Summer reflections

Summer is here and it's a great time for parents to have some space to think about the school year that just passed and the one that's ahead. Unfortunately it's also the time when all the school work comes home and she find yourself incidentally leaving through reams of it and taken out of context it can sometimes create alarm.

Summer is a good time to try to tackle things at a gentle pace therefore:

* schedule some daily typing practice.
* if necessary try to find games that insist on words being entered as commands.
* obtain a never ending stream of books that interest your child, so they lounge about reading rather than over doing it on the Wii.
* Try to revise areas of maths from last year and look at next years curriculum to prep for what will be coming.
* Have fun and play chase!
*Talk to other parents who have children with written output problems and get some inspiration.

PBS Misunderstood Minds page

Here's a good writing difficulties page from PBS Misunderstood Minds site:
Mel Levine describes what can inhibit writing development and offers some exercises where you can experience assignments from the pov of child with a grapho motor problem etc.

Well worth a read. He's a great authority on different learning styles.

Progress on writing materials: Indispensable Staedtler products

My earlier post about the Dixon pencil has now been well and truly usurped by discovering the wonderful and frankly indispensable range of products that Staedtler offer. If your child has writing struggles they will find these pencils, pens, markers are designed to aide the fatigue factor.

My child initially tested a bunch of different writing materials in a specific writing class at school. The Staedtler triplus fineliner was the pen that he found most assisted him and the teacher encouraged me to seek the pens for him. We bought a packet of them from a local art shop for about 12-14 dollars and subsequently discovered Staedtler offer a bunch of other products that have generally made writing and colouring and drawing less onerous and plenty more joyful.

Can't recommend them enough. The quality of the products is represented in the slightly higher cost, but they are actually are good value overall because they are durable and well made. The most significant impact is the ink seems to come out faster and easier, thus relieving the need for heavy pressing and manipulation of the pens.

The ergosoft range of jumbo pencils have a lovely, rich tone to them. They are triangular in shape, easier to grasp and are packaged in a neat blue plastic box, which turns into a pen stand and means they do not end up rolling away under the couch never to be retrieved again.

They also offer triangular jumbo wooden pencils which have a softer colouring tone, and again nice ergonomic feel to them.

The MARS ERGOSOFT (again a jumbo triangular pencil) graphite pencil will help children with writing tasks. It has a soft, rubbery casing. If your child does not care for the rubber covered one there's a sister pencil which is identical in triangular shape, but has the ordinary casing on it.

I will be uploading links and pictures of these products when I find time. Please post comments if your child finds them useful. Also, if you're having trouble locating these pens and pencils drop me an email and I will try to point you in the right direction of suppliers etc.

To begin with you can read further about these pencils etc on their international website http://www.staedtler.com/home_gb.Staedtler?ActiveID=2131

The Canadian website is here

I hope your child enjoys as much joy as we have with these pens and pencils. The big progress has been that as soon as the child sees an improvement in representing their ideas on the page, some of the frustration can abate and hopefully a sense of achievement takes over.

Enrichment works!

I realize it's early days, but my child emerged from his first enrichment class at school last week declaring he loved it. Now the curious thing is he may not have been identified as a candidate for that class without the psycho-educational assessment that was done on him that identified his strengths and the things that are tripping him up.

To see the benefit of even that single experience has given him is enlightening. As far as I can tell it's about feeling capable more than anything else. It makes me fearful to think that many of the children who need these opportunities may be unlikely to be chosen based on their performance in the classroom, which as I've seen first hand is not always a good indicator of potential.

I suppose one can only place hope in the wisdom and insight of individual teachers who foster a classroom atmosphere where every child has the chance to succeed, which fortunately for us our present teachers this year do. What a difference this makes. The child goes from loathing school to feeling like they can actually participate and enjoy some success. There are still challenges naturally.

Another important change for the new year has been the implementation (finally) of a writing program through the learning assistance centre. Previously the focus appeared to be entirely on remedial reading assistance. Children with written output challenges are not necessarily weak readers, yet they often end up in learning assistance for reading programs. Whilst these programs do not obviously do any damage and may have some benefits they do absolutely nothing to address or aide the fine motor problems. I will be posting about the progress and difference, if any, this writing program makes.

Burst of graphia!

I don't know if it was the multi sensory typing lessons or the arrival of the NEO, but strangely and suddenly my child has declared he loves writing (as in the pencil and paper method). I think perhaps knowing he has accessible alternatives at his elbow has slightly lessened his anxiety or liberated him from perceiving "writing" to be a big barrier.

His ideas still come faster than his hand can output, but the last few days he no longer exhibits the previous resistance and physical discomfort. We have ploughed through so many types of pencils, and he has found mechanical pencils work for him at present because it's easier for him to write 'neater'.

