Questions about my first grader

First, I want to encourage you. It is never an easy thing to consider that your child may have learning difficulties. I do not know too much about dyslexia, but from what I’ve read, it may be something to test for. Some of the typical things done are switching hands when writing, having a hard time memorizing some things from day to day, and so on. I don’t want to say too much, because I only know what I’ve been reading over the last few days. I wanted to rule it out as a possibility for my daughter. There are sites that I found that spell it out rather well, and even some sites that have screening tests for it. I even did a screening for ADD, and I think that is what my daughter (6) has. My son (5) has mild autism. To a stranger he would seem to just have AD/HD. (Fortunately my two younger boys seem typical thus far.) I would encourage you to talk to your pediatrician and get a referral to a specialist. Most drs are more than happy to give the referral. I had one that accused me of being a bad mom and unable to handle my “typical” 2-yr old. He turned out to be autistic. So, no matter what the doctor says, push until you find the answers that seem to fit the best. You are the mom and you have to be the one that makes sure your daughter is given the best.

Type a letter to your principal requesting that your daughter be tested for a learning disability. The school is required to test if it is a public school. It is very important to put your request in writing because the school can ignore a verbal request but not a written request.

Helen

My first grader has some similar difficulties. However, I noticed in pre-K that there might be “something up” (not recognizing his letters or numbers). At the end of the year his teacher agreed and the school tested him. Because he was so young, they tested him again in Kindergarten. For us, we started the ball rolling by talking to his teacher. They would be the first one to notice a possible problem (besides you). You could also talk to the school psychologist or therapist. There may also be an Education Coordinator at your school. I think a lot of disabilities have “signs” that over lap. I also thought that Riley might be dyslexic, but that has never been brought up. He was diagnosed with a specific learning disability that involves his processing. I always thought he had memory issues, but it is in the processing that things are getting mixed up and not registering.
Hope this helps some. Best of luck!

I have mixed handedness — still in my fifties switch hands to use tools or paint corners — and I am very much not dyslexic, rather an advanced reader in several languages.

Your daughter is having directionality confusion, something which is perfectly normal at age 5. There is nothing at all in nature that favours left to right and top to bottom processing; rather this is an arbitrary choice of how our writing system works. Children have to be actively TAUGHT this system.

Many schools just hope and pray that kids will catch on by watching. Some kids do notice, some get help from their parents, and some like your daughter catch on later. The trouble is that if it is left as a confusion too late then other problems build up in a domino effect.

This does not have to be a severe problem if you catch it now and work hard on it.

What I do is to actively TEACH handwriting, directly and specifically. Something a lot of people in schools have forgoten is that there is a difference between teaching and assigning. Just handing out the paper or listing the spelling words and watching the student fail — that is assigning (and setting the kid up for failure) NOT teaching.

By the way, are you absolutely *positive* your daughter is right-handed? If you keep asking leading questions then she will try to use the right hand to please you. But watch her play with paintbrushes or markers colouring and not even trying to write, and make a note of how long the brush or pen is held in each hand. Also watch her at other fine play, like Legos or whatever. Be honest with yourself and time with a watch and make written notes. If she uses the right hand more, fine, teach writing right-handed. If she is just about fifty-fifty ambidextrous (as I was) you might as well teach right-handed becasue it is easier to go along with the majority. If, however, she uses the left hand definitely more than the right, it would be far far better to teach her to write left-handed. Changing over is almost always a failure and stresses the child and leads to other problems.

First, get a good printing workbook with the directions clearly shown and with nice large letters. Also get a whiteboard and some wipe-off markers. An easel or mounted on the wall is ideal, to prevent the lying-on-the-table habit which is so common.

Start on the whiteboard and make straight lines left to right, left to right. Light and smooth, NOT eyeball on the point picky picky. Have her do this for several minutes. Then with big lines a couple of inches apart (make your lines with regular marker so they won’t erase) and have her make make straight lines top to bottom and top to bottom. Five minutes at a time, but do it every morning and every evening for a few days until she is making lines in the correct direction LIGHTLY and smoothly.

Then have her make *counterclockwise* circles. Start at the one o’clock or two o’clock position (this is *important* to make letters form correctly later) and work consistently down the left and up the right.

Then start working on letter forms, *one at a time*. Today we do our circles and our lines and *lower case* (small) a a a a a which is just a circle and a line (teach her NOT to lift the pen or the marker; the idea is smooth and flowing, not pick pick pick and guess at directions). Next day we review a couple of a’s and start on b’s, which are just a tall down line and halfway back up and a forwards circle (all letters that *start* with circles go counterclockwise, so stress that first) Next day a couple of a’s and b’s and do c’a, whch are just an incomplete circle. And so on.

Use your workbook as a direction guide. Take special note of the trouble letters, d — **circle first** (this removes the b-d confusion problem) — s from *top down*— k in two pieces both from the *top* (not a v with a crutch) — y from *left to right* and not a messy x (I prefer the cursive y, easier and prettier).

Once she is forming letters well and consistently on the whiteboard, get a PEN (never, never yellow pencils which require too much pressure and teach a bad grip and posture) and have her form the letters in the book the same way as on the board. By now you can work up to ten minutes every morning and every evening — spaced short practices are far far more effective than trying to do hours at a time once in a while. She should be able to do a page or two in the book in ten minutes.

Stress *lower case* not capitals. You go back and teach capitals the same way — top to bottom please!!! at a later date, but right now she needs to write the normal letters that we normally write with, 95 percent and more lower case.
Stress *good posture* — relaxed but alert. NOT lying on the table, NOT eye glued to the paper, NOT twisted up in sideways knots.
Stress *comfortable pen grip*. NOT fist, NOT repeat NOT hooking hand backwards like a poorly-taught left-hander — pen point goes out in front of the hand and yes you can see it because you are sitting up, not lying down. Pen does not need to be forced in a painful death-grip, a bad habit from using cheap pencils, but lightly with the first two or three fingers.
Stress *light and smooth*. Many kindergarten kids learn a horrible over-perfectionism so they glue their eye to the pen point and take several minutes to form one letter and erase more than they write. Not only is this a horrible waste of time and a totally negative stress on the child, it doesn’t even lead to good writing.

Do not worry if the letters are large and loose — they *should* be large and loose at first. Do not worry if the letters are not absolutely on the lines; the evenness will come with time and practice, not with spending your life erasing.
I strongly suggest using pen only and banning all erasers. It’s a *writing* class, not an erasing class. If you watch weaker students, you will see that thy spend three and more times as much erasing as they do writing. If they just quit erasing, they could instantly accomplish four times as much and suddenly become much better students. Looks like a miracle but it is really just common sense, getting out of the over-perfectionist rigid mindset.

Once she is forming ten or more letters correctly, then you can go to words. Use the letters she has learned to make words. Start on the whiteboard.

Now here is the BEST method to avoid reading and writing trouble later: teach her to spell by sound. You do not, never, say “see-ay-tee”. Rather, you say “cat — k-k-k-k- aaaaaaaa - t-t-t-t”. You teach the SOUND of each letter as you learn to write it; then you sound out the word a little at a time as she writes it. Be very very sure to say the sounds in order and have her write in order, always always always left to right. If she starts guessing and shoving letters into the middle, stop, cross out, and re-start from the beginning period.

Start on the whiteboard again making a game of it (can you figure this one out?) and move down to formal paper and pend=cil work as she gets the hang of it.

If you seriously spend ten minutes every morning and every evening on this, you will see huge improvement in a month, and in six months she will very likely be ahead of her class.