Confused. Need help with 7 yr old.

[Spryte]

Sorry for the uninformative title. I'm not sure what to title this thread.

 

I am completely confused about how best to teach my son. Not sure where to post this rambling question, either, so if it belongs somewhere else, please let me know.

 

DS is 7, and we are starting 2nd grade. He is very bright, very motivated about his areas of interest (science is a big one right now). Very creative, very interested in drama and dance. He draws constantly, and creates costumes from construction paper on a daily basis. At 4, he created a life size toy soldier with moveable parts - from paper. The kid can create anything with paper. :) But handwriting (for anything school-related) is a miserable chore for him, and he is still reversing letters. He writes constantly, for fun as part of his artwork, but it is sloppy and he mixes capital and lowercase letters. Reading is not coming easily to him either, as most things do, so I think he finds it frustrating, and he has voiced as much to me. He is, technically, on grade level, but I feel that he is behind where he could be, and blame myself. I think perhaps I have not been persistent enough in teaching him when he is so resistant. We do a small amount of reading each day, but he is a very wiggly, very active boy, and I have not pushed hard in that area. Math is similar, in that he understands it all conceptually but doesn't want to do the work to learn facts or computation (for example, his end of year testing placed him in the 99th percentile for conceptual understanding but 52nd for computation - partly because some of the material on the test was not covered in RS last year, but I think also because of his own issues).

 

An old college friend came to visit a few months ago, and we watched the animated version of one of Sir Ken Robinson's talks (the one with the whiteboard, if you're familiar with it), and immediately afterward DS grabbed his whiteboard and essentially recreated the talk for us - simply drew the entire thing. Fairly normal for him, crazy kiddo, and DH and I are used to this. :) My friend watched this, and watched DS for a few days. Then she talked to me about DS. Friend is the director of a gifted program at a magnet school for the arts. She strongly encouraged me to get DS tested so that if we put him in public school at some point, he will be placed into a gifted program. She's worried that he would be placed into regular classes and suffer for it (though it's unlikely that we will put him into PS, if we can possibly help it).

 

Fast forward to now... We did get a psych eval, albeit not specifically to test for intelligence. We were concerned about other issues (which, it turns out, are not at play, thankfully).

 

DS's test results are confusing to me. They administered a Wisc IV test. For the most part, his test results were very high (gifted category). But in the areas of processing and working memory, his scores were average. There was a 43 point gap between processing speed and the other results. That's a large gap. His working memory was average, also. I don't think there's anything wrong with average, by the way, only feel concerned because of the big gap between the numbers, and wonder how that is impacting him overall. Psych thought his fine motor skills could use some work as well, although all the drawing helps. He has some ADHD tendencies, but is not diagnosed ADHD.

 

Would this be why reading and handwriting are difficult for him? And how on earth do I go about addressing these issues?

 

FWIW, we are using WWE, FLL, AAS, MM (this is a recent switch), SOTW, RSO, HWOT and a lot of other resources. I read aloud and he listens to audiobooks daily as well. We are probably going to pick up OPTGR again, because I think more phonics might be helpful. He has not enjoyed it to this point, and we dropped it for ETC for a while, but I think it might be a better choice. He might not be happy about it though! I'm open to changes though, if anyone has suggestions. For the time being, other than SOTW, RSO, and all the supplemental materials we use, he is not thrilled with schoolwork. I often think he's not challenged enough, and maybe that's the case?

 

 

Any thoughts, any advice, anything at all would be appreciated. I am lost as to how best to help him right now. Or if you can direct me to a better place to find answers, that would be fine, too!

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Spryte

[Heidi]

I would require that he writes a little each day, whether that is through copywork, WWE, AAS, FLL... whatever. Pick one. I think copywork would be more productive, but that is just me. Have him write a little just to continue learning how to form letters correctly, to learn how words are spelled, to learn how to form a sentence: that it starts with a capital and ends with a period, etc.

 

All other writing in other curriculums, figure out a way to just do it orally or with manipulatives.

 

Same with reading. Require a little reading each day. Make it as enjoyable as possible. If he hates OPG, then find something else for him to read. My kids really liked the bob books and the mcguffey readers.

 

I have a brother-in-law, who is now 30, who dropped out of school at 16 because he couldn't read and write. It just came hard for him. He has spent the last 15 years thinking he is dumb and incapable. However, he is sooooo gifted in other areas; many of the same areas as you are describing your son. My bil is not dumb. He has talent and ability oozing out his ears. He is quite gifted and smart. My mil just posted some art work he completed recently on her blog and it is stunning. I had no idea he could paint too. He's amazing.

 

Just accept that about your son, let him excel in his talents, go gentle on his weaknesses but work on them little by little, and don't try to fit him into TWTM box.

 

Best of luck!

[Embassy]

This article might be helpful: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10447.aspx

 

My son aged 7 has similar behaviors with drawing/writing/creativity. I am going to start him on cursive.

 

I'd also consider whether he was possibly a visual-spatial or a whole to parts learner.

[MerryAtHope]

You're using some good resources--HWOT is great for kids who struggle with handwriting and reversals because of the focus on the methods. Did you happen to get the Teacher's Guide? If not, you might find that worthwhile for helping with some of these reversals and for letter formation ideas. (My dd used to forget which way to put the extender for a lower case G until we did HWOT--she happily said, "and catch George!" for years afterwards, LOL!).

 

I would separate out the letters he is reversing--for example, if he's doing b/d reversals, work on just one of those letters for a week or two. Make sure he's forming it correctly, consistently. (you could start with the b and do other diver letters at the same time to focus on diver letters for example). Have him point out b's in his reading before he starts and so on.

