After reading other posts here, I think my youngest son may have this. I just thought he didn't want to write neatly or that I didn't give him enough practice or that I failed to teach him properly. He is seven, will be eight in December, and has just started second grade. He hates to color, his drawing ability has not really improved from Kindergarten. His handwriting really hasn't either. It's like he ignores the lines on the page. His writing looks like one long word with not enough space between the words and too much space between the letters in the same word. He mixes upper and lower case letters. He often forgets how a letter or number is formed. He does complain about his hand hurting sometimes. For those with kids who have dysgraphia, does this all sound familiar? I've searched the internet last night and all this morning and while I don't want to label my child by mistake, I definitely don't want to ignore something that is an issue. I talked to him today and asked him questions about handwriting and he said that it just doesn't make sense to him. I can't pay for testing and don't really know that I would want to. From what I've read, he probably would not be severe enough to qualify for therapy of any sort. His fine motor skills are normal outside of handwriting and coloring. What can I do to help him? I wonder if switching to cursive might help him? Would it be a good idea to go back an add in pre-writing activities like writing with his finger in rice or sand? I'm just at a loss. I can't find much of anything that gives ideas for helping children.
My dd14 has never been diagnosed with dysgraphia, but struggles with many characteristics of it. She has been tested twice through the public school system (because it's free)-when she was 4 and again at 6. At 4, her fine motor skills were behind, but not enough to qualify for services. Her pediatrician recommended keeping her home another year to see if she would catch up. It never happened, and homeschooling her became our best option. At 6 (halfway through K), I had her tested again. This time, she was way behind in fine motor skills. Her handwriting was terrible (The K teacher rolled her eyes when she saw it.) The outcome of that meeting was that the testing team thought I didn't expect enough from her (being that we were homeschooling and all) and that she should be enrolled in school. At this point, we did have some testing done on our own, but our medical insurance covered all but co-pays. We discovered that she has a visual perception deficit--Her brain does not always correctly process what her eyes see. We completed 2 years of vision therapy with improvements, but no cure. In fact, just this week, she had a mini perception test at the eye doctor and couldn't do the test. For my dd, that means that copywork is extemely difficult. I make her do it, but her brain has to work so hard to focus on either the book or whiteboard that when she moves her eyes to her paper, her brain shuts down. The result is many mistakes even when copying. Writing anything on her own is difficult because of the lack of abililty to visualize. At 14, her handwriting is probably comparable to a 2nd grader's. At your son's age, I wouldn't stress too much, but try to encourage proper handwriting. You can do exercises like mazes, dot-to-dots, and hidden pictures to strengthen focusing and tracking even if there is no deficit. Boys do sometimes just mature later than girls. You can have your son tested through your local school system, but be prepared for them to suggest enrolling him.
I also suggest the things like mazes, dot-to-dots, tracing, finish-the-picture, copy the figure (like on a matrix of dots), whiteboard/colored markers, chalkboard activities (more "feel" to it than whiteboard with markers), fingerpaints, etc. Try different kinds of large soft pencil grippers. Try large "kindergarten" pencils, triangle-shaped pencils, fat markers with a bullet-tip. Try a game where you trace a letter with your finger on his back and he tries to guess what you traced (then let him trace on yours). Try "air writing" where he makes the strokes of the target letter in the air really huge using the whole arm, then smaller, smaller, smaller, until it's the size of writing on K-sized lines on paper. Try putting several plastic letters into a bag, then he reaches in and identifies one by feel. Anything can be made into a game...
My son does not have dysgraphia but I wanted to share a bit about my son. Like sixcloar said, sometimes boys mature later. My son's writing was horrible even though his fine motor skills were fine and he doesn't have dysgraphia. Sometimes, they just aren't interested. My son wasn't interested in reading/writing until this summer (at age 8 1/2) So I didn't force it. Since this summer he's made progress without much prompting from me by leaps and bounds! Some things we tried were: Cursive-it's easier for some kids, helps with spacing and letter reversal a great deal Space man - for spaceman (google it) between words-or they can use their finger Make sure he isn't holding the pencil too tight-cause hand to hurt Make sure he holds it properly as well (A pencil grip may help) also causes pain in hand Learning proper letter formation-as in where to start each letter can be very helpful in neatness. And the biggest helper for my son was showing him WHY reading/writing were cool,we did that by leaving notes for him and letting him leave notes for us. It was great motivation for him. When you say your son said it doesn't make sense, what doesn't make sense to him? Is it that it doesn't make sense why he should learn it or why he'd need to write (other than schoolwork) or is there something else he doesn't understand? Hope something I posted is helpful
Thank you, ladies. Maybe I'm worrying over nothing and he will get better as he matures. It is difficult for me to tell what is a real problem and what is just age and lack of maturity. I don't want to miss anything but I don't want to overreact either. He says he gets confused about writing and he doesn't understand why the letters don't look the same on paper as they do in his head. He is very interested in reading and writing and is a very good reader. He tries so hard to write neatly and it is just frustrating to see him not get better results from his effort. I'm going to go back and do lots of the early writing activities with him and reteach letters from the beginning again. I am still on the fence about cursive. Thanks for all of the ideas for fun things to have him do. We'll make it a game and I'm sure his older brother will even want to join in. Thanks, again. I appreciate your responses.
