Ok - gritting my teeth - we're going to have to walk DS through English Language GCSE

[drspouse]

Or similar.
DS is in Y9. He's in a specialist school where another girl we know arrived age 12 with a reading age of 12 and left age 16 with a reading age of 10. No other school will take him - he has SLCN needs which have grown over time while the SEMH needs that put him in the school have diminished. But the schools we have contacted just say his SEMH needs are too great/he doesn't fit the cohort. They are all non section 41 independents (except for one mainstream with an RP which we will appeal for but he needs learning now).

He has an English tutor but we think they are a bit out of their depth with his speech and language needs - it's not just metaphor etc, he genuinely sometimes finds it difficult to form and understand sentences.
If he only does what school give him he will leave with nothing. I've looked at e.g. entry level English past papers and I don't think he'd know how to approach them at the moment (in contrast he gets most of the entry level Maths 40 min papers right in 10 mins ...).

Can anyone give us a tip for where to start? We try and get him to write at home every day but sometimes it ends up as just a list (e.g. once there was some fruit, followed by a list of fruits). Same with reading, he reads really quickly and misses things out, doesn't understand what he reads, but gets frustrated by not understanding it and says it's "boring". He likes reading funny things (and will read them for pleasure if they are easy or familiar enough).

He will do homework (we set it, school give him nothing) but rushes through everything, which is definitely part behaviour and part frustration as he knows it's hard for him.

I currently work as an EOTAS tutor though hope some school-based colleagues will also advise. How much does he read whether fiction or non-fiction? Writing alongside him or sometimes modelling how you would write something he talks about, 'language experience' may be a start.I would tackle grammar and composition from a lot of different angles e.g. reading, audible, BBC bitesize though his profile will dictate whether you start with Tracy or develop writing in tandem.Happy to discuss more if helpful

He reads to us most days, just a chapter and as fast as he possibly can! He also reads humorous stuff to himself (Bunny Vs Monkey, 13 Storey Treehouse).
I'm afraid we are really maths and science clever, English ignorant in our house and beyond "knowing how to write" at a fairly high level and rules like "don't start a sentence with And" we are at a bit of a loss with English.
We definitely know he doesn't get enough practice. CGP workbooks on SPAG, great, full stops, yep, done and dusted, then we can't do what he should be doing at school and get him to write several pages a day and check he's still using them.
We try to get him to write every day but it's all so bad we don't know where to start with helping him to improve! And if we just fix one thing he forgets it by the next day.

If you are maths clever you will be able to work out what he needs to do to pass the English. Remember he just needs a 4. Go through the questions and the marks scheme. Start him reading slightly more complex but interesting passages which will get him used to the style and ask him questions based on the kind of things he might be asked.
i hate to say it but AI is your friend here and ChatGPT will give you well written extracts that are the kind of style he might expect. Print them off, get him to read them, ask the questions. Sadly it’s all a process.

He wouldn't really understand much in the passages yet - if he reads e.g. Roald Dahl he can't tell you what happened in the chapter he just read. I'm attaching what he wrote today, before and after I suggested some changes.

I have had a look at these passages.I think walking him through GCSE, as you may fear, is quite an undertaking.However, I know that a lot of progress can be made over time.I would start with if he can write a simple coherent sentence.z8 would then give him gap fills as models for coherence.I would ask him to proofread, initially for full stops and capital letters, using a checklist and a highlighter, if it helps.If there are either any groups such as at your local library or a tutoring group where he could work with other young people I think that might benefit him because I think it is important to have examples of how peers write which is naturally different to adults.

Also noticing use of puntation/sentence composition within reading and whilst listening to audible/podcasts can help with style/coherence.

Punctuation even!

He's not yet at the point where he can proofread his own work - I usually get him to read out loud each sentence to check where he's missed words out entirely, or written a wrong word (e.g. yesterday he wrote "would" instead of "wondered". He quite often misses out the verb e.g. he will say "the monster huge and hairy and smelly" and then will read it to me as "the monster is huge and hairy and smelly". I suspect this is him thinking quicker than he types.

We are on the lookout for a new tutor for him but I think she does 1:1. I fear that tutoring groups at his level of writing would be much much younger than him. He's also very hard to engage (currently in an SEMH school though his main difficulties are attention span and distractibility rather than being oppositional which was a previous difficulty), so it might be hard for a tutor to engage him if he's in a group. He tends to write something, say he won't write it again, after some persuasion he goes through it, makes a few corrections, gets distracted,

have you tried voice to text / text to voice
or a program called 'clicker8' the school may pay for is as i think it is expensive.
if they think its useful and you could push for it
it is for primary kids but it may help with sentence formation

Clicker 8 is a comprehensive, child-friendly literacy tool by Crick Software designed to help primary school students build reading and writing skills.

We used to use Clicker 7 but we found he (at that time) ignored everything except the typing interface so we didn't upgrade. It is supposed to be on his EHCP but the school never used it, as part of their basic policy of not bothering to educate him. I am not sure if it's on there at the moment.

We're using Pobble 365 for story prompts at the moment - it gives the start of a story and/or questions to ask plus a word bank.

I can see he may not be at the stage for groups yet.Glad to hear he has been checking his work.Does he put his finger under each word as he reread it?Asking him to tell you a sentence 3 times before he writes it, if he doesn't find speaking too tricky, is another strategy.Also, asking him to tell you about an interest, you scribes in a correct simple manner x2.You then cut up one test into sentences to sequence and sentences into words to sequence.You can also take out the verbs or full stops for him to notice what needs to be added/or just to add them.This can help to improve composition because a student already knows the content.If he will engage with this, I would also order some 'Little Wandle for KeyStage 2' Phase 4 reading books second hand from Awesome books,World of Books or Abe books online as they photos are the back to practise story sequencing e.g. of scenic views from around the world will also help with narrative building.

Great ideas thanks! He doesn't always let me sit with him while he writes but we're working on it.

Have you considered Functional Skills rather than GCSE? (Or as a pre-cursor).

Definitely, but he needs something, and at his school they are not pushing him enough to get even FS let alone GCSE.

FS is much more straightforward, and can be taken at any time, and the parts can be done separately. (Not a teacher, but we did it independently to make sure DD got a L2 in English).

Oh I'm sure it's an excellent option, and could work for him in the end, but neither his current English tutor nor his school appear to be doing anything that helps him progress. So, whatever's best for him, we will need to do a shed load of help.