disgraphia- question for Victoria

I’m not officially an expert, just a tutor who works with this. Dysgraphia just means an unusual difficulty in learning to write, unusual in comparison to normal intelligence and general physical development.

You could be extreme and distinguish a fundamental dysgraphia where the problem only showed up in writing and not in any other coordination, from a general coordination problem; however this fine distinction wouldn’t be especially helpful since the effective teaching of writing seems to be the same in all cases anyway.

In my own case I had a general hand coordination problem exacerbated by mistreatment of visual problems leading to severe astigmatism and amblyopia. I also had notably slow-developing hands, undersized until they suddenly grew when I was fourteen.
My daughter had severely slow-developing hands; she is the one who at age fifteen bought clothes in the ladies’ department, shoes in the men’s, and gloves in the little kiddies’. Her hands finally grew to an almost normal size and strength between ages seventeen and nineteen. (Eek! I just started to think about what that pattern implies for a granddaughter…) She also has an unusual eye problem with retinal damage, leading to lack of vision for fine lines (says she cannot see spiderwebs for example.)
Both of us need a lot of extra time and work in order to do any skill with our hands, whether writing or painting or typing or music or whatever. I do nice writing and some calligraphy and miniature watercolours and home renovations/decoration, just worked hard to learn to do them. Grace does a little calligraphy and plays clarinet and trombone, and again just worked extra time to learn.
I was lucky enough to have Mrs. Ross, whose memory I bless whenever I think of this, who taught us to write in Grade 3. She had daily writing lessons, high standards, and required us to use dip pens and inkwells (yes, in Grade 3); she said if you made a mistake you would know it, the Montessori self-correcting system. It worked.
Grace had me and lots and lots of markers and paper and years of me biting my tongue when it was clear this was going to be a fight for her.

Earlier this year, until his mother went looking elsewhere for a faster miracle cure, I was working with a very seriously dyslexic pre-teen with SI problems, directionality problems, and years of bad teaching developing a very difficult attitude. As well as helping up his reading from 1.5 to around 3.5, I worked with him on teaching writing and we went in four months from every-which-way printing and a fight to get one word on paper, up to a quite readable cursive and the ability to copy a couple of full sentences. If we’d finished out the year I think he would have been doing fairly normal writing, if slow at first.
I’m working right now with three other kids, two Grade 2 and one Grade 4, all of whom were allowed/encouraged to write upside down and backwards with a fist and hook grip. All of them, as well as reading and writing delays, also have math problems (order and direction do matter … ) The one I’ve worked with for six months is now doing a passable printing and slow cursive, has jumped four years in reading level, and is starting finally to spell things that can be read; he is also taking control of his own work for the first time, although he still has a bad hook grip I’m trying to relax him out of. The second, Grade 2 after four months, is catching up to his class and doing better socially. The third is new and still a battle but we have hope!
None of these kids can play any musical instrument or do any crafts, and it’s a shame.
What I’m seeing here is connections with *everything*. If you can’t write in school, everything else gets mixed up and muddled. If you put things on paper backwards and upside down, you mix up order in all the other things that are being taught, and it shows up badly in math and spelling. If you have poor fine motor control and don’t develop it, you have poor control in all the other things that need that skill.
On the other hand, I’m also seeing that this skill is teachable and learnable, and that systematic teaching and steady nagging for six months can turn things around. Some of us just take more nagging than others — part of the normal variation.

You mentioned in your last post that in his previous publiuc school the kids were doing a lot of sustained silent reading in novels, and in the new school they are not.

This could be either bad or good. You have already been over lots of bad scenarios so I won’t repeat all that. BUT, there is possibly a very good reason.

I haven’t been there so can’t say if this is what is happening, but it is possible that for the first time in his life your son is actually being *taught*.
In a good literature class, it is assumed that the students can and will read for themselves and they are expected to do this on their own time, so the valuable and limited resource of teaching time is used for discussions of what has been read, probing questions to make the students think, practice in using vocabulary and language structures, discussions of writing asignments, and all that kind of thing.
Something which should not be news but unfortunately is for too many teachers: handing out books and worksheets and overseeing them is NOT teaching. Yes, kids should be reading every day. Yes, kids should be doing written assignments every day. That’s what homework is for; the classroom brings people together so they can interact.

scriabin

i am in no way making light of your question but sometimes maybe we examine things too much,

my own son was always all thumbs when it came to small motor but could throw and hit a ball at age 2 and do it like 10 yo,

we used to make jokes about him when trying to build with Lego, too funny, we joked Duplo was not big enough either, this kid has a sense of humor we should all have

his handwriting could make a grown man cry, he got sent to remedial handwriting class in 3rd grade, still writes like a 2 yo and that is on a good day!

