Please help. Year 2 boy.

[ilkleymoorbartat]

I've just had parents evening, they told me my son was very very bright. Had big ideas and is articulate and is advanced in his questioning of stuff. But when it comes to writing and putting things down on paper there's a mismatch.

He's basically on the cusp of meeting expectations and working towards in writing. He seems to have a total disconnect between his ideas and being able to put them down on paper. He won't remember finger spaces or basic phonics knowledge. But if I ask him to think about every word, finger space, sentence he will do an ok job. When it comes to ordering it himself he cant or won't do it. He rushes and says he finds it boring and then when you read it it's like gobble di gook.

It's hard to know if it's just that he rushes and is more interested in getting whatever information down, or if there's some kind of preceding things going on.

He's book band 8 which is apparently where he needs to be.

Obviously quite worried and don't know how to help him.

Hi Op. My dd is exactly the same! Exactly. She is in YR1 though and at a prep that is very academic. They have mentioned this a few times and we are due to have a formal catch up in a few weeks with school. My dd is 5yo and we are new to the UK. In my country formal education only starts much later. My dd passed the assessment to get into this school all on her own, without any learning from our school in home country. But here we are trying to catchup to this system and it is has been tough. My dd is also struggling to get to grasps with handwriting, finger spacing and spelling words. She writes phonetically. Just this morning she drew a picture and wrote a few sentences. I would even say her writing looks exactly as the picture you posted. Mostly it's all one long sentence.

Just wondering if anyone else had Experience of this and could look at the writing examples?

Hi ilkleymoorbartat, I think this blog might be useful for you to take a look at. There are free resources linked in to it that detail activities to help a child plan their work, see epic-information.com/

Thank you @Homelearningmum

Your two examples show one with 1:1 support at home, and what he has written in class without that. Anansi and the black snake will have followed some input and he has used his own phonetic strategies to spell the words. His picture is expressive too.
Try not to worry - looks fine to me.
I sometimes stick large pieces of paper underneath a table to encourage reluctant writers to have a go. They use marker pens and write and they enjoy the process. Give them a torch and they don’t want to stop!

Thank you for the tips @123fushia
It's like he has the knowledge somewhere in there, but just struggles to apply it.

Firstly, I would say it’s great you have a bright child on your hands. At this age, it’s quite difficult to get thoughts down on paper. Please don’t worry as he sounds normal.

Get a test for dyslexia/dyspraxia just in case. Then look at getting an English tutor next year if he still needs help. It really helps.

Mine were underperforming in these areas. Having tutor sessions I’ve seen huge results, and mine are ahead in class. It’s expensive, so if that’s not something you can do, set aside an hour a week for creative writing together. (He will probably get bored within 30 minutes, though!)

Some things to do:
Read a poem together and get him to make one up himself and write it down. Work on spacing etc. As he goes
Write a story, focusing on descriptive words. It will help his vocabulary and grammar
Draw pictures of made up animals etc. and label them
Have him read aloud to you as much as possible, and read a book to him too.
Bake together and have him read a recipe

One simple activity once a week, then see what the teacher says next term.

Thank you so much @Snorkello so very helpful!

Sorry to ask again, I was just wondering if anyone had any advice on how I can break down phonics to help him when we're going through work?

So for example, how should he know cycle is spelt with a "c" rather than an "s" if that makes sense? I just want to give him the best help I can.

Wow you could be describing my grandson to a tee (I parent him). He is Y2 but late July birthday so very young in the year. School has been a struggle since reception because they put a huge emphasis on writing. His writing is just as you describe - no finger spacing, poor formation, reversals. I was so concerned that this was out of kilter with my observations of his intelligence that I had him assessed at the end of the summer holidays by an educational psychologist. His verbal and quantitive reasoning and working memory are in the late 80s and 90s percentile meaning that his intelligence is comfortably above average. His attainment (baring in mind he hadn't been at school for 6 weeks when assessed) in maths and reading were also very comfortably above average. As he is very young in the year, his reading and maths at school is in the high average range - reading purple book band and doing well but not the top few in maths. His spelling was assessed as below average (though it is marginally better than that at school) and his fine motor control and motor planning were assessed as very poor. The educational psychologist said that at just 6, he is still too young to be assessed for dyslexia or dysgrahia. He is definitely not dyspraxic - sport is his thing. She said that she thinks his writing may well catch up in the next year as he has strengths in other areas that may compensate but she did recommend a full OT assessment. As this will be another hefty bill, I've decided to leave it and reassess at Christmas after he's been in Y2 for a term.

