What do you think of this writing?

[user789653241]

Could you give me a honest opinion with this writing by 8 year old?

Alchemist Backnamy

As Baknamy started to pour out onto Dreamworld, Damadamo immediately recognized the place. The floating magic 8 ball! The mountains covered with stairs! The gate with a ladder on it! And most importantly, Dreamhares!

The Dreamhares are experts at making stuff. The easiest thing they can make is a pencil which takes 2 minutes to make and you need a cloth and a penlid. The hardest thing they can make is a diamond because it takes 3 and half days to make and needs 10 of every single gem that exists.

Right now, the Dreamhare under the trampoline is making an Elixir.

Well today was the first day of the year, and every morning during that week starting from the first day of the year they celebrate by doing a special dance called "Harmony of the New Year". There were words in the song.

Every time they do the dance, the Baknamys would come and join. Every time leap year starts, Condos join.

Some Baknamys or Condos or Dreamhares have permission to do what they are doing though.

Eventually the dance finished, Baknamys and Dreamhares started alchemying and synthesizing weapons and armor and other stuff.

Dreamhare looked at his watch. It was 4 pm., 1 hour until they are leaving.
But Dreamweaver, the leader of Dreamhares, and Damadamo, struck up in a conversation and their conversation was 24 hours straight, and Damadamo looked at his watch, again it hadn't changed.

Now dreamweaver said her Diamond that she bought for 40007500*53 window shacker was missing. The truth is, it was somewhere on Dreamworld. Well, if you look under the top of the mountain there it is. The Emerald. She said Diamond, but meant Emerald.If it was a Diamond, it would be like about 9 billion 5 million more window shacker.

Search...search..search...

After 20 minutes of searching, Damadamo and Dreamweaver called an announcement to start searching for Emerald. She, Dreamweaver, that is, said that Emerald have power to summon Emerald weapon which is really strong.

So, search...search...search...
After 40 minutes of searching, still no Emerald.

Search...search..search...
After 3 hours long of searching, again, still no Emerald.

Search..search...FOUND!
For some reason, it was used as a light.

Well, the backnamys were getting ready to leave,

THEY WENT.

THE END.

If you managed this far, thank you! Is this writing acceptable for 8 year old, just finished yr3? His spelling, punctuation are generally good, but not so good at content wise. Teacher's comments always has been "it's boring". And I agree, but what need to change to achieve more creativity?

I would be very happy with this from a 7/8 year old! I don't think it's boring, it's very creative!
My only point for improvement is that it tails off a bit at the end... He has obv started off very enthusiastically though! Did he take the stimulus from something or sit down and write it?

It is obviously written by a bright child, but it does sound like they are retelling something they have watched/played/read. They have used lots of clever phrases and used adventurous vocab, but they are not aware of the readers needs - not enough description/explanation of who the characters are. The story has no "meat" to it - it is all obviously very exciting in the writers head, but as a reader, I am not getting that at all!

I don't play computer games/watch fantasy films, but it seems to be of this genre.

I think your DC needs more support with structuring their writing. Is your DC able to retell simple (fairy tales/fables, etc) stories in their own words, setting the scene, developing characters and having a clear and interesting plot?

I don't mean to sound negative. Good choice of vocab/spelling/punctuation are great skills to have, but I agree that the content needs support.

Thank you, ellesbellesxxx.

He is always inspired by computer games, and think about what he wants to write next, but as you say, loose enthusiasm in the end. He is a very slow and reluctant writer, and took 15 minutes x 3 days to write this one. He put far more energy into drawing pictures to go with the story.

I think it's pretty typical of young boys' writing where they write like they are describing a video game. It is quite 2D because there is no characterisation or setting development.

I would say he needs to do work on both things. Does he read/ do you read him really high quality childrens' literature? Immersion in great stories will really help.

The spelling is great though!

x post with Tilly. Spot the people who teach small boys to write!!

bigTillyMint, thank you. Yes, what you say really sums up about what is missing in his writing. I don't get it at all as well.

It does seem computer game inspired...completing challenges and rules.

His grasp of spelling and grammar is very good though.

I think he will benefit from learning more about story construction and then his imagination can really fly. He's obviously a good writer.

Thank you, SisterViktorine.

He reads a lot, but very skewed interest. Mostly non fiction or funny stuff, and Roald Dahl.

SisterV, I was going to say the exact same thing - read, read, read! Good quality children's literature, preferably NOT of the fantasy/computer-game related genre! You read to him if he won't read alone. A lot. Then he gets good models for writing into his mind.

