English Worksheet - Letter of Complaint

We've finished all the final exams for this semester. Shane's teacher very kindly marked his exam and told him he passed the course! Thanks to all of Shane's hard work throughout the semester, and the help of his tutor, Ann, and his grandmother who works with him also.

The final exam in English seems to have been a single application question on (my un-favourite novel) Iqbal. They were asked to write a letter complaining about the poor working conditions in Pakistan. This would show the students' knowledge of the material in the book, since it focused on illegal child labour in Pakistan, as well as their ability to follow the format of a business letter.

Here are some examples and practice topics for letters of complaint. Keep up your hard work, and it will pay off - it has for us!

Lisa

Exam Time

We are busy crunching for exams next week. English is the most challenging, so we'll be spending most of the weekend practicing writing paragraphs and news articles, reviewing Iqbal, and answering comprehension questions to short essays.

I have not prepared very much myself for this, so we'll be using the various resources we have. I continue to cut out newspaper articles, especially from the local paper. The articles tend to be short, relevant to the community, and typical of the type of news articles he will see on the exam.

Over the next months, I plan on designing some practice reading comprehension worksheets, leading up to the English Literacy Test on March 29th (in Ontario).

All the best for you and your Aspie child!
Lisa

English comprehension - topic vs main idea

While Shane's class is now concentrating on writing paragraphs - they have written one opinion paragraph every day since returning to school from the holidays - I am trying to continue to build his comprehension levels. He reads every day for an hour, listening to an unabridged audio CD and following along with the book. Shane's interest is horse racing, so he reads and listens to Dick Francis books and CDs from the library. The following along part is crucial, so he can see what the words look like, but he gets the comprehension from listening to the story. Over time, he will be reading on his own for pleasure, without the CDs.

One of the biggest challenges for Aspies (and for many kids) is understanding the difference between the topic and the main idea. If you ask your child to read a piece and then ask what is the main idea, often he will tell you the topic, or the title of the article. You need to tell him this the topic, and probe more the main idea. To determine the main idea, ask "what does the author want the reader to know or understand?". It helps to read the first and the last paragraph (very often the last paragraph re-states the main idea in the conclusion). The distinction between topic and main idea are important as this forms the basis of the article. We read something because we are interested in the topic, but mainly to understand the message that the author is trying to convey.

I try to use current stories that are relatively short to help with this, so I will cut articles out of the paper or print them off from the website and read them with Shane. After reading the article, I ask him, "what is the main idea of this article?". Then, it's just a discussion, no writing (since that adds too much complexity at this level). Whenever I see an article of interest, I print it off. It could be anything from sports to dogs to horses to construction to teenagers in schools. News articles also help him with current events in the real world.

Here's a link to an article in the Globe and Mail from October 15 2010, about stem-cell therapy for pets (that is the topic). The main idea is that while stem-cell therapy for pets is now available in Canada, there is no scientific evidence that it works, so the author wants to make the reader aware of this.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/stem-cell-therapy-for-pets-now-offered-and-disputed-in-canada/article1760087/

Enjoy!
Lisa