Talk to me about dysgraphia

[LittleIzumi]

I may be having an epiphany here. :glare:

 

Or it could just be more ADHD-related fun. I have no idea. Where's a free neuropsych when you need one, eh?

 

Would the Dianne Craft stuff help dysgraphia or dsygraphia-like issues?

Edited March 10, 2012 by LittleIzumi

[peacefully]

Are you more concerned with issues with handwriting or written expression? Dysgraphia is a term that can cover a lot of things.

[MomatHWTK]

I believe the Craft materials are use for dysgraphia, but I also know someone for whom they didn't work. What specific problems are you seeing?

[LittleIzumi]

We've got:

 

Extreme reluctance to write. She's six and a half and one or two short sentences in a row is a big chore. I can only get to write at all if it's about horses (and even then she sometimes throws a big fit), or a couple of sentences for AAS, which for some reason can get to write when nothing else can. Four short sentences of copywork and there would be a grand mutiny. She would sit and avoid it and complain and do a little and then doodle and then cry... for at an hour.... I ditched grammar entirely because asking her to write even half of a basic grammar lesson was way too much for her. She had breakdowns essentially every time. It is not possible to have writing in spelling and then copywork or dictation or writing for science or anything else. With the horse unit study we're in I can get two sentences of copywork and a few short phrases filling in other parts, and that is SO much more than she used to write. She will avoid writing for four times longer than it would take to write the darn thing.

 

With print, she reverses a lot with numbers and letters (she used to mirror reverse whole words), leaves out letters, has varying letter sizes, sometimes throws in random capitals or makes the first letter uppercase and tells me it is capital :confused:, writes like she's on a roller coaster (up/down/up/down), draws things all over her letters like flowers and hair, has extremely sloppy writing (looks like she just started K, IMO, and she's almost done with 1st). This is all in print. We tried HWOT and she does well when she learns the letter, and then writes it her own way when it's on paper. She starts her letters in a different spot and a different direction quite often. She reverse even more because she will sometimes write her b starting with the stick and sometimes with the circle clockwise and sometimes with the circle counterclockwise.

 

I taught her cursive. She is SO MUCH BETTER at everything with the cursive. She still does NOT like writing in cursive, but her letters are the same size and all on a line and 98% the right direction.

 

Her spelling is atrocious. I am going to dump ETC and focus on AAS, because that actually sticks and she does remember those rules at least with a little prompting. I saw no improvement with ETC or Starfall or OPGTR (she HATED that, lol). Nothing stuck. We're early in AAS 2 and anything we haven't covered in there, she spells phonetically, leaves out letters, etc. She will leave off the end of words entirely sometimes. "Brought" is "brot," she'll write "th" for a "ch" sound, etc. She is remembering the AAS we've done, so I hope that will come as we progress.... She can read at 4.4 grade level as of a few months ago, but her spelling is K-1st (a very lax 1st, like she just started learning to use silent e this week).

 

She leaves out spaces between words and adds spaces in the middle of words. She does often catch that she wrote it with no space and will erase it all and add spaces, and then forget the space between the next two and have to erase it again.

 

She already had VT. It improved her reading and coordination but not this, at least not much.

[peacefully]

.

[Terabith]

So, where do you live? Wouldn't possibly be near Virginia, would it?

[LittleIzumi]

So, where do you live? Wouldn't possibly be near Virginia, would it?

 

Utah. :)