Polarbear, yes, this was (and is) my concern as well. Apparently, an assignment was given in class, and my child wrote all of 2 sentences in nearly 2 hours.
I'd make a note of this. Ask your ds or the teacher what the assignment was too, and make a note of it. It might seem meaningless re what happened at this point in time, but over time collecting this type of info will help you understand what is challenging about writing assignments for your ds.
I'd also ask the teacher if your ds received any assistance or check-ins from the teacher or a classroom aide. Sitting and producing not-much-at-all for 2 hours while other classmates are writing can be extremely frustrating for a child. The whole point of going to school is to learn... so if a child is sitting and not working, someone should check in and offer help or support.
I asked him about it later on at home, and he said that he blanked out on what to write.
Which might be a sign of a challenge, or might be a sign of a student who needs someone to just step in and help him with a few quick brainstorming tips. Since it's happening repeatedly (I think), I'd suspect there's more to it than just needing a few brainstorming tips.
I think assignments where he has to relate or recollect something and produce written output is a challenge.
Since you have a suspicion of what the problem might be, you could do some informal "testing" of your own at home by giving him different types of writing prompts, and keeping the output as evidence of what type of writing assignment is more of a challenge for him and which types are easier.
I do not have tests to back up my statement, however. I just think so, from what I have seen. Also, FWIW, the school administered the WJ III test for writing (I forget what they are called), and he scored exceptionally well (it was one on one testing, and he typically tends to do well in it. However, I think, for some reason, he is not able to translate it to back-in-the-classroom for some assignments).
The WJ-III writing subtests are very simple tasks that look at one skill at a time in isolation. It's quite possible that your ds has the skills he needs to do well on the WJ-III subtests and still has some type of challenge that is preventing him from completing written expression tasks. A widely-used and more comprehensive test for written expression tasks is the TOWL (Test of Written Language). This test requires students to actually write a paragraph (or more), and is often used by schools when testing for a suspected LD in written expression.
I am wondering what to do about this. I will try and post up his scores on the WJ III test a bit later on.I have still not signed off on the 504; I am debating about the writing thing.
Since you haven't signed off on the 504, I would consider requesting further testing on writing. If you're wondering about the specific WJ-III writing subtests, you should be able to find descriptions of each subtest online.
Best wishes,
polarbear
