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help for dysgraphia


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Dd 10 has always had a hard time writing. All aspects of writing seem to overwhelm her, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and physically writing. Her handwriting is terrible. How can I help her? Okay she is young but I worry about her being able to take the SAT or ACT.

 

She is a proficient typist and does much better work typed than not. I don't let her us spell check or anything until much later in the writing process. Last year, she took notes for science, did vocabulary, wrote IEW papers, and much more on the computer.

 

I was thinking about taking a class in implementing dictation and copywork for a good starting point.

 

Any ideas?

 

TIA,

Kirstin

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I suppose you've got a few options:

 

  • Beat a dead horse and keep making her physically miserable by writing everything.
  • Get a diagnosis and OT. By doing this you can get accomodations on the SAT and ACT.
  • Let her type her compositions and narrations and she can write out copywork and dictation.

My dd does the last two.

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What is her copywork like? Is it as sloppy as her other writing? Can she draw? If copywork is significantly better than other work and she can draw, then it is likely dyslexic dysgraphia. In that case, interventions for dyslexia work well.

 

The other kind of dysgraphia is fine-motor based and is harder to deal with. You are already teaching typing, which is a good work-around. There is really very little need in our computer-oriented society for handwriting. I let it go with my ds. We work on improving his typing. (He also has dyslexic dysgraphia, so we do that, too.) If ds cannot eventuallty get to fast and accurate typing, we'll go to voice-recognition software.

 

You do need to think the ACT and SAT. You need to start a paper trail now about your dd's issues. Take her to an occupational therapist for an evaluation and also to a neuro-psychologist for testing. You will need proof that the disability has been long-standing, and that it has required accomodations in school, AND that it is still current (within 3 years I think) to get accomodations. You can't start the process close to the time of the ACT and SAT, or it will be looked on as an attempt to gain an unneeded advantage for your child.

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Dd 10 has always had a hard time writing. All aspects of writing seem to overwhelm her, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and physically writing. Her handwriting is terrible. How can I help her? Okay she is young but I worry about her being able to take the SAT or ACT.

 

She is a proficient typist and does much better work typed than not. I don't let her us spell check or anything until much later in the writing process. Last year, she took notes for science, did vocabulary, wrote IEW papers, and much more on the computer.

 

I was thinking about taking a class in implementing dictation and copywork for a good starting point.

 

Any ideas?

 

TIA,

Kirstin

 

I agree with emphisising the keyboard skills, but there are still times when handwriting is needed for brief notes. It's taken a long time, but my ds can be legible in cursive when he takes care. So I wouldn't give up on it totally.

 

We're also finding that as he going out into the world more, he needs to print more and more. Unfortunately he's never been formally taught to print and it looks it, so we need to squeeze time in to teach printing.

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