Left handed child can barely write

[Janeway]

My 2nd grader can barely write, physically. And he cannot spell. No way would he be ready for third in the fall if he were in public school. I am thinking he would not even be ready for second grade. Are there any suggestions or advice? He is left handed.

[HomeAgain]

What kind of time do you have to work on this?

What have you done up to this point?

 

Honestly, the best thing for my own kid was alternating some sort of handicraft/fine motor work to build strength and specific writing tools to help him slow down and develop habits.  Things I have used with a range of kids are:

• chalk (forces a better grip and slow writing)
• two-finger letter drawing in sand/salt box
• cross stitch
• painting/Buddha board
• clock paper (teaching the letters with the clock face as an aid)
• spirograph
• Paper sloyd
• Waldorf form drawing exercises with short beeswax crayons
• Scissor work
• Tweezer play
• Violin (to develop dexterity)
• Lots of playground time for shoulder and core strength
• Triangle pencils, though these Twist & Writes are also popular with friends
• a rubber band twisted on the wrist to hold the pencil
• Schoolrite plastic templates

One or two of these have to be done daily, every day, no matter what.I always start with single expectations and work on letter forms in a specific order, increasing the difficulty as more practice is had.  Then after a form is mastered, I require that specific form to be done correctly in work across the curriculum. I start with l, i, and t, one at a time.  Once l is mastered, every l must be written well.  Then once i is taught, l and i must be written well.  By the time we hit t I can start giving words to practice writing an entire line well. We keep actual instruction time short when it comes to working with letters.  I want it to be focused on a time for mastery, not drudgery. 

[Clemsondana]

My lefty had success with Handwriting Without Tears.  The examples are above, not beside, so a lefty's hand doesn't over what they are copying.  Is the writing affecting the spelling?  Sometimes my kids could only learn one thing at a time - if struggling to write, they couldn't do the thing that they were writing about.  Can he spell if you scribe, or if you use magnetic letters, or write big on a whiteboard rather than small on paper?  For my kids, that helped with spelling and math in the early years, so that's how we did it.  

If not, I'm sure you'll get good spelling suggestions.  Is he good with phonics - is he spelling phonetically or is it more 'throw in some random letters'?  We didn't have a lot of spelling problems here, but when I volunteer I see both kinds of spelling problems.  The 'random letters' kids sometimes just need to be made to slow down and sound out the word as they spell, but other kids get stuck on much simpler words and need a different approach.  

[Janeway]

55 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

 

If not, I'm sure you'll get good spelling suggestions.  Is he good with phonics - is he spelling phonetically or is it more 'throw in some random letters'?  We didn't have a lot of spelling problems here, but when I volunteer I see both kinds of spelling problems.  The 'random letters' kids sometimes just need to be made to slow down and sound out the word as they spell, but other kids get stuck on much simpler words and need a different approach.  

Throwing in random letters. He does great with math and is a year ahead. He really understands so much. Individually, he can read words. His phonetic decoding is spot on. I suspect dyslexia and he definitely has dysgraphia.

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

Throwing in random letters. He does great with math and is a year ahead. He really understands so much. Individually, he can read words. His phonetic decoding is spot on.

I use a curriculum called Spelling Through Phonics. It doesn't use spelling lists, basically you give him 4-5 or even less words per day to spell. (https://www.amazon.com/Spelling-Through-Phonics-Marlene-McCracken/dp/1774920328/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=598729162319&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9032039&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8309662217660288511&hvtargid=kwd-3038928662&hydadcr=22595_13531227&keywords=mccracken+spelling+through+phonics&qid=1682442141&s=books&sr=1-1) I have the 2nd edition, so this isn't the one I have. You can find the 2nd edition cheap secondhand. 

The idea is you teach him some spelling thing a phonogram, idea/rule, or pattern. You always have him repeat the word before he spells it (so instead he can learn to listen to himself or feel the word sound in his mouth to figure out the sounds). During the spelling of the word he can put in underline blanks for any sounds he doesn't know. In fact at the start of the whole endeavor he's only figuring out where he hears the sound like beginning, middle or the end of a word. Slowly as you give him more phonograms, idea/rules, patterns and information on how spelling works he can spell whole words.

