)
what does s/he feel like

[we've found through trial an error - when a trait is difficult to apply to a character/ thing - try turning it on its head and thinking about how it makes you feel].

So let's take the White witch or the ice queen:

She's seven feet tall with skin as white as paper.

When she approaches the forest turns to winter and your can smell an approaching storm.

Her voice is gentle like a breeze but cuts into you like frost.

You can taste fear in your mouth when she's near.

She claims to be human - a daughter of Eve - but Mr. Tumnus told Lucy she could turn people to stone.

You can expand on those - but by working through a list of traits you can get a long way with a description fairly quickly.

HTH

Thanks PastSellBy, that does help. I really don't want to discourage her (which is exactly what I fear I have been doing of late), I want to build her confidence but currently I just seem to be nagging her. I think she has got into a daydreaming rut.

I will try to use your examples for descriptive text. Do you think comprehensive sheets would help, reading a text and then answering questions about it?