Granddaughters writing

MiniMouse I met quite a few SENCOs in my life as a parent and as a teacher, some were wonderful, some unfortunately tended to think that all the child had to do was to work a little bit harder and they would be OK. My son especially suffered he is very articulate and a bit outspoken (can't think where he gets that from) some teachers thought he was just difficult although he is very dyslexic.His ed psych described him as one of the worst short term memory cases he had ever seen.

Well contrary to what you sayTeacher the school although not willing to pay for the test (which showed my 'A' student granddaughter to be profoundly dyslexic) have agreed with the report given and apart from the exam time which will be applied for, one thing written on the report was she must not be asked to read out aloud in class unless she wanted to, she found it acutely embarrassing to be asked to read Shakespeare's out, she is a slower reader and can stumble she is at the young teen embarrassing age and if nothing else it was worth the money so that she didn't have to go through that again, chipping away at her confidence
The original posters grandaughter is not writing normally for a intelligent 9 year old The classic b and d and the sipwreckev , the poor spacing, completely scream dyslexia Teacheranne you might be very clever but I had a great deal of trouble deciphering that write up and I would have thought and hoped that her class teacher would have picked up on it and I think it's very disappointing that teachers don't have more training in this area and take action when it sticks out like a boil on the end of your nose
My grandaughters primary school did not recognise her problem because she was a high achiever I was with my daughter when we saw the head mistress when she was 10 the head was adamant she was a brilliant pupil and had my G ds books all on the desk to show us her high marks, my daughter said, now let's look at her English work ...it was just like Morethan s grandaughter ....horse would be hoser, belly was Delly book would be bok my daughter said that is not the work of an intelligent 10 year old and the head slunk into her chair and said no but we cant fund a test as she's not failing When she went to High school exactly the same happened she's an 'a' student in most subjects ( apart from Spanish and French) so my daughter funded the test herself and I have hope that she will have more time in an exam ... I m pretty sure she will pass without but why get a b if she can get an a Well we thought it worth a try and we were never asked to send her to their tutor or anything other than the original test outlay
Yes and short term memory plus often dyspraxia my grandaughter has poor special awareness and has only recently started being able to throw and catch a ball with a tiny bit of accuracy ?And doors and chairs walk into her

I was a primary teacher for 35 years in some of the most deprived areas of London and ended my career in an Infant school where 60% of the children had a special need of one kind or another. The children left for Junior school when they were seven and I would, even at that age, have been concerned by the examples the OP has posted and would certainly have arranged some extra help before then.
I don't believe in the current over pushing of young children but this is a child who is clearly struggling. Psychologist assessments aren't always helpful in providing remedial help. You can't beat a really knowledgable practitioner who can identify where the problem lies and what needs to be done to ease it, if not solve it.
I know I sound harsh but I was/am passionate about every child fulfilling their potential.

morethan2 Has she been tested for dyspraxia? I had appalling writing, no matter how hard I tried. In the Sixth form, teachers were trying ideas like printing and writing in pencil, anything to improve it, without effect.

When DS came along he had exactly the same problem, but even worse. I searched around, in pre-internet days, I found information about dyspraxia.

It was a problem not recognised officially 30 years ago, but I found a therapist and after a course of specialised physiotherapy, both of us saw immense improvement in our writing and general muscle co-ordination.The problem is now recognised by the mainstream medical world and therapy is available on the NHS.

Visit this site [http://dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/]. Their list of problems children with dyspraxia can have sounds quite frightening. For DS and I our problems were limited to dreadful writing, poor balance and trouble riding a bike. Apart from that we were absolutely normal, well socialised people and DS was otherwise doing well at school.

This may be useful (I have been hunting for this article)}
20 yrs ago (when I was 50) I was diagnosed as Dyslexic when starting an OU course.
I was an early and competent reader long before Dyslexia was known of. I was constantly nagged at school about my written work.

I have now found this very accurate description of my hand writing problems due to dysgraphia .

Symptoms of Dysgraphia
.
"Dyslexia creates problems in reading where dysgraphia, also known as written expression disorder, creates problems in writing. Although poor or illegible handwriting is one of the hallmark signs of dysgraphia, there is more to this learning disability than simply having bad handwriting.

The National Center for Learning Disabilities indicates that writing difficulties can arise from visual-spatial difficulties and language processing difficulties, in other words how a child processes information through the eyes and ears."

Some of the main symptoms of dysgraphia include:

Difficulty holding or gripping a pen and pencil
Inconsistent spacing between letters, words, and sentences
Using a mix of upper case and lower case letters and a mix of cursive and print writing
Sloppy, illegible writing
Tires easily when completing writing assignments
Omitting letters or not finishing words when writing
Inconsistent or non-existent use of grammar

Besides problems when writing, students with dysgraphia may have trouble organizing their thoughts or keeping track of the information they have already written down. They may work so hard on writing each letter that they miss the meaning of the words.