I think it could be good because it removes him having to write a lot/day (I mean he can use magnet letters but that can be slow and laborious too). For my mathy child he really likes it because it makes learning spelling like learning math. Also, he can piece together some of his decoding knowledge to apply it to spelling. It's also flexible I don't do all the words they list, I vary it depending on how many my son feels like he can do that day and sometimes I add in a pattern that he knows from decoding or what we are learning in his reading program as a "spelling" word too.

Here is sample page and the underlining thing.

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Clarita
Add link to the book.

[wisdomandtreasures]

https://diannecraft.org/language-arts-writing-program/ I've heard good things about this method.

[sweet2ndchance]

I had two lefties, one did wonderfully with Handwriting Without Tears. The other was dysgraphic and nothing ever helped. He was spot on or ahead academically, just don't ask him to write lol. When he went to public school in 6th grade, they tried to remediate his handwriting and then just started supplying him a scribe or a computer for written work. He had that through high school. I allowed him to type for spelling tests and such and the schools allowed him to type whenever possible. He did so much better with spelling when he did not have to put thought into how to write correctly.

I would keep trying with fine motor activities and handwriting practice through about 4th grade or so but supplement with scribing or typing.

[Jann in TX]

A couple of thoughts...

Has your student been evaluated for dyslexia?  It is very common for dyslexia and dysgraphia to go hand in hand!

My fine motor skills are excellent-- but I'm dysgraphic-- my handwriting is NOT legible.  I manage to teach Math just fine because writing on a chalkboard or using a graphics pen uses a DIFFERENT part of the brain!

Stealth dyslexia could be the reason spelling is not progressing.

[Rosie_0801]

My dysgraphic kid couldn't learn to write until I taught her to join.

[Ellie]

On 4/25/2023 at 12:01 PM, Clarita said:

I use a curriculum called Spelling Through Phonics. It doesn't use spelling lists, basically you give him 4-5 or even less words per day to spell. (https://www.amazon.com/Spelling-Through-Phonics-Marlene-McCracken/dp/1774920328/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=598729162319&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9032039&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8309662217660288511&hvtargid=kwd-3038928662&hydadcr=22595_13531227&keywords=mccracken+spelling+through+phonics&qid=1682442141&s=books&sr=1-1) I have the 2nd edition, so this isn't the one I have. You can find the 2nd edition cheap secondhand.

Actually, the description included on how it works sounds just like Spalding.

[knitgrl]

On 4/25/2023 at 8:57 AM, HomeAgain said:

What kind of time do you have to work on this?

What have you done up to this point?

 

Honestly, the best thing for my own kid was alternating some sort of handicraft/fine motor work to build strength and specific writing tools to help him slow down and develop habits.  Things I have used with a range of kids are:

• chalk (forces a better grip and slow writing)
• two-finger letter drawing in sand/salt box
• cross stitch
• painting/Buddha board
• clock paper (teaching the letters with the clock face as an aid)
• spirograph
• Paper sloyd
• Waldorf form drawing exercises with short beeswax crayons
• Scissor work
• Tweezer play
• Violin (to develop dexterity)
• Lots of playground time for shoulder and core strength
• Triangle pencils, though these Twist & Writes are also popular with friends
• a rubber band twisted on the wrist to hold the pencil
• Schoolrite plastic templates

One or two of these have to be done daily, every day, no matter what.I always start with single expectations and work on letter forms in a specific order, increasing the difficulty as more practice is had.  Then after a form is mastered, I require that specific form to be done correctly in work across the curriculum. I start with l, i, and t, one at a time.  Once l is mastered, every l must be written well.  Then once i is taught, l and i must be written well.  By the time we hit t I can start giving words to practice writing an entire line well. We keep actual instruction time short when it comes to working with letters.  I want it to be focused on a time for mastery, not drudgery. 

I have saved your list to work with ds10, who struggles with handwriting. Just wanted to come back and add fusing beads. It's not a craft thing I would usually do, (Hey, kids! Let's melt plastic!) but ds worked with tweezers to get the beads on the pegboards for nearly an hour. Paper sloyd has been happening, and I am seeing improvement. Somebody else on the boards mentioned Callirobics, which I finally got the energy to pull together. For the first day, I'd say it's gone well. Fingers crossed for the rest of the week.