Flash Fiction from a Six Year Old. Kids can amaze you sometimes.
I had an interesting experience with my six-year-old today. I thought it would be fun to share.
He has a project due tomorrow. Unfortunately, we haven’t been going through his book bag every day, so we didn’t notice it until late last night. (If you’re a parent, I’m sure you’ve been there before.)
Anyway…
His project is to write a five page story, (two sentences per page) and illustrate it. When his turn comes up (which is, of course, tomorrow) He has to stand in front of the class and read it.
I went to work today, and called him half an hour before he had to leave for school.
I said, “Do you know what you want to write about?”
“No.”
“You need to pick something. A trip to the store? Something that happened on vacation?”
“Tron”
My husband perks up in the background. “No, pick something easy. Do playing outside or something.”
“No. I want to do Tron”
I said, “If that’s what he wants to write about, then let him.”
While on the phone, my little guy talked, and I typed. Then I emailed it home to my husband for him to print so my son could illustrate it. Tonight, when I get home, I will help my little guy practice his story.
I tried to get him to make it shorter, but he was pretty adamant about his plot once it started flowing. I heard my husband laugh in the background. I don’t think he could believe it either. His story is 14 pages (about 28 sentences).
This is my child that really doesn’t want to learn to read. I hope I don’t have a hard time practicing it with him tonight.
Anyway, this is what he came up with. Mommy just helped with the typing, and I had to slow him down because he was spitting it out faster than my little fingers could swipe across the keyboard.
When I read it back, I was a little surprised. There is setting, introduction of the good guy and the bad guy, conflict, progression to climax, and the one thing that seems to elude my older children… a definitive end.
Now keep in mind that I typed it EXACTLY how he said it, so don’t go looking for clean syntax. He’s only six. Just check out the story arc. This is actually a very good story synopsis. Pretty Cool.
Title: Tron has to do a battle with the boss
By: Littlest Dude Eaton
Tron has to do a battle with the boss.
The boss has a big hood, a cape, he is on the orange team, he has a big disk and he throws it and when it hits a guy, the guy gets defeated and the disk comes back to him.
Tron knows he will be okay. Because he has a strong disc and he is brave.
Tron is at the battle stage. First Tron throws the disk
The boss hits Tron’s disc with his disc and the disc comes back to Tron, and Tron catches the disk in his hand.
The boss closed a big giant gate that flashed blue. Then Tron uses a powerful move on it and he threw it hard and a giant blue wall blew up.
Then the boss sends his minions who don’t have disks. They have sharp fingernails and they stab you with them. Tron defeats them.
Tron ran to the boss. And the boss ran super-fast somewhere past the orange gate.
A giant ship that has four bad guys on it with disks comes. One bad guys jumps off the ship and starts attacking Tron.
Tron uses this special move that has lots of disks and the guy gets defeated.
The other three that were really powerful and fast took these soft things that have horns coming out of their helmets and they go super-fast. They ran into Tron and threw a disk and almost hit his head but he ducked.
They all came and then Tron used a special move where he jumped and the disk hit the ground, and the ground went all over the place, and then the guys flew back and hit the walls.
They got defeated so Tron could go through the orange wall now.
And then he attacked the boss and the boss got defeated.
The end.
(Yes, he said “The End” So cute!)
You may have also noted a few explosion in there… a boy after my own heart.
Amendment: After practicing with him, I found out that he could say all these words, but he couldn’t necessarily read them. Rather than frustrating him, we cut the story down to the key points and made it five pages, and made some of his sentences shorter. We worked on reading it for about an hour. I’m proud of my little guy for not giving up.
With his active imagination I know he would just LOVE reading if he’d just give it a chance. I really hope this pushes him in the right direction.
P.S. – I found out this is a scene from a video game. Funny.
