Any writing curriculum suggestions for the dysgraphic child?

[Marie131]

The title says it all :)  I'm looking for something for my 9 y/o.  TIA!

[TxMama]

I use a "regular" writing curriculum, but provide accommodations.

 

If your child can type, then that would be an appropriate accommodation.

 

My child is still working on learning to type, so I either scribe for him or he uses Dragon Naturally Speaking.

 

In addition to dysgraphia, my child is a moderate dyslexic. We've decided to use IEW's SWI-A this year. I cannot recommend it  since we haven't started yet. My child works well with explicit instructions so I'm hoping this will be a good fit for him.

[FairProspects]

Following. Not much has worked well here - at this point I'm just waiting for more maturity with age. Does he type? Read, Write, Type & Ginger Software have been valuable tools to help us get past the handwriting issue part of dysgraphia.

 

As for composition/organization, that is where ds really struggles just to get the words out. We have done half of IEW SWI-A and it worked ok, but he still hated it and was not ready to move past 1 paragraph writing. After doing what felt like a million of those, we dropped it for awhile. I'm thinking we will try a combination of WWE 3 (for 4th grade) and Maxwell's School Composition (1 assignment per week), as well as some journal prompts from my 4th grade notebook (yes, I still have it). We will also be doing science journaling and I may substitute some of those assignments for composition ones as ds will have to answer questions. The science questions will be things like explaining how a battery works and more technical writing. Ds will type all dictation and composition work. WWE 1 was a total disaster, but ds has gained a lot of LA skills since then and it looks like WWE 3 drops the specific passage questions in favor of big-picture narration, which is ds's strength, so I'm hopeful it might work better for him at this point.

[laundrycrisis]

Our son used Verticy Yellow composition a year ago and it was really helpful.  He will be starting the green level of the same subject soon.  His is not a "handwriting" problem, it is a written expression problem. 

[Pen]

What form of dysgraphia and is there a reading problem too?

 

And are you looking for penmanship or composition?

 

If his reading is fine, or remediated, I would tend to suggest Bravewriter for composition--or maybe now the CAP series--with you scribing or allowing typing or dictation as needed.

 

If you mean penmanship, I would suggest he learns to type (or if not possible look at things like Dragon program), and also maybe use Getty Dubay Italic writing for when he has to write by hand.

[Marie131]

The Psychologist termed it "Learning Disability of Written Output".  This is a new dx for us, I thought it was synonymous w/ dysgraphia, am I mistaken?  His reading is fine, just writing is a problem.  He has so much going on in his head and he can't get it out.  He is very creative, but shows many reversals, spelling errors, mixes up caps and lowercase, doesn't use punctuation, poor grammar etc.

 

Mostly I'm looking for a handwriting program.  We will be using Writing Tales for composition.  He doesn't know how to type.  He refuses to learn.  He also has ASD so he is very rigid and ADHD so he is very distractible.  He will be learning to type w/ a SEA this year.  We are also getting him some kind of speech to text software.  We were using Getty-Dubay cursive, maybe we should stick with it?  It's most discouraging when there is no transference from his copywork to his own composition.

[kbutton]

We have some of the same issues, and I have seen a leap from ages 8-10 in handwriting automaticity, fluency, and transference. So, whatever you choose, stick with it--you might be at a point where things will start to smooth out a bit (not trying to give false hope, we have a long way to go here). My son had reversals when he was little, but we put a positive spin on it. He recognized letters in any way they were oriented, which means he has spatial skills. We told him that was a great trick, but he needed to remember what way they go in order to write them properly (it helped with motivation, but this was when he was younger). Now, he can read upside down, and I think he can read backwards. We are going to try the typing program that goes with Sequential Spelling. It's low tech (printed), but it emphasizes typing by spelling patterns (my son likes patterns).

 

I am curious if OT and VT will help--we still need an OT evaluation, but VT is training him to be able to use different parts of his body at once, do more than one thing at a time, etc.

 

As for the composition part, I tend to scribe or type for him now if we want to focus on composition. If we are just writing a sentence here and there for an assignment, I sometimes copy what he's handwritten onto a whiteboard, and then we go through it for spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc. Once he sees it all spread out like that, he recognizes his errors right away. He can correct some of his writing on paper as well, but it's a slower process. We have to treat each item as a separate step. My son's spelling is all over the map, but he did well on spelling tests in school. Go figure. Anyway, sometimes I have him spell a word backwards and out loud. He spells much better this way. He puts it on a mental whiteboard and then reads it back to me. I think it slows things down enough that he can concentrate on it.

