3rd grader assigned research paper...need advice please.

My son is 9 and in the 3rd grade. He is on an IEP and attends a small private school. Without getting into all my issues with him not being accomodated appropriately I am really looking for advice on how to proceed with this assignment. He has to write a 5 paragraph research paper on a subject of his choosing. He needs to read about the subject, pull important information out about the subject, write it in his own words including topic and conclusion sentences and all of it has to “flow” correctly.

Unfortunately, he struggles to even read and to then ask him to understand what he read and put it into his own words is beyond his capabilities. I voiced my concerns to the teacher telling him that my son can not accomplish this on his own and that it wouldn’t just be me “helping” him that it would be me “writing” this paper. He seemed fine with allowing me to do this which makes this assignment pointless.

This is what I have done so far: I am using graphic organizers to organize each paragraph “we” will write. I read the information to him and then we figure out which paragraph that info belongs in. I ask him to tell me back in his own words the info I have read to him, but he can not do it. If I read, “The fish in the ocean swim,” he says back to me, “there are dogs in the park.” It just doesn’t compute. So, I then give him the sentence to write. Now we are at the part of putting all this info into paragraphs and he has lost complete interest and just seems to be lost in this assignment. What advice do you have to either help me help him work on this assignment or have any of you had teachers assign an alternative to doing a research paper that maybe I can suggest to the teacher in the future?

Thank you for any help.