he is now 19 and works parttime delivering pizza, part of his job is getting the boxes ready for the pizzas, he had us all in stitches demonstrating his folding ability, he imitated himself with this thumbs going everywhere,

he said everyone does better than him, he said his fingers go everywhere

yet he plays Nintendo like a pro, excelled in all sports, tennis and golf as well

and is off next year to Swarthmore College, so despite needing LD for small motor activities, he has done very well, instead of fretting over the small motor, it became funny,

we never seemed to care and neither did he,

so some things kids do well, some things they do not

your son sounds like he does many things well, i know my son could not have played a piano no matter how hard he tried,

libby

Hi Victoria,

My son has an awkward pencil grip. When he learned to write, and through pre-school, kindergarten, first, and a lot of second grade, he put the pencil through his first finger and middle finger, and anchored it with his thumb. I worked with him a LOT at home to use the correct grip, but it wasn’t reinforced in school. His second grade teacher finally introduced us to the triangular rubber cushiony things for pencils (can’t remember the name) and for the first time, he started holding a pencil consistently correctly.

As an architect, I spent a lot of time in college (yes, college) learning the correct grip for a drawing tool. I also learned how to form letters correctly, with the strokes in an appropriate order (italics). If the pencil is held correctly, the muscles used for movement are smoother and lines/lettering are easier and more fluid.

I have worked with my son on letter formation and pencil grip, but the 4th grade teacher doesn’t follow through. Plus, whenever he gets anxious, he reverts to his awkward grip. He always complains about how much the physical act of writing hurts him, and will point to the exact places on his fingers that are painful.

So, I keep working with him - but again, the school isn’t following through. We have an IEP meeting coming up soon - should I really push the point with the school, or just let it go?

Thanks,
Lil

For what is worth, my 7th grade nonLD daughter does the same thing. We went through all the pencil grips at about second to third grade. I don’t think she will ever write any other way. I think it is very difficult to change this.

In 6th grade she learned to type. She is proficient enough to take notes at school but types everything else.

Beth

Now I know I talk too much about audiblox but here goes.

They have an exercise that involves crumpling sheets of paper from the phone book with your hands. You hold the sheet out to the side and crumple it up into a tight ball without bringing it into your body or using the table or wall to help. You do this 3 times in succession. My 4 year old will try to fist grip his pen. When I do this exercise for a few days in a row it self corrects.

Every once in awhile I stop doing the exercise and the fist grip comes back. When we do the exercise it strengthens his hands enough that he goes back to a normal grip.

My older son had these issues but I worked them out doing a variety of exercises when he was little. There isn’t a better exercise than that paper crumpling.

I am inclined to agree that he may actually be getting book discussion that he didn’t get before that he could really benefit from. This is something my daughter got in her pull out advanced reading group because all the kids were reading the same thing. With my son’s previous school, the regular class had 4 or more reading groups going. Sustained silent reading doesn’t help the kid pronounce words never heard or discuss what a victrola is. It must be an easy subject to “teach”. I’m hopeful for the best with the new method. Everyone in the class (15 kids ) reads the same book. He came home yesterday with an assignment to read 39 pages. This is the first reading assignment that he has come home with since 1st grade and the largest I’ve ever seen for either of my kids. Unfortunately, while he was not totally familiar with all the terms in the book (Farmer Boy- we don’t live in farm country)- it is very easy reading. This kid is facinating. He bitterly complained that it was too easy and stumbled through it like a beginner reader with errors all over the place. I finally read it to him and then took out a much harder Lloyd Alexander book and made him read a similar amount. Suddenly most of the reading errors stopped. One thing I think that is positive is the new writing program. He comes home with work sheets with questions that require specific short answers. In the other method he would get assignments like “write about your favorite character” or “tell me about the book”. I think he could benefit from more structure and I get to work with him one on one with the writing assignment.
victoria wrote:
>
> You mentioned in your last post that in his previous publiuc
> school the kids were doing a lot of sustained silent reading
> in novels, and in the new school they are not.
>
> This could be either bad or good. You have already been over
> lots of bad scenarios so I won’t repeat all that. BUT, there
> is possibly a very good reason.
>
> I haven’t been there so can’t say if this is what is
> happening, but it is possible that for the first time in his
> life your son is actually being *taught*.
> In a good literature class, it is assumed that the students
> can and will read for themselves and they are expected to do
> this on their own time, so the valuable and limited resource
> of teaching time is used for discussions of what has been
> read, probing questions to make the students think, practice
> in using vocabulary and language structures, discussions of
> writing asignments, and all that kind of thing.
> Something which should not be news but unfortunately is for
> too many teachers: handing out books and worksheets and
> overseeing them is NOT teaching. Yes, kids should be reading
> every day. Yes, kids should be doing written assignments
> every day. That’s what homework is for; the classroom brings
> people together so they can interact.