I do all of the above.

(I still have dreadful problems hand writing. The wrong words just come off my pen, capitals appear in odd places and grammar and punctuation is difficult. I find even writing a note to the milkman difficult and usually need two goes.

This is the first very clear description of Dysgraphia I have come across. ( It is quite reassuring really.)

This is a useful link to the resources.

www.dystalk.com/resources/links/151-national-centre-for-learning-difficulties

devongirl mentions clumsiness.
Indeed there were signs that we knew nothing about. The fact that my ds chose sports such as cross country running that did not involve teamwork was a flag. Because certainly in the case of my ds the dyslexia thought process caused a hesitation that wouldn't be acceptable in team sports .

He also was an A student except for English and so the school did not feel there was a problem. His assessment for dyslexia actually stated that this was a red flag. The disparity between the poor English (struggling to get a C) and the 'superior' maths/physics/chemistry (marks always 95% ~ 100%) should have been an alert to the school.

The assessment also noted the typical..... reading factual books of interest rather than fiction.
Could also tell that his general knowledge came from television rather than newspapers. (I've no idea how they can tell this but it was all very correct)
The report even mentioned about his wearing his watch on the right wrist (apparently common in dyslexia)

How strange my grandaughter wears her watch on her right wrist
She also gets all her information from the internet and tv
I once asked what reading fiction was like and she said she couldn't remember the story because remembering the words got in the way it seems it was awful hard work She used to get all her stories from story tapes
She also can't do ball sports but enjoys the gym and running ( although a bit lazy)

It's amazing how dyslexia can intrude on so many areas other than reading

Looks like there are some dyslexic characteristics there. The way forward for her Is to practice keyboard skills - BBC dancemat, doorway online, do free good ones which we use in school, or just google free typing programmmes. Once she has a decent typing speed she can type her work which is far easier for her, and use the spell checker. Schools should be able to accommodate this easily.
I would also suggest trying pencil grips, and a sloping board may make handwriting easier for her. Hope this helps.

I'm a supply teacher and have been in lots of schools in West Midlands. Nearly all of the schools have a handwriting lesson. You can buy cursive handwriting books in shops to help her during the holidays. Get her to write poems etc something fun

I have terrible hand writing and, shared the very same handwriting with my aunt, letters from either of us were passed to the other for 'translation'. My aunt was brilliant business woman and artist.......I am not.

My dad always said how much like his sister I am, the writing seemed to be almost a manifestation of our inner being, and some strange sort of quirkiness of personality.

I often think of her, aged well over 80, dancing Flamenco with gypsies in the Spanish markets close to where she lived, I hope I have her happy old age. I am alas, alone now in a world without anyone who can read my writing, that includes me sometimes.

Dyslexia does need to be ruled out I think, but even the worst writers have bright futures ahead.

When my DS was at school, we got summoned to the office because they wanted to get an educational psychologist to see him because of his handwriting. I told them I never had particularly good handwriting, but started my own business at 18 and never looked back. DS, actually didn't go to university, because he wanted to do voluntary work, but still got a BA hons and Dip Lang.from Open University, without much trouble. He actually speaks many languages, including Greek,Russian, Chinese, French, German, Spanish,Romanian and others.
Maybe it's not the problem you think it is. Brain thinks faster than the hand can write.

My son had terrible hand writing. His brain seemed to work faster than he could write. He is 38 now...still has awful writing. Put a keyboard in front of him and he was away though... IQ 152 and he is a dispensing optician.

Oh it is not how something is written...it is what is written that is more important at that age.

One thing that you could try during the school holidays is to get a big selection of pens/pencils ..fat, thin, short, long, including trying the push-on rubber grip attachments for pens. Make a game of getting your granddaughter to try writing the same sentence with them all. The game could be that you have to guess which one she wrote the sentence with.
You may find that one particular style of pen or pencil makes a big difference to the end result.
Hopefully she will have a helpful teacher in the new class year in September that can help.
But don't forget...some people just have messy writing.

My DGS has just been diagnosed with Aspergers, and they also suspect dyspraxia, so tests are ongoing. He is 8, and his writing is poor, but much more legible than morethan's DGD. As a former primary and middle-school teacher, I've seen many such examples, and would only say that I would want the child to be assessed for dyspraxia or dyslexia.

It could be dyslexia as some people have said, but it is worthwhile mentioning something else called dysgraphia which my granddaughter, now 20, also suffered from, she too was above average in reading and numeracy and was forever being picked on for her poor handwriting throughout primary school, she struggled with writing assignments and exams right through senior school as well and it was only at college that her dysgraphia was picked up and diagnosed. By that time she was fed up unfortunately and left college to start working. Here is a link to dysgraphia www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/dysgraphia/difference-between-dysgraphia-dyspraxia

I apologise if I offended or upset anyone with my post, that was honestly not my intention. I was trying to say that having a diagnosis of dyslexia or any spld does not necessarily help or support a child and that a school should put in interventions without a diagnosis if it is evident that a child is struggling in some way. I worked in a secondary school which was recognised by the LA and Ofsted as outstanding in SEN support and I was a dedicated advocate for such children, often going against other teachers and school managers to get the support they needed. I made sure that teachers were aware of strategies to support children in the classroom with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ASD and many other needs as many of these strategies also helped all the children in their classes. I need to rephrase my initial comments to reflect better what I meant. I was not being flippant or dismissive when I said I could read her writing as I agreed that there were some issues and should have suggested that the school do some assessments of her non verbal reasoning to confirm her overall ability - there are several assessments which the school SENCO could do as a general indicator even if they are not qualified to assess for dyslexia, that can only be diagnosed by an educational psychologist. Some of the private assessments centres do not employ such qualified people and so their reports say a child has dyslexic indicators rather than diagnose. There are some good (better) suggestions from other people about how to help this child with the handwriting concerns mentioned in the initial post. I am aware that the child is only 9 years old but it is only a couple of years before she moves to secondary school so I thought my comments about how exam access arrangements worked at GCSE might be helpful as her parents will need to make sure any such arrangements are undertaken from Year 7 to provide a history of need. I used to work in the West Midlands where several parents paid for private assessment from a dyslexia tuition centre and I read the reports. It was evident that the assessor cut and pasted comments from a standard proforma and often got the child name or gender wrong in the recommendations. Hence my cycnism about the validity of some of these reports. Once again, please accept my apologies for any offence that I gave some posters, that was genuinely not my intention and I am upset that I gave that impression. Anyone who knew me as a SENCO will know that I am not uncaring, dismissive or ignorant of spld concerns.

My DD is going through this with DGS1 who is 7, suspect Dyspraxia as he lacks co-ordination, can't ride a bike, has confidence issues & poor hand writing in addition. Looking back I can see signs now that both myself & my DD had some level of Dyspraxia, not as severe as DGS1 though & of course not picked up in those days. DD is hoping to learn how to cope & encourage. DGS1 has good reading & maths skills & swims well (took a while to get the hang of it but when "the penny dropped"). DGS1 is loved by every-one, he is a very kind child & well mannered. School are aware of problems but are also happy with his progress

Teacheranne - you gave some excellent advice and support to me regarding my DGS.

I can see why you worry BUT there probably is no need. The writing is legible - what more do you want?

Please ask the school very firmly to get her tested for dyslexia. This could give more time for tests and may relive the stress a little.

No one spells badly from choice and children work hard to get things right. Only praise - for every a real achievement - even if small. This aids confidence and means she is more likely to share worries.

I mark A level exams and I know that there are only 2 things needed for me to read a student's writing:

spaces between words
word shape = tall letters tall and long letters long.

If you tell your GD this then she has only two things to remember and practise which removes more stress. The pencil control comes with maturity so just live to see it through.

Phonetic spelling is normally acceptable and even in English papers, there are only a few marks for it and usually the extra stress of struggling with spelling loses more marks than are available for correct spelling and which she will almost certainly lose anyway no matter how hard she tries. Tell her this to limit the number of things she has to worry about and focus what she needs to do into constructive concern.

Good luck, have confidence, if she is still trying after all the criticism she has already had, she will be fine. You may have to wait till the sixth for to be sure though!

Some children hold their pen too tight so a lot of energy goes into the first bit of writing! See if you can feel the shoulder while writing. If it's very tight she needs to relax her grip.. Also, how she is sitting and slanting her book. I found using a maths book with small squares helped my pupils. Forming the letters correctly too. Not much time is spent in handwriting these days. Good Luck. Whiteboards are great too for quick notes, so she won't feel to overwhemed.

GHolding the pen too tight is also a sign of dyspraxia, so please have testing for that, as well as dyslexia.

Please don't try to help via Gransnet. Let parents talk to school and above all don't give DGD a complex about her writing. I taught for 25+ years and saw all sorts of writing. All will be fine. Relax

My d was handwriting was dreadful when she was at primary school I really worried about it and she wasn't very interested in reading either.
Then she went to her secondary school and both improved very quickly.
Give her time is all I can say.