Similar thing here, Dgs1 is a mid-August birthday. Bright boy but letter formation is not the best, spelling he learns for tests and seems to ignore it the rest of the time and his handwriting isn't particularly neat and finger spaces are very hit and miss. Until yr 3 he was on the middle ability table because his writing was below his ability level. School provided writing slopes and pencil grips to help - the general view was that as a summer born boy his writing ability being behind was not unusual and would improve eventually. He hit expected for everything. In yr 3 he was moved to the higher ability table as his teacher took the view that his spelling and writing shouldn't hold him back. He was taken out to do small group work once per week for activities to help with co-ordination and strength - fun activities not just handwriting practice. He hit exceeding for everything except for his writing etc (and music) which was below expected. This year his writing is improving slowly, spelling is still creative but it is usually possible to discern what he is trying to spell and hopefully he will continue to improve so that he will have the ability to get all his ideas onto paper.

Look up DLD and check symptoms.
You can then rule it out or in

Hi

If it is of any reassurance, I heard almost the same about my year 2 daughter this half term - her writing is behind her reading and maths, despite being verbally articulate.

The teacher said not to worry at this stage. It’s something they have seen in nearly all the children, and it’s a consequence of their missed schooling. The school are concentrating on this at the moment, and we should just encourage her to write at home.

Certainly I was well aware that she was reluctant to write during lockdown learning. In fact, she was very open about wanting to change the sentence she had thought of to something shorter! I think it takes more effort for her to commit her thoughts down on paper than to verbalise them at the moment. A number of other parents voiced their frustration about the same thing when doing home learning last year.

I think what your son has written is great! It’s obvious he reads a lot. I like the rich imagination in the content both of what he wrote and his picture. I don’t think his writing is bad. It is certainly well within the normal range of what I see in the little notes my daughter comes home with from classmates. There seems to be a very wide range of handwriting at this stage. Some children have beautiful writing (better than mine!), others are barely legible. I can easily understand what he has written.

With regards to the choice of phonics - the spellings for the last half term have focussed precisely on these less obvious ones. The example of ‘cycle’ came up a couple of weeks ago when they did the soft ‘c’ sound. They’ve also had the soft ‘g’, ‘ey’ as in alley, ‘y’ as in supply…and must be a couple more that I have forgotten. So it looks like school are going through this with them this year.

Maybe chat again with the teacher to see if they feel this is something to worry about. If not, maybe let him have the rest of the term and reassess?

Oh, just remembered - one of the reading books she had home at the beginning of term was “How to write a book” or “How to write a story”, and it went through the process step by step.

Something like:
Plan

• setting
• characters
• beginning, ending and what happens between them
• title

Write Edit Illustrate Sew book together

She had a flurry of enthusiasm and wrote a story that night (and hasn’t done again!)

I only mention it, as the things that are needed to plot out a piece of writing are obvious to us as adults, but not necessarily to children until they have been explained to them.

I also don’t think that your son’s writing is that bad for Y2.
I’ve noticed that kids who find reading easy sometimes struggle with spelling - maybe the phonics isn’t so embedded because they recall the full words so quickly. How does your son go do with reading nonsense words that he won’t be able to sight read - can he decide them?

You could be describing my son when he wax in Year 1. Very bright and imaginative and verbally articulate, reading at expected level for age, writing and spelling lagging (behind age related, and very behind his verbal ability). We suspected dyslexia due to family history and had him assessed at 7, and he is. Because of his strengths he didn't present as that far behind, so school hadn't spotted it.

I just wanted to say thanks so much to everyone for your help and advice!

@Ceara How is your son now? Has it made a difference to his work?