Our Occupational Therapist suggested Loops and Other Groups handwriting. (It is for cursive.) I also suggest doing "inch worms" on the pencil before writing. You hold a pencil and move up and down the pencil with your fingers, flipping the pencil over when you get to the end. This helps with grip. It sounds like he has a "death grip" on the pencil. (Which causes pain after a while.) Have you used "handwriting" paper with him? I know it helps many kids too.
He really doesn't hold the pencil that tightly. He has never had an overly tight grip, though it is much better now than it used to be because his interests in Lego and clay has taken off. Yes, he has used handwriting paper but he prefers to write on blank paper or wide ruled paper like his brother. All of the lines seem to confuse him. Maybe Handwriting Without Tears type paper would be good. I'll look into the Loops and Other Groups too. I've not heard of that one.
Dustinsdreamer This does sound like my dd to a T whom was dx'd with dysgraphia about 3 years ago (at 8 yo), down to the hand hurting and the letters not looking like they did in her head. She had some therapy (for about 10 months) that included work with her hand writing (she was also dx'd with 2 forms of dyslexia so we were working on multiple issues). BTW the therapy was not OT, although OT was recommended to us. She also did some therapy with a developmental optometrist which helped some. Her writing is now legible but she still has a hard time taking notes in class. I usually give her a copy of whatever we are talking about so she can write on the notes or if she needs something recorded on a card for later reference, I make it for her. Her handwriting is slow but legible and she is getting faster. Cursive didn't seem to help as the issue has more to do with her ability to determine "position in space" of what she is writing. That is why the letters are "floating" above the line or "sinking" or are not proportional or don't fit completely on the line. My dd also has "position in space" issues in general, bumping into things, standing next to something but accidentally stepping on the edge, setting something too close to the edge, etc. She has been able to move on to essay writing by learning to type (there are several free programs on line) and she does her worksheets on an ipad through notability so she can type on the worksheets rather than write. HTH's. Kim
Thank you. It does help. It is good to hear of a child who is making progress. So much of what I have been reading sounds like parents and teachers just giving up on children and writing off any possibility of improvement. He seems to have spacial issues like you describe. He is the only person I've ever met who can fall down while sitting and he bumps into things all the time. Of course, he also has this thing for slapstick comedy and thinks clumsy is funny so it is hard to tell when he is just playing around.
My son hasn't been formally diagnosed but I read an article about it and it sounded exactly like him. From taking forever to finish writing assignments - even super simple ones, to writing letters from bottom up rather than top down. Like you I thought I had failed him somehow - didn't teach him well enough at the start etc. The article I read suggested an exercise called writing 8 - its a simple but monotonous activity that they are supposed to do 4 times a week for at least 6 months. Supposedly it helps unlock the gate in their brain that causes the struggles with translating their words to paper. I've already seen a huge improvement in my son's writing and we're only 2 weeks in. I plan to continue the exercise for the school year and then move on. Another suggestion the article I read makes is to get technology involved - teach them to type so they can still "write" stories and such just using the computer. I also think it did say that cursive is sometimes easier for them. I figured even without an official diagnosis that working through the Writing 8 couldn't possibly hurt anything so that's the route we're going right now.
I almost posted about this over the weekend but got to busy to come on. I feel strongly this may be my son's issue with handwriting. Here are some links I found this weekend you might enjoy. We have done the 8 exercise for two days so no noticeable change yet but I am encouraged to hear someone else say it is helping. The article that really described my son http://heartofthematteronline.com/how-to-tell-why-your-child-is-struggling/ The 8 instructions http://icareforldkids.hpage.com/for_dysgraphia_71784846.html A video of a child doing the 8 exercise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMSWopLDAi4
Thanks for the links! They are very helpful. I'm going to have him start the writing 8 exercise tomorrow. He will love ending up with a mess on the paper. I can totally see how it could help.