My own experience with schools on this is entirely negative, although I hear from others that there are some shining lights out there.
Half the people in schools any more don’t know that there are efficient ways and inefficient ways to write, or read, or study.
The other half are absolutely convinced that it is a sin and a form of child abuse to actually *teach* a child anything, since you are interfering with his “creativity” or “natural” development (as if reading and writing are in any way natural).
Between total ignorance and intentional neglect, it is difficult to get attitudes changed.

I am a little flexible about pencil grip, as I myself have a joint problem and do not hold my pencil in exactly the official “proper” grip — I hold it between my first and second fingers so as not to run stress through the knuckle. However I do hold it in front of my hand in a relaxed grip, and I also do calligraphy and watercolours.

I am noting a pattern with my students over the past five to ten years. All of those who have never been taught how to write in the “Let them re-invent the wheel for themselves” theory of schooling (can’t call it education) have the *same* pattern of problems. They invent their own “original” or “personal” or “creative” things — except that they all come to the same thing, so how original or personal or creative is it?? Given a tool that requires far too much pressure to write and that they cannot force with their little five-year-old hands, a wax crayon or a yellow pencil, they *all* do the same counterproductive thing: they lean into the page and grip the tool in their fist. What else do you do when you want to get your weight into the work? Then, as they get into Grades 2, 3, and 4, this evolves into leaning hard on the left arm, often kneeling on the chair, and holding the pencil in a hooked fist grip, while keeping the eye close over the hand to watch what is happening (you can’t control the hand automatically when you are driving it into the paper this way.) You get the hunched posture and the scrappy printing and omission of letters and words (can’t see the big picture when you’re leaning in and fighting) and excess fatigue that are all so common. Sound familiar out there?

Personally, I absolutely hate the rubber pencil grips. I may have a little SI trouble myself, as I simply cannot stand the feel of such things. Also, when I was teaching a class, I noted that most kids who had special grips or fancy erasers or whatever used them, not as work aids, but as methods of distraction and avoidance. It’s so much easier to fiddle with your pencil and complain that everything is not just perfectly right than it is to sit down and learn to write!
I personally use large markers, followed by small markers, followed by rolling writers or super-fine markers, to teach kids to write. The smooth plastic is pleasant to the touch, there are no sharp corners to dig into your fingers as with the usual pencil (yes, a bad feeling to those of us with sensitive hands), and the tools require no pressure to write so you can learn to form shapes freely. Also the result is clean and nice. And you save the 75% or more of time that is usually wasted in erasing, so you get three or four times as much written in the same time.

I would strongly recommend that you keep fighting with your child’s handwriting at home. Even two or three ten-minute lessons a week, all I can manage with my tutoring students, makes a huge difference over a school year, from hopeless to readable, from a battle to normal range.

I ignore most schools and when they tell me or the parent “Isn’t it wonderful how his reading/writing/ math has picked up this year” (as if it’s magic or something) we just mention the tutoring, not that they believe us.

Consider a calligraphy class for your child in the summer. I found one for my daughter after Grade 6 and not only did it reinforce her writing skills, it gave her a fun skill that she enjoys using on greeting cards. Such classes can be found at community centers, colleges, etc.

Sounds like time for a classic “mother look”.
If it’s too easy, then you can quit goofing off and making mistakes… Read me this stuff correctly and *then* I’ll do something you think is fun …

I would try to get him to work on accuracy. It is important. And the teacher is probably working on a quite easy book for the grade in order to be able to do other things like answering questions in written form, things that you can’t do if you spend all your time on the mechanics of reading at your peak level. Your son is quite likely to come home with a bad mark on an assignment because he didn’t take it seriously, thinking it was beneath him — use this as a learning opportunity.

Thanks, Linda - we’ll try it! :-)

Thanks - I don’t know if there is a calligraphy class around here he can take - I’ll have to investigate.

Maybe if I tell him that I didn’t learn how to do this until I went to COLLEGE, he will want to do it more. Whatever it takes - and he’s reached the age where Mom is no longer the expert! :-)

Lil

Lil: sorry to say, I suspect you would have to sit in that darn classroom everyday to make sure your son is with the program re pencil- this is WAY easier to fix in K, 1st grade so why wan’t it don then (horse is outta the gate eh)- my kiddo’s teachers too were, “relaxed” about this- i could spit on them now