DS difficulty following stories/comprehension?

[Evenstar]

DS is 14 and in Year 10, a couple of incidents of him totally not understanding film plots, such as the same character in different times led us to have extra English tuition for him a couple of years ago, as his comprehension seemed to be a general issue along with difficulty writing with focus on the question that had been asked. We still feel that there are issues, he said over the Christmas holiday “I don’t really follow films, I just watch them.”

His marks are good at school and he works hard, his general knowledge is quite poor I feel because the only reading he does for pleasure is biographies of sports stars, he is obsessed with football and sport generally.

I suppose what I would like to know is should we be doing anything further about this, I haven’t experienced anything like this with my other children. They had far broader interests and I wonder if his difficulty is in focussing on anything other than his narrow range of interests.

Any experiences, ideas or perspectives from a teacher’s point of view would be welcome. TIA

DD1 has slow processing (part of her dyspraxia) which means she has trouble with complicated plots as by the time she has figured out what is happening in one part it has moved on to something different. She finds sometimes watching films with subtitles on helps her.

She also had a lot of problems with writing with focus on the question that had been asked . To be honest we didn't really solve this until y13 (which is 2 years too late for you), and she only got through English Lang by having great controlled assessments.

But we did improve things through lots and lots of practice. Lots of looking for key words describe/explain/analyse/whatever. Masses and masses of working through by rote what was needed for each different type of question on the paper. She went to every revision session going for English.

My key advice would be to really keep on top of how he is getting on with practice questions for different subjects and intervene with tuition / whatever sooner rather than later. I'm not convinced that general knowledge will help much with GCSEs, though of course would make him a more interesting and well rounded person.

Watch films with him and pause them a couple of times to him ask him some comprehension questions/ discuss the storyline so far/where does he think it's going?

Graphic novels may be another way into fiction/imagination.

My DS is like this. I even asked about it once on MN. "Doesn't do narrative" I used to say. He's improved a huge amount (now 13yo). But still gets obsessive about little plot details.

The other thing with DD which makes following films hard, is that she doesn't 'do' inference or tone of voice very well. So she doesn't read between the lines, or pick up sarcasm. She tends to fixate on one or two words and try to shoehorn everything into what she thinks something means, rather than seeing the whole piece. Makes poetry very hard!

Thanks so much for all these replies, might well try pausing films and the graphic novels. School aren’t raising any concerns, but we will definitely be keeping a close eye on it. Having had a quick google it seems being unable to follow film plots is not an uncommon problem.

Sounds like my DS1 - any suggestions on graphic novels?

For a book they will have heard of, there are graphic novel versions of the Percy Jackson series. Also Game of Thrones.

Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children was made into a film last year.

Or if you look in a real bookshop eg Waterstones they usually have a Manga section which are Japanese graphic novels.

DS really liked this one which is aimed at young teens. Comprises three short stories which come together.

Ds1 is very scientifically minded and so struggles with literacy especially poems.

We regularly pause films/tv shows to discuss what is happening and what he thinks will happen next, why is a person feeling a particular way. We also do it with books, read together and then talk about it. It does help.

I cant follow complicated films very well. I dont have the attention span, i just daydream for a moment and before i know it its moved on to something else. I also regularly get characters muddled up because so many actors and especially actresses have a certain look thats quite similar. I suspect its part of my aspergers, although many aspies are much better at following plots than me
Its a bit easier at the cinema as there are fewer distractions

What's his eyesight like? Only because my short sightedness wasn't picked up until my late teens, and I often had no idea what was going on in films (unless all the characters had very different hair colours). But I also had no idea I was short sighted.

Is it just spoken language he struggles to follow? If so, it’s worth googling auditory processing disorder. DD has normal hearing, but prefers to watch tv with subtitles as otherwise she struggles to follow dialogue.

Thanks for the book suggestions and also the tip about pausing and asking questions during films / tv shows. Will try both.

My DS has dyslexia and sometimes struggles to follow dialogue-heavy plots. Like SleepingDog's DD he prefers to have subtitles on to help him follow.