 

 

[Pen]

The Psychologist termed it "Learning Disability of Written Output".  This is a new dx for us, I thought it was synonymous w/ dysgraphia, am I mistaken?  His reading is fine, just writing is a problem.  He has so much going on in his head and he can't get it out.  He is very creative, but shows many reversals, spelling errors, mixes up caps and lowercase, doesn't use punctuation, poor grammar etc.

 

Mostly I'm looking for a handwriting program.  We will be using Writing Tales for composition.  He doesn't know how to type.  He refuses to learn.  He also has ASD so he is very rigid and ADHD so he is very distractible.  He will be learning to type w/ a SEA this year.  We are also getting him some kind of speech to text software.  We were using Getty-Dubay cursive, maybe we should stick with it?  It's most discouraging when there is no transference from his copywork to his own composition.

 

Besides G-B some think Handwriting Without Tears, but I've not used that.

 

If he has a writing composition to do, you might leave trying to write it neatly to the final polish for the "publish" stage. It is likely asking for too many things at once to want neat penmanship, proper G.U.M. and also for him to be thinking thoughts about content. Not too much for any child, but for dysgraphia, probably so. Dysgraphia manifests in many different ways, btw, and I cannot answer if the words your Psych used are the same, but I too would think so. I asked about reading because dyslexia and dysgraphia often go together, and if your ds was having reading trouble, I would have suggested not working on writing intensively until reading is secure.

 

At 10 my ds used dictation into a recorder to get his thoughts saved and then he (if short) or I (if longer) would type that out, and then he would work on revisions. Dragon did not work for him then because it could not understand his speech.

 

My ds 12 has many of those same issues you mention. Grammar seems to be coming along lately with use of Hake. We're not doing a whole lesson each day, but I have seen a lot of improvement over a few weeks. That is, improvement that seems to transfer to his own writing. It is still less good than on a workbook exercise, but some other programs seemed to be giving perfect results on the workbook, but no transfer. Then again, it might just be that he is at a new stage and more "ready" now, not the curriculum change. For spelling he also seems to be doing better now with Spelling Power. Sequential Spelling would have been another option if progress did not seem to come with SP or if he stalls out on that.

[prairiewindmomma]

Handwriting Without Tears for handwriting--developed by an OT, multi-sensory, and the focus is on doing a few letters perfectly each day. We do 2 5 minute sessions.

 

As far as his actual composition goes, how is his organization of thought? Can he put stuff in sequential order? Does his writing have a natural progression of thought?

[FairProspects]

Hm. I'm not sure my suggestions will be helpful. My son is very strong at the "skills" part of writing - grammar, spelling, typing, etc. He actually struggles far more with language processing and putting his thoughts into words & output, or the organizational and composition aspects of writing.

[PeterPan]

Hm. I'm not sure my suggestions will be helpful. My son is very strong at the "skills" part of writing - grammar, spelling, typing, etc. He actually struggles far more with language processing and putting his thoughts into words & output, or the organizational and composition aspects of writing.

FP, for that I recommend to you Inspiration software.  You've probably already tried it?  It lets them retrieve the words and wrap their brains around them and organize them visually before they try to write.  For my dd, it's magic.  

 

Also, some people need to go through a lot of drafts and some people are very perfectionist and lean toward doing it all in their head and getting it out perfectly the first time.  I think it's tricky to identify which your dc is doing and support that to make it easier without trying to CHANGE which of those two he's bent toward.

[rbk mama]

Another recommendation for HWT!  Was perfect for my dyslexic/dysgraphic DS, and I appreciated that the workbooks do not have a grade level on them.  When we pulled him from school at 2nd grade, he needed to start 'from the beginning' in learning how to write his letters.

 

 

[Heathermomster]

HWT sells an IPAD app that you might want to consider.  My DD appears to have mild motor planning issues, and the app is the equivalent of the wet/dry/try chalk board that HWT sells.  

[Catherine]

I used WWE for my dysgraphic ds. We started it when he was 6 and have continued to use the copywork, dictation and narration practice. He's 13 now.

 

My son had the most difficulty with copying. He continues to find this challenging, but has improved greatly. I think his primary problem is with forming accurate mental imagery. We spent a LOT of time when he was 6-10 working very very closely (I watched every letter and corrected him as he wrote) and eventually, his skill improved. But until he was able to copy, we were unable to make any progress.