spelling problems, but bright........

Advice on Special Needs and the 11 Plus Exams

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mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: spelling problems, but bright........

Post by mystery »

I wouldn't worry about the Kent Test - because apart from at appeal, I can't see that a child's writing level is relevant as it's all multiple choice. Or does he not do well on verbal reasoning papers as a result of his relative weakness in writing / reading?

What was the adjustment that your school made to the year 5 CATs so that he was in 95th centile rather than 50th? You need to know what this was - ask to see the papers and the adjustments as this may have implications for the 11+. Your school sounds as woolly in its communication as mine.

Your 11+ tutor sounds good. If you think they are well informed trust their judgement on whether the writing thing will affect his 11+ scores or not.

Great that the school has recently offered some help. See that it happens; I think that quite often over-stretched TA time is offered to parents, but in reality it rarely happens. Also, ask what sort of help they are going to give, and see if you and tutor think it will help with whatever the problem is. If they have a specific intervention programme they are planning to do regularly with your son ask what it is. You may be able to help out by carrying it out at home regularly with your son to bump up the number of times it gets done per week. It's not likely to be anything too complex for you.

Look up Stareway to Spelling by Freda Cowling. Consider whether working through it at home would help. But depending on answers to some of the above questions it may be of little relevance at this stage; you may prefer to concentrate more on skills that relate to the Kent 11+ test which writing does not.

As regards struggling at grammar if he passes, I think you are in the lap of the Gods with which school will offer good writing support, which will not. I'd just go for the "better" school in every other way, and if you can afford it get some help from a specialist tutor outside school and try to win the school over to give your son the support he needs over time.

If it's a case of how materials are presented in class at the grammar school, the SENCo should be able to help even if your son does not "qualify" for support. You should be able to explain to the SENCo what your son needs to perform to the best of his ability. The SENCo should then explain this to individual subject teachers so they can incorporate it into their lesson planning. At secondary school (and primary too) teachers should be considering how individual children learn best and incorporating this into their lesson planning ........ e.g. so that primarily visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners all have a good bite at the cherry.

You should have far more idea from children's exercise books at secondary school what is going on writing - wise than you have at primary where you hardly see anything.

There's a fantastic journalist / writer who is dyslexic / dreadful speller. Sure you'll come across him if you Google. Very interesting. Don't let your son be misjudged because of something like spelling, or water down his whole education because of it.

If you sit at the computer screen and type while your son makes up a story in his head, what it is like? This will tell you what the true quality of his writing would be like if he did not have the impediment of pen, paper and spelling to contend with. It's imaginitive, well structured, grammatical etc, this will tell you a lot.
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: spelling problems, but bright........

Post by yoyo123 »

you could try a dictaphone, get him to talk unto that and then it can be typed up later..have done this succesfully with children at school who had problems getting their thoughts on to paper..
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