And possibly less time playing computer games?!

Thank you Violet.

Problem is, it's really difficult to encourage him to write something else than computer inspired stuff.
He got below average for "effort" in writing.

I would encourage him to read different styles of writing.

Accuracy and spelling are generally good, but he needs to learn about structuring his writing, varying sentence structure, using adjectives, adverbs etc, character development and setting tone/pace.

The creativity is obviously there, so I would really encourage to read a lot more. Y3 is still so young, the rest will come in time.

Thank you BellaVida

We went to the library today to borrow some books, but I failed to encourage him to choose something different....
Well, I just have to keep trying.

All the advice all of you have given me has been a great help. I am a foreigner, so I do struggle to help my ds with literacy, especially writing.
Thank you very much for all your help.

Agree with others, it looks and sounds like short captions from a game, fine in a computer game where the action and excitement is in the game, but a boring read (I only read a couple of paragraphs). A quick google shows the characters are from a game series called Final Fantasy which is mostly 16 rated.

If you want him to progress with reading, writing, expanding his vocabulary, learning correct grammar and sentence structures you need to get him away from too many games and start reading some books.

Don't underestimate how difficult it will be as he will be over stimulated already by this age inappropriate game, but it will be to his benefit long term.

Thank you, WeAllHaveWings.

That is exactly the type of writing dd used to do most of the time, she wrote from the perspective everyone would of course know what she was on about. Unless the subject held no interest when you'd get a bare minimum of half hearted scrawl.

I don't have any useful advice to add, the only thing that made any difference to her was age, in y5 she started putting full effort in when it was important, rather than just when the subject interested her, and by partway through y6 she started grasping that when it comes to school it's always important.

Thank you, Lurked.
I hope he will mature with age and start putting more effort in his writing.
He started enjoy writing this year a little, but still long way to go...

Yes my first thought was "Final Fantasy"
He has the basics of spelling punctuation (handwriting?) so needs to focus on structure and writing for an audience and different purposes.
Jumpstart for Writing has lots of writing games which you might find helpful.

Thank you mrz. I was really looking forward for your advice.
His writing is always like this, doesn't seems to care about reader, he just writes what he wants, but he has got "working at greater depth" for his attainment. It must be because of shift to focus on SPG?

I didn't think you are FF fan? Only things/names he used from FF was "backnamy" and "Emerald weapon" in the story. He only plays moderate amount of time, and he is good at self regulating. He only plays old FF games, which I don't think the story itself is too age inappropriate.

His hand writing looks pretty neat.(Although it takes forever to write.)
Thank you for your suggestion!

I have a son who went through a Final Fantasy phase (years) and as he's ASD doesn't realise when his audience (me) has glazed over listening to him enthuse

Mrz, if my ds and your ds were about same age, they could have been great friends!

I'm sure they would

The term 'boring' is subjective. It is also pejorative in the worst possible way - it is both discouraging and suggests that your DC failed / got the task wrong. The teacher should have taken the opportunity to talk about the best bits that could be built on to develop the plot.

Remembering your 8 year old DC came up with this idea himself (it wasn't a piece on a theme they were covering already - like writing the end to the story), I think this is really good. Most of us given a blank sheet and carte blanche would struggle to write an interesting story in a limited timeframe! Besides, while his teacher might find the story boring, this computer game fantasy fiction sells really well, so there are a lot of people who enjoy it, and some people are making serious money out of it.

Repeated myself in two different ways. There is a word for that. Maybe giving your son a view quirky words to slot into future creative writing exercises would do the trick - it would probably impress and could be like a secret family game which would make him feel conspiratorial. Good luck!

Genevieva, thank you! It really made me happy, to hear positive comment about his writing.

I will keep trying to encourage him to write, and hopefully guide him to be able to write with more structure and interesting contents. (And read more variety of books!)

You could try some audiobooks with him if he won't read them himself? We have the Roald Dahl set and David Walliams set, both from the Book People and they're great, but there are all sorts out there - try your local library, ours lends kids audiobooks for free.

My writing was like that at the same age, I remember writing a story about a marathon runner, there was loads of detail about seeing a poster in a shop door for the marathon, lots about the training on winter evenings, getting the right clothes and shoes, then the morning of the race, she set off, went into an early lead, and won :o I'd got a bit bored of it all by that point! I got better, and was a professional writer at one stage.