 

For reading--do you buddy read at all? That really helped my kids. They would read some, and I would read some. That helped them move through the story, it helped them to hear my inflection and how I pronounce words that are newer to them, and it encouraged them to do it together. If there are new words or new phonograms to learn in that day's reading, you might try making them with the AAS tiles ahead of time. Work on that sound or word in isolation, and then go to the reader.

 

AAS is a good choice because it is Orton-Gillingham based and will improve reading as well as spelling. OG is what kids with dyslexia use, so if you are concerned about the reversals and whether that might be an issue for him, you're still on the right track. He may need lots of review, kids who struggle with reading or writing tend to--so don't be concerned if he seems to forget things down the road, that's just a sign that you need to spend more time reviewing those concepts to cement them.

 

You might check out www.covd.org and see if he has some of those symptoms. It could be that he has a vision tracking or other kind of issue that vision therapy could help with (this is not the same as having a physical sight issue that a normal eye dr. would find). That helped my son tremendously, and he also has a lot of conceptual creativity.

 

You should not be blaming yourself. One--it doesn't help, and two, it's not your fault. You have a gifted child on your hands, but it's not uncommon for kids to be gifted in one area and have struggles in another--that's actually very normal. Don't worry about the disparity in the points, or think it's because you did something wrong--instead, learn what you can about how he learns and how to help him, that will get you on the right track.

 

HTH some! Merry :-)

[Critterfixer]

You might check out www.covd.org and see if he has some of those symptoms. It could be that he has a vision tracking or other kind of issue that vision therapy could help with (this is not the same as having a physical sight issue that a normal eye dr. would find). That helped my son tremendously, and he also has a lot of conceptual creativity.

 

 

 

This would be a good place to start. It will not help with dyslexia, but at age 7 some reversals are common of letters and numbers.

 

I've read that gifted children do have a habit of developing in an asynchronous way. Some things just don't develop at the same rate.

[Aurelia]

I recommend cross-posting in the advanced forum.

[rocketgirl]

I would not worry about writing with reversals at so young. My daughter wrote with reversals even through the 4th grade, and all letters and numbers from the bottom up. I had always been concerned about that but now, as she's entering 6th it doesn't seem to matter. I wish you the best in your journey to figuring out your child, aren't you glad that you get to, & he's not in ps for someone else to figure out or push aside or label?

[Ellie]

If you did Spalding with him, that would take care of his handwriting issues, as well as reading and writing. Ok, well, in fact, it would be everything he needs at this age for English-related skills: reading, spelling, penmanship, capitalization and punctuation, simple writing. You wouldn't need OPGTR, WWE, FLL, AAS, HWOT, ETC. Everything in one fell swoop. :001_smile:

[PeterPan]

Spryte, you've gotten all this information early and don't even know what to do with it. He could turn out to have stealth dyslexia. Sounds like he has the ADHD. The working memory and processing speed we have going on in our house, and they're going to stick with him forever, get used to it. Guess that's cynical. It does make these kids a real mixed bag! You'll retest later and he'll get extra time on standardized tests. I had my dd tested this year with the Woodcock Johnson (we're required to do testing or portfolio reviews in our state), which has no time limit and is one-on-one, no ceiling. That was a pretty good method for us. Not perfect, but very good.

 

PS gifted program? How about the much superior HOMESCHOOL gifted program! LOL What nuts, lol. The great thing about homeschooling these kids, contradictory and frustrating as they are, is you can teach them to all the facets. You can bump up the content while still nailing skills. You can dissociate skills from content so as not to ruin their favorite things. Home is a great place to be for these kids.

 

On the reading, I taught my dd to read with SWR, which is what I plan to use with ds2, who will probably (75% probability given his verbal apraxia) also turn out to be dyslexic. They can't sound out, so if that's what you're trying to do, stop. I have all 6 levels of AAS, but I don't see how that gets him reading. Go get WRTR from the library, read that, and then think about SWR. Or step up a notch and look at Wilson, Barton, or one of the other programs.

 

My dd (and ds and I) are also low tone (muscle) which is what was causing her hand fatigue and pain with writing. Once you have ADHD, might as well go ahead and get the OT eval with someone who does sensory to look for SPD issues. Check out "The Out of Sync Child." Also get Brain Gym. Between the two you might get some ideas for how to break up things, integrate things in, and get your work time to flow a bit better. My ds, at least according to his SLP (speech therapist) is normal boy, not ADHD, but she uses some things with him that help him sit better for his speech therapy sessions. They make these things, sorta like whoopie cushions, that have bumps and nubs and are filled with air. It gives just enough sensory to take the edge off. She'll have him sit on one (in a chair with a strap honestly) and put another nubby air cushion under his feet. Between the two, you can get the time out of him. Abilitations sells things like this, but google around and see what you find. There are quite a few things like this (weighted vests, etc.) you can use to give the sensory input that helps them chill for a bit and focus better.

 

Ok, after you do the OT eval for sensory and tone, you also want a vision evaluation with a developmental optometrist. Once you start talking dyslexia, reversals, etc., you need to get his eyes checked. A regular optometrist won't do, and an opthamologist isn't right either. You need a developmental optometrist. Get a Fellow if you can. http://www.covd.org

 

That's someplace to start. At least you're finding all this now. We didn't start down this path till my dd was 10, almost 11, and let's just say we had a lot of frustration. ADD/ADHD also have an executive function component which you may or may not be seeing yet. In addition to the great books you see on the board lists here (this topic comes up a lot), I'd recommend "No Mind Left Behind" by Cox. Wish I had read this book YEARS ago.

Edited August 7, 2011 by OhElizabeth