Friday, May 18, 2012

Victory!

My youngest son has dysgraphia.    

I noticed when he was a preschooler that he wanted nothing to do with drawing, coloring or the pretend writing that little kids do.  He never drew anything at all until he was 4 and we got a new van and he drew a picture of it.  The other 2 kids I had would draw and write all the time at those ages, so I sensed something was different.  In kindergarten, his teacher said that he might be dyslexic.  I had read that with certain kids it is normal to read at about 10 and write quite a bit later so we took it kind of easy with him and sure enough, he did read at 10.  He went from Dr. Suess to reading JK Rowling that year.  He has a very impressive vocabulary (which is reportedly important for life success).

As for the dysgraphia, success has come more slowly.   To address this, we have done a variety of things.  We had him assessed by an occupational therapist who did therapy with him for a few months.  She discovered that because his right arm had been broken by falling out of the bunk bed when he was 4, it was quite a bit weaker than the left so she gave him strengthening exercises for this and worked with him for a while, then she released him and said that he just needed practice.  But he still couldn't write.  He was reversing letters and his writing was illegible.  I have had him doing copywork for the past 2 years and if he reverses a letter, he has to do the whole thing over.  This seems to be working, although I really don't know if it's just maturity or if copywork has made any difference.  I was very excited when he wrote me a note this week and then when he was playing with his friend the other day after 4H, he voluntarily wrote some game notes down. This is huge people!  Huge!

About 3 years ago (someone else wrote the numbers, either me or his sister.)


It says "do not wake me up.  I did not sleep well."  Please!.  PS if it is 3:00 p.m., wake me up." Every word is spelled correctly.  They are mostly legible.  Only one S is reversed. 

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