@ilkleymoorbartat he's in year 3 now. Still learning year 1 spellings - spelling is the hardest thing! - but very positive in himself following the diagnosis, now he knows he's dyslexic not stupid, and self esteem is the main thing. School are helping him use planning tools to support his working memory when writing, and he's gradually getting a bit more of the good stuff in his head down on paper - there's still a big gulf but he's calmer about it now he has a reason for it. Learning spellings is and prob always will be a uphill struggle, it has to be very multi sensory and he has a reduced number to learn as it takes more practice and over learning to get them into his long term memory. He is a reasonably strong reader over a short distance - he runs out of steam due to the cognitive load but has made great progress and is an enthusiastic reader. I take turns when reading with him, which allows him to rest and keep going with books at his interest level that he'd not attempt by himself.

Oh and the handwriting is also still "behind" but started to make strides with it recently, having I think finally got a critical mass of basic spellings down in his memory, freeing up enough desk space in his brain to pay attention to forming letters, spacing etc. It was never a fine motor issue.

This is what he wrote this morning on his own. No help with spellings, but just a quiet focused area to write.

My Ds had this issue. His writing was way behind but fine on everything else. I think part of the problem was his writing couldn't keep up with his ideas. So lots of missed finger spaces, odd spellings and missed words. He also rushed writing / avoided writing too much. He had additional help - small grp work and fine motor skills. He is in year 5 and his writing isn't great but it's legible and within expectations.

I've just had parents evening, they told me my son was very very bright. Had big ideas and is articulate and is advanced in his questioning of stuff. But when it comes to writing and putting things down on paper there's a mismatch.

He rushes and says he finds it boring

This would concern me.

One of mine is incredibly bright but has some SpLDs and struggles with writing and spelling. Like your DS, in year 2 his teachers recognised that he was bright and his writing was only a bit behind his peers so nothing was done to support him. The gap widened as he grew older. We really struggled to get any help for the entire time he was a primary school because his intelligence masked his SpLDs. Conversely, his SpLDs stopped him from working to his full ability, he was bored and frustrated, had low self esteem because he felt stupid that he couldn't get what was in his head on to paper.

It was actually a paediatrician who was concerned about the disparity in his abilities and referred him for assessment. The school totally ignored the recommendations from the assessment and it was left to us to get him the help he needed but at least we could do something. Things like teaching him to type, exercises and activities to help his fine motor skills, but also practicing writing and spelling separately and allowing him to record work rather than writing it so his abilities weren't stifled.

Long term, he has done very well academically (a string of A* and a first class degree) but he still struggles with handwriting.

I'm not suggesting your DS will have such extreme difficulties with writing but if he is bored and rushing his work because he finds writing difficult, that is already have a negative impact on his learning.

I am guessing you might be in or near London if you are visiting the Museum of London? I can recommend a clinic for assessment if you PM me.

I think there's a big issue with focus tbh. He looses focus very quickly and I wonder if in a big loud classroom that makes it harder for him?

I don the know if that indicates Add or adhd or anything else. I'm worrying about absolutely everything now. He is a bit forgetful, but so is my husband (who as it happens is a writer but also a terrible speller) and he's not been pathologised.

I'm just looking at everything he does now thinking is he displaying x, y or z behaviours. I'm feeling very stressed!

@cheshirecat99 "his intelligence masked his SpLDs. Conversely, his SpLDs stopped him from working to his full ability, he was bored and frustrated, had low self esteem because he felt stupid that he couldn't get what was in his head on to paper." Snap! School told me in year 1 that my son's writing was poor because he was a bright boy (so being careless and/or losing his thread because he had so many ideas); his end of year report said he needed to "apply himself"... That didn't sit right, and I am so glad I followed my gut and got a second opinion in year 2, as frustration, loss of self-esteem and disengagement were starting, just as you describe. Definitely agree that seeing signs of this sort of wellbeing issue warrants getting someone to have a thorough look into what might (or might not) be going on.

@ilkleymoorbartat I wouldn't call it pathologising, I know labels can be worrying but on the other hand, it really just boils down to self-knowledge of your own personal strengths and weaknesses, and that's really valuable. And as my DH (diagnosed as an adult) says, it's a darn sight better than being mislabelled as "lazy and thick" and self-labelled as "stupid", which was his experience.