How do you help a child with big ideas to express themselves when writing is a mystery? He can read, he has a knack for learning new things, and a memory that often leaves me feeling dumb; unfortunately, writing has become this HUGE hurdle that we are still struggling to overcome.
Last year, my DS was in 3rd grade, and we stopped even attempting to write formally. I could give him sentences to edit - no problem! He could correct the punctuation and the capitalization lickety split. Ask him to write his own sentence and WWIII would break out. He would ask in frustration, "Why do I need to write it? You know you won't be able to read it!" He wasn't wrong.
He had been wanting to learn cursive, so we started learning to write letters all over again. The problem, he seems to need to relearn the motions over and over. We have now been working on cursive for over a year and each time I give him a worksheet, it's like he has forgotten how to make the letters. He can trace them, but he doesn't follow the arrows and lines don't connect; however, he is trying to write, so I consider it a success.
It isn't just his letters. He frequently writes his numbers backwards as well. If you read an equation out to him and ask him to write it out, the numbers end up all jumbled on top of each other. I will admit that it took me far too long to realize that I could turn a piece of lined paper sideways and it helped him to space out his number placement. I know I need to encourage him to practice, both letters and numbers, but sometimes it is easier to just pretend the problem doesn't exist.
Okay, so playing pretend doesn't really work for the long term, it just sounds good. The reality is that I am always looking for new ways to help him, because that is what moms do. We search high and low for ways to encourage our kids to have every opportunity to have what they need. Well, I found the best incentive EVER for my Star Wars loving 9 year old: a Star Wars reading and writing workbook. He has been super excited about getting started with school this year JUST so that he can write in this book! Those of you who have read with me this far, you get the joy of hearing about his first written response. The book tasked him with writing a sentence using the word "who". Here is what I saw: whoisthat Gay. I should first explain that we have not really talked a lot about what "gay" means, so I was SURE that this was not what he intended. I called me DS over and asked him to read me his sentence, so he did: Who is that guy? I snickered just a bit before explaining that guy has a "u" and not an "a". We are still working on spelling too.
I have big hopes for this little workbook, and my DS is getting ready to start back up on his typing lessons as another alternative to writing. Still, my general consensus still remains: Dysgraphia SUCKS!
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