Should a teacher only let a student use his alphasmart for n

Linda, you don’t say what grade the child is in or for what reason the student uses the Alphasmart.. It could be that this student still needs to learn handwriting skills that are essential in our society. Assistive technology is wonderful but it should never take the place of a skill. Since you did make that observation, I think it would have been appropriate for you to approach the teacher for an explanation. In fact, I think you could still do that even if you are finished with your observations. Because the Alphasmart can be connected to a computer to print out information, it is useful for completing assignments such as the one you described. I may be way off track so let me know what you find out.

Elaine

I work with a special needs child (Other health -impaired). Frequently we come up to stumbling blocks, where the teacher won’t make any changes—then I found out the reason was “not in his IEP” If that is the case you need to have a meeting…..Good luck.

I’ve got to disagree with this. We do need to make every effort to teach kids handwriting skills, but, where the point of an assignment is not how it looks but what it says, then insisting that it be completed by hand is not helpful. Handwriting instruction needs to be separate from instruction in written expression. Dysgraphic children have difficulty thinking and writing at the same time. There are all kinds of dysgraphia, but most combine fine motor difficulties and cognitive difficulties. Even a child whose problem is mainly in the fine motor realm will have difficulty expressing his thoughts via handwriting because he will be focused on the mechanics of making letters, remembering how to make letters, figuring out how to fit them on the page, etc. Keyboarding can help some children by allowing their hands to keep up with their thoughts. Handwriting is a good skill to have, and we should not give up on young children who have not mastered it yet. On the other hand, if this is a child who is old enough to be taking notes in class, chances are that his handwriting is about as good as it will ever get. After the age of about 10, there is unlikely to be a great improvement in handwriting, regardless of what efforts are made. At that point, assistive technology is absolutely necessary and insisting on making a child write by hand is not just unproductive but actively harmful.

Andrea

I agree with the previous posting from Andrea ! She is 100% correct.

… but the bottom line is, these decisions shoudl be made w/ the individual’s needs in mind. The obvious question is — is this a teacher who feels like she’s somehow losing ground every time the kid gets to “cheat” and use the AlphaSmart, in which case this stuff should be negotiated via the IEP meeting (though it would be best to try to find *some* way to get this lady to understand dysgraphia or she’ll always be trying to fight this battle). On the other hand, there could be equally valid reasons for note-taking to be the appropriate use of the AlphaSmart. Could be that the goal is for the kid to do more handwriting because the disability is primarily a speed of thinking issue — so no way can the kid keep up in the notes category, but yes way can the kid write vocab. sentences. Again, the question is whether or not this “use it for this only” decision was made with the kid’s needs or the teacher’s needs in mind.

My son is 9 and in the fourth grade. They have just started using the alpha smart with him. Mostly because he seems to have trouble handwriting and creating his story in the same sitting. His handwriting is awful. He uses the keyboard so he can do his writing assignment. My son cannot write his assignment neatly and think what to write.

I have two daughters with ADD and the oldest had a terrible time with writing. But by the time she reached 8th grade something “clicked” and she was suddenly writing legibly for everyone concerned. She couldn’t do Calligraphy in Art class but her writing was very readable. I think it was more of a maturation thing than an actual practice thing. She certainly didn’t “practice” writing to get better at it. She hated it for years and complained how hard it was to keep up with the other kids. I’m hoping to purchase and use an AlphaSmart for my 10 year old daughter as she has the same diagnosis of ADD and is having the same fine motor skills difficulties her sister had. Seeing how maturity eventually solved a lot of the difficulties, I expect similiar things to happen this time around, and why should she be subjected to the ongoing problems the older one had, if I can ease them. Yes, most children can write by the age of 10, but LD and ADD children have their own schedule of abilities’ developing and it behooves us all to remember that and not make a child feel that because s/he is of a certain age they MUST be on par with their peers!

Hi Linda,
I teach fourth grade and am wondering what grade it is you observed this in? I have been thinking about using Alphsmart with one of my LD students because he has a difficult time hand writing, plus I think some of my other students might benefit from using it.