Dysgraphia

Tips to Turning a Struggling Writer into a Happy Writer

A struggling writer doesn’t necessarily mean that they are unable to write, but it can mean that with the right assistance they can become a happy writer. And not all struggling writers think like a dysgraphic mind will have you thinking. But struggling is no fun either way. So here are some strategies for dysgraphia or anyone who just doesn’t enjoy writing.

No matter where you begin, fun should be the main objective. The idea is to turn the assignment into a game by sparking the imagination. Some children will need more than a spark to get the writing juices going, but the important aspect is giving as many aids until it clicks.

Here are a few strategies for dysgraphia to help you in providing the sparks that will turn that struggling writer into a happy writer.

This is a story about a dysgraphia diagnosis.

Josh struggles in school because writing is so hard for him. Even though he tries writing until his hand hurts, he can’t ever seem to form the letters correctly or put his thoughts on paper. He has trouble copying from the board and he can’t take legible notes. He has trouble writing down his homework assignments which frustrates his parents because they can’t help him with his homework. They can’t decipher what he writes. His teachers ask him to rewrite his papers because they can’t read them. His spelling is abysmal and his grammar, punctuation and capitalization are just as poor. Josh even struggles in math class because his numbers get mixed up. One column of numbers somehow ends up in the other column and his fours look like nines and his sixes never seemed to be closed so they are misinterpreted as ones.

I was dismayed to see how many people research the causes of dysgraphia. Dysgraphia is a not a disease or a fungus or an affliction like frostbite. Dysgraphia describes a difficulty some brains have communicating actions that require the body’s fine motor skills, like writing and shoe tying.

What is dysgraphia? If you read most definitions you’d come away with the idea that it is some disease that needs treating, but that is far from true. Dysgraphia is a term that describes a communication path between the brain and the fingers. That’s it.

Dear Dr. Linda,

I’m writing because I have some questions about the symptoms of dysgraphia. Our four-year-old, Ethan, is having a real hard time learning to write. He still can’t remember how to write the letters of the alphabet, how to write the numbers or how to write his name.

What is the average age in which kids learn to write?  Does this mean he has dysgraphia? Ethan’s Parents

Handwriting without tears is something parents of dysgraphia kids often can only dream about. Fortunately, that reality may be coming sooner than you think.

You may have noticed there has been a lot of talk in the news lately about handwriting. The issue was sparked when the media picked up on a new elementary school trend. Cursive is no longer being taught anymore at many schools. Cursive is that artsy handwriting style that we once used to write our term papers in school.

Dyslexia Dysgraphia Dyscalculia

I bet for most of you dyslexia is the only one you’ve heard of.  And if I added dyspraxia to the list, it would sound even odder, right? Well, unfortunately there are hundreds of thousands of people who’ve learned they suffer from these learning disorders.

Learning Disorders is the label they’ve been given because early on, they primarily affected students in typical classroom environments. And someone somewhere decided that if you can’t learn in a typical classroom environment, you must have a disorder.

What they probably didn’t know is that you don’t have a disorder at all,

Dysgraphia symptoms are important to understand. Knowledge of them will greatly enhance your ability to diagnose dysgraphia. But understand that all dysgraphia symptoms can be distilled down to one simple concept. The brain of a dysgraphia sufferer has trouble communicating with the hand when writing, and the hand has trouble giving the necessary feedback.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary lists the dysgraphia definition as the “impairment of the ability to write caused by brain damage”. Pronounced (dĭs-grăf’ē-ə) this noun is described this way in most dictionaries. One dictionary even said it was otherwise known as “writer’s cramp”. To state the dysgraphia definition that way really does belittle its veracity and doesn’t really illustrate an image of the typical person with dysgraphia.

Because of his writing challenges, Alex, a Sixth Grader, was Failing Every Subject

To begin with, nobody near Alex knew anything about diagnosing dysgraphia. They knew Alex was failing social studies because the tests came from the notes the teacher wrote on the board. Copying notes from the board was so difficult that Alex couldn’t read them. If that weren’t bad enough, Alex had no idea what the teacher was saying because trying to write the notes was all consuming.