prairiewindmomma Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 (edited) What has been helpful for you and your student with dysgraphia? What is dysgraphia/written expression disorder?: https://dyslexiaida.org/understanding-dysgraphia/ https://www.understood.org/en/articles/understanding-dysgraphia https://www.additudemag.com/what-is-dysgraphia-understanding-common-symptoms/ https://childmind.org/article/understanding-dysgraphia/ Edited March 1 by prairiewindmomma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 My daughter couldn't remember letter shapes until I taught her in joined pairs, then she picked it up within days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Simplified cursive (New American Cursive from Memoria Press)—we took a lot of extra time on it and made our own extra handwriting pages. We worked on making sure he made the letters the same way each time. Work on the retained reflexes for the neck—when retained, they make the eyes and hands move together, so you lose your place trying to do copywork Closing his eyes to write large letters on an easel or whiteboard, especially for the number 8. With eyes closed, he could write an 8, but with eyes open, he made a kidney bean instead. Definitely had visual issues. Eventually he could make an x, and then he could superimpose an 8 on the x, using the x as a guide. Hypermobile hands with extra long fingers (arachnodactyly) also made writing hard. Playing an instrument helped stabilize his fingers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 (edited) For my student, the orthographic (scribing) issue was three-fold: 1. There were underlying visual issues. We did vision therapy. 2. There were underlying motor issues. We did occupational therapy to strengthen the forearm and to help with motor coordination and to resolve retained primitive reflexes. Our occupational therapist had us use the Handwriting Without Tears program....all of the components. Writing in a sand tray, tracing sandpaper letters, using the wood pieces on top of the cards and then separately on the table, sky writing---all were used to work on capital letters before we ever put pencil to paper. 3. Ultimately, the amount of working memory required to do handwriting made handwriting not super feasible for higher grade level work. My student can write painstakingly slow in perfect cursive. Their personal handwriting is an all capital chicken scratch that is nearly illegible. For speed in schoolwork, they need to type or use audio dictation software. Academically, they are gifted and receiving all As in their schoolwork. If you were to look at their handwritten grocery list, you'd think they were in kindergarten. At some point (generally by age 10-12), I'd recommend teaching touch typing if handwriting hasn't come together. There are plenty of professionals (doctors and lawyers and engineers) who chicken scratch. Work on a functional signature and the ability to fill out a medical intake form. Beyond that, we live in a digital world. For SAT and other college admission test accommodations, start the evaluation process by age 13 or so, and get good documentation to submit to College Board and elsewhere so that your student can have additional time for portions of the test which require handwriting (including math calculations), and so that they can type for the rest. For issues with scribing during math, turned a lined sheet of paper sideways, or use graphing paper to keep track of columns of numbers. Your student may also benefit from using different colored highlighters down each column to help keep track if there are also functional vision issues. Likewise, using programs like Math U See which offer a lot of blank white space around problem sets can be surprisingly very helpful. As far as the composition issues went (grammar, spelling, composition), using grammarly helped immensely. Again, the underlying ability for my student was there, but when it came to motor output, there were significant hangups. For a number of years, my student could orally dictate entire essays, but when asked to write an answer would write a 2-3 sentence answer. Once we moved to oral dictation and to typing, my student could perform at their intellectual ability, which was well beyond their motor ability. Edited February 26 by prairiewindmomma 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 7 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said: At some point (generally by age 10-12), I'd recommend teaching touch typing if handwriting hasn't come together. Definitely I suggest considering a pattern-based spelling curriculum with typed lists to reinforce muscle memory. Once my kids knew where all the keys were and were willing to type slowly enough to be accurate and correct mistakes, we started typing the lists in Sequential Spelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Is this the thread for spelling? Apples and Pears is made for the dyslexic brain and I liked it for providing different strategies. The lessons were too long, so I halved them, and for the first book I had her fingerspell the words (using the Auslan alphabet) rather than writing them, except for the tests. That took a lot of pressure off and allowed the spelling lesson to be a spelling lesson instead of an everyyyything lesson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SFisher Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Can u make a separate sticky/thread for written expression disorder. I have some things I could share. One of my biggest problems has been that dysgraphia and written expression disorder are often grouped together in resources, but how you would support/accommodate is much different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Keep it in this thread, please otherwise the amount of stickies gets cumbersome. It says "composition issues" in the title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 2 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said: Keep it in this thread, please otherwise the amount of stickies gets cumbersome. It says "composition issues" in the title. I think a thread on expressive language might be helpful. For my two, one presents with pragmatic issues and the other with both composition and difficulties with stating problems or using problem-solving language, but there difficulties show similar test results. They both have dysgraphia separately. Not sure where it ought to go. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Mm Writing and speaking are kind of the same when talking about expressive issues. Should they be put together or separate? Speaking is supposed to lead to writing, but for mine it was kind of the other way around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 16 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said: Mm Writing and speaking are kind of the same when talking about expressive issues. Should they be put together or separate? Speaking is supposed to lead to writing, but for mine it was kind of the other way around. Maybe a broader thread title? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 I am happy to retitle on whatever consensus we come to. 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 Maybe add expressive/pragmatic language to the title? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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