How do you find a TUTOR FOR A SPECIFIC PROBLEM?????

[drosophila]

DS has had a problem with writing since reception. He had the same teacher for 2 years who thought very highly of his intellect and always downplayed his writing. He has gone into yr 3 now and has a different teacher.

She is clearly shocked at how he forms letters and when I spoke to her she mentioned getting him assessed. Now I know I will have to wait an age to get assessed and get the appropriate help so thought in the meantime I would get a private tutor. Is there such a thing as a tutor to help a kid with something like this and where can I find one in London?

Thanks.

Anyone????

Bump

Get him assessed for what? If he can't form his letters correctly there are plenty of books that help with that sort of thing. What does the teacher think the problem is? The school can do basic assessments via the Special Needs Educational Support Service.

No direct experience, but what do you think the problem is? What is the teacher suggesting he should be assessed for? Would he need occupational therapy or something like that(which I suspect would be outside a tutor's remit) or do you think the school has just let matters drift for a few years and not given your son the feedback he needs in order to realise he's been forming his letters the wrong way? (In the latter case, a tutor might help, but so might sitting down with him yourself. Having a go at the school to do its job properly might also work).

Sorry SENSS not SNESS (it's been a long day!) x

It's strange. He forms letters from the bottom, all shapes and sizes,no spaces between words, capitals and lower case all mixed up and pretty illegible. He is very slow and says it causes pain. We have tried different pens and his teacher would encourage me ot get him to play with playdough - he wasn't interested.

There are a couple of things it could be dyspraxia or dysgraphia. I have sat with him many times and I fear that it has done more harm than good i.e. he hates writing even more. He is otherwise very bright particularly in Maths and according to his teacher has a reading age of 11 (he is 7). I think she underestimated the problem and would say that he would not have to write in the workplace anyway. I have spoken to his current teacher and I could tell she was mystified by his letter formation. Starting from the bottom is only one of the things he does.

Initially I would make an appointment to see the school's SEN leader to find out what he/she suggests. I'm sorry this wasn't picked up on earlier for you.

I think they thought he would grow out of it.

If the school's a bit slow with its processes, would it be worth looking into support websites for dysgraphia and dyspraxia and finding out whether there is anyone who would help privately in the same way as a tutor would?

Might it also be worth posting in SN? There must be someone on MN who knows about this problem.

hi drosophila, you have my full sympathy as your son sounds a little like mine.
DS is 6 and in year 2. He has never been able to hold a pen properly, he was the last one to be able to cut with scissors etc. He was identified in year 1 as having weak gross motor skills and attends a special group at school to work on those. He too has a reading ability of way above his age. He doesn't form his letters from the bottom but he does mix lower and upper case, miss out the gaps between words, writing is different sizes etc.
His new teacher in year 2 is trying her hardest to just make writing fun for him as she has identified that he is rather fearful of it but i am concerned that if we don't try and help him now to hold the pen properly then writing will always be something that he finds difficult and therefore won't enjoy.

It's tricky to know what to do for the best isn't it?

I personally would practice at home, reminding him of finger spaces etc. Also you could do fun things to help strenthen the muscles in his finger :