Jennifer M Eaton 
Hey, that’s brilliant work! Bless the little man, he’ll be on novels before you know it! 🙂
I have to teach him to read first. 🙂
But he’s got a fabulous head start there. He’ll be fine, you’ll see. 😉
My brother hated reading when he was younger. Our mum had to sit with him to get him to read a book, and even then it would take him a couple of months to get through anything. Now, he simply adores reading. Give him time and I’m sure he’ll love it, Jennifer. Boys tend to think reading is something that’s not so good when they’re younger. Your boy will probably do what my brother did 🙂
I sure hope so. My oldest couldn’t wait to learn to read. My middle read normally, but this little guy is just not interested.
Great story. He’s only 6. I wouldn’t worry too much if he’s not gung ho about reading yet. I’m pretty sure he will fall into a love for reading naturally, especially with his mom being a writer. 🙂
Ugh. I hope so. He’s a bit of a challenge. We had fun reading a story together tonight. I pointed out some words so he could read along.
That’s awesome! I love Tron too so I was pulled right into the story. Minions huh? Yep, kids will surprise you. My little guy was talking to his kindergarten teachers about “articulating fork trucks” when he was 6. And had to explain to them what it was! 😉 Kids are so funny.
“Articulating Fork Trucks!” Very funny. The monomaniacle Middle grade reviewer spat out a word doing a review the other day, and I had to giggle and ask him what it meant. I love being out-vocabular-ized by my kids.
Perhaps this will give you hope: my Claire told all of us upfront that she was never going to learn to read. She made good on her word till halfway through first grade. Then she just decided to do it and shut me up. But she never really loved it until seventh grade. She is a freshman in high school this year. She called me today to tell me that she scored the highest grade ever scored on the end-of-course English exam. And she had to read Shakespeare this year. And loved it. Littlest Dude Eaton will be okay. Sandy
Awe, thanks. I hope so. He is just struggling so much, and I feel like I failed because I don’t read to him enough… at least not as much as I read to my older kids.
You know what? He just went to bed. I’m going to go read to him now. Bye!
I was an adult literacy volunteer once, and we used to use the same thing: have the learner tell a story, write it down for them, then teach them to read it. My compliments to your son: he did a great job.
Awe, thanks. Hopefully he will understand that it’s fun to read, too.
I love the “minions” part. Reminds me of my 7 year old. Her first word wasn’t dog, or duck or cat…it was “turtle,” and she hasn’t let up on the big word use since 🙂
Funny, I didn’t even think of that, because my older sons use that word. I think he got it from them.
I love what our children come up with.
I was surprised, althouth I remember when my (now eight year old) did this project, he wrote a six page story on how recycling saves the environment. Ya never know.
Minions? He used the word “minions”? Sophisticated vocabulary for a six-year-old. Cool. Plus he’s learned about editing. Thanks for sharing the fun.
Yes, he uses the word minions. Gets it from his older brothers. I didn’t think about that as a lesson in editing for him, but you are right.
That’s adorable! I was really in that story, and love that he’s using colours and special tools and lots of super-fast stuff. Very cute.
I loved the “super-fast” His eyes got so big for that part.
Magical 🙂
I love Tron, where can I get one? Congrats to your budding writer. And don’t worry, if he loves stories and writing, the reading will come. We’re in the same boat at this end and we’re slowly making headway. The reading is there, but the interest is lacking–too much effort, he says. Inventing stories and creating a desire to write them down has helped a lot. (And he’s been seen to make off with my Kindle to read ‘mummy’s book.’ Well, then…)
Thanks for sharing!
Ha! They only steal my kindle to play games. Except my oldest (the monomaniacle middle grade reviewer) I cannot get him to STOP reading.
Too cute, seems you will have another writer in the family. Even though he already saw it in a video game he was still able to describe it in enough detail for you to recognize later on which I think is pretty impressive. The force is strong.
Yea, he did get it pretty clear. One of my older boys recognized it.
Great playback! Maybe he’ll be a sports announcer some day. 🙂
Love kids. I love the way their minds work. So cool you are still mesmerized by a tiny mind.
I never get tired of listening to the great things they come up with
great! its amazing what kids can do when they’re not restricted by having to write it themselves! love it 🙂
Yes, I am sure it would have been much shorter if he was doing the writing.
He has your genes! Love it.
It was really cute. So proud