My youngest son has terrible handwriting. Atrocius. atrotious. Really bad. At 11, he still reverses letters. Last year, I made him write his ABCs every day and if he reversed any, he had to correct them. At the end of the school year, he was doing pretty well with it, rarely reversing anything. However, when we started back this year, he had gone back to his old ways. He reverses tons of letters. I did a bunch of research, joined a yahoo group on dysgraphia and asked the library to get me a book on it (which actually I haven't read yet having been distracted by some really good new fiction). Meanwhile, I asked one of the local homeschool groups a question about it, to see if they could recommend an occupational therapist to work with him on it. One lady wrote to me and said to just make him write a couple of sentences every day and if he reverses anything, make him write the whole thing over, not just what he messed up. This is what we are trying now and it seems to be working pretty well.
It has all got me thinking. I'm a member of another yahoo group called homeschooling creatively, which is about right brained people. According to the people who administer this group, some people are 'right brained' although the majority of people are 'left brained'. According to them, right brainers are creative, often disorganized but very smart and can see in so many dimensions at once that it is difficult for them to settle down and focus on letters and numbers on a flat page. According to them, this ability just comes later for right brainers, so that reading and writing for them lag behind the "norms" of other kids development. My son's reading exploded last year and now he reads really well so I'm hopeful that his writing will do a similar thing this year. As for the dysgraphia group I joined at the beginning of the year - I left that group because they seemed only to be working with the public schools and it seemed to me that they felt that their kids would never be able to write so they were giving up and focusing on assistive devices and special accomodations from the school systems.
I've decided not to give up on my son yet. Any 11 year old kid who regularly uses words like oxymoron, adage and discernment in his regular conversation can surely figure out some tricks to remember which ways the letters face! He does know right from left.
But, if you all hear whining from this area later, that's because he has to write it all again.
It has all got me thinking. I'm a member of another yahoo group called homeschooling creatively, which is about right brained people. According to the people who administer this group, some people are 'right brained' although the majority of people are 'left brained'. According to them, right brainers are creative, often disorganized but very smart and can see in so many dimensions at once that it is difficult for them to settle down and focus on letters and numbers on a flat page. According to them, this ability just comes later for right brainers, so that reading and writing for them lag behind the "norms" of other kids development. My son's reading exploded last year and now he reads really well so I'm hopeful that his writing will do a similar thing this year. As for the dysgraphia group I joined at the beginning of the year - I left that group because they seemed only to be working with the public schools and it seemed to me that they felt that their kids would never be able to write so they were giving up and focusing on assistive devices and special accomodations from the school systems.
I've decided not to give up on my son yet. Any 11 year old kid who regularly uses words like oxymoron, adage and discernment in his regular conversation can surely figure out some tricks to remember which ways the letters face! He does know right from left.
But, if you all hear whining from this area later, that's because he has to write it all again.
I left an award for you on my blog… come by and pick it up if you get a moment.
ReplyDeletePeace
Have you tried using graph paper? The boxes seem to give better boundaries while writing for some kids. It also helps because they have a better starting and stopping point. I know you have probably heard a million different ideas but I have seen this one work, so I am mentioning it. It is important to find a size of graphing squares that works for your son.
ReplyDeleteAlso, one of our presidents (I think Woodrow Wilson) could not write his letters until age 12 and another had his wife teach him to write, so your son is in good company.
Finally, I have a page of Roman writing to show you on Friday. Your son may be a Roman at heart :)