I think learning to type (keyboard) has been a huge boon. It was a very satisfying experience that he succeeded easily at and he emerged each week from the one on one typing class with quite the glow to him. I think the teacher is great. She's young and has a great rapport with him. She is also actively interested in children with learning differences and flexible, which really makes a difference. The idea of learning to type one on one makes more sense for children who feel self conscious often in a group setting or who may be prone to sensory overload when there's a whole group of children learning. When it's one on one it's easier to concentrate. Tonight when my child emerged able now to type all the letters of the alphabet and capitals and punctuation including things I cannot even type like "quotation marks" I realized it's well worth the money we invested.

I would recommend getting your child started with the basics on that BBC typing tutor I have a link to on the right. If they can get the home row keys down, they'll get more progress in the class. If however your child doesn't respond well to that online tutor don't push it. Just find a typing class, preferably one to one if you can, preferably multi sensory. You'll be able to find these courses through your local LD advocacy group or through places/organisations that do psycho educational assessments.

I think the typing has boosted his confidence and I think he's discovered he can tell stories and so now when he sees words appearing on the page he's inspired (and we are very flexible about what appears, I don't try to fix anything at this stage. I want him to feel he can write -- nothing beyond that at this point)

To see this progress is immensely hopeful. I do accept as well, that it may change again and we will continue building the additional skills of typing, we will also embrace the keyboard more and more.

Victory: Songwriting

My child came up with another brilliant literary venture yesterday.
His teacher had sent home a song on a sheet inside a folder and he’d observed that the children in the choir also have sheets inside folders.
He’s always been partial to rock music, usually certain songs by singer/songwriters like Donovan, Pete Seeger, Steve Miller, so he tends to sing single lines from songs over and over.
He said he needed a folder with some paper with lines inside it and announced he was going to write his own songs. I encouraged him, saying there was no need to worry about spelling, just get it down and we’ll fix it later. He asked me to write some frequently occurring words on the inside of the folder and then he wrote five different songs which comprised a line or two each.
It was a great success because there was a sense of achievement involved and the writing process was over fairly quickly for him and he was happy with the results.
It made me realize that our perception on what constitutes writing is limited and we need to broaden our thinking. A child doesn’t need to be writing essays or perfectly spelled sentences about something that means absolutely nothing to them. There are so many forms in which writing can take place and we need to embrace and place value on more of them. Classrooms need to start broadening how they deal with children who have written output issues. Writing doesn’t need to be a loathsome activity for these children.
Again I see a connection with materials in this experience. The child needed visually and kinastetically to have a folder with the pages inside. This was how he visualised the experience. If I sat him at the table with a flat piece of paper and said go write some songs it would not have happened. He had to suggest it, direct and instigate it himself. Factors like how things look and feel are very important to these children because the act of writing is much more demanding of them. It fatigues them. So there needs to be residual things to motivate them to continue.

Variety: Be prepared to vary the materials

A huge part of helping a child with written output issues is providing variety in the equipment and tools you use with them. Because they do not enjoy writing and find it difficult and tiring, you have to capitalize on opportunities when they are attracted to any kind of writing implements. Usually when they are interested in say a particular pencil they will inturn write.
Consider acquiring the following for use at home:
-electric plug in pencil sharpener. I found it very useful for my child to be able to instantly sharpen pencils, it also made him more interested in them!
-gel pens. I'll write more specifically about these in another post, but they sound and look different when you write with them. Children often complain they don't the feel of a particular pen or pencil, it's important to pay attention to what they do like the "feel" of.
-white board with markers that erase.
-pencils that are soft and pencils that look interesting and appealing.
-white out. I found the acquistion of white out produced a bout of writing in my child during which he happily wrote and whited out things he was unhappy with.
Like I say... one really has to grab and appreciate every opportunity that writing does happen.
More suggestions to come on this ....

Teddies, Stuffies, Toutou -- learning assistants

Teddies, or stuffed animals or “toutous” whatever you call them are wonderful motivators.
If say your child has no siblings, you have an instant family for them. Teddies can be very receptive to instruction, which facilitates teaching/school roleplay, where the child gets to teach the teddies or stuffies.
The helpful thing about this is it changes the classroom experience imaginatively. Instead of always feeling stressed, or bored, or on the receiving end of direction in a classroom setting the child gets to direct the situation (albeit with a crowd of teddybears) Plus teachers write on the whiteboard, so set up a whiteboard with wipe-off pens, place a row of teddies and let your child take it from there.
Many children will be captivated by this idea and request to play the game again. Parents and siblings can facilitate the voices of the teddies, including some messing about and conflicts between the teddies, which will give the child a chance to manage the classroom.
Again this another example where the act of writing is incidental to the activity. The child will be less motivated to refuse to write because he/she will see that the situation calls for him/her to write things on the board. If they refuse, always offer to scribe until they suggest taking the pen themselves.