Hi all,
My son is six years old and is starting kindergarten in the fall. He was adopted from Russia at around two and half. He has a very rare type of dwarfism (6 patients in all of the U.S.) of the other 5 all of them have varying degrees of LD. He’s starting kindergarten a year behind because before he was diagnosed with this
particular type we thought his problems were related to switching languages at 2 and half. We had him repeat pre-school because the first time around he was getting his language up to speed. He made huge improvements in his language skills from his first year to his second.
What didn’t change was his inability to write letters, numbers or copy symbols. He colors within the lines but he can’t draw houses or stick figures. He can draw vertical lines and horizontal lines but he can not draw a box. Slowly he’s making progress with his letters but that’s after I’ve worked with him for two years. If I don’t have him practice things (cutting, letters he knows by heart) he slowly loses them.
He’s been evaluated by an educational psychologist and she’s recommending a battery of tests. That however was through his geneticist at the local children’s hospital. Our local IU unit won’t help until later in school once the school district refers him.
I’m getting so frustrated because even though we know he needs speech and occupational therapy he won’t get it until the school district refers him and I’ve already been told point blank that they are way behind and won’t do any testing till closer to Christmas!!!
Now after that incredibly long rant, my question is;
what can I do at home? Are there computer programs that I can get that can help him? Can I do some of the things they would do in therapy?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Jen
Resources for my son
This thread may provided some additional resources:
http://community.greatschools.net/q-and-a/448348/how-do-you-teach-a-three-year-old-how-to-wright-his-abc-and-123?cpage=1#comment_499867
These links might have some resources that would be of assistance:
http://www.childsupport.in/html/ourservices_handwritingskills.html#activities
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/c37/
http://www.pbs.org/parents/readinglanguage/writing/main.html
You may also want to look into a program called “Handwriting without tears”: http://www.hwtears.com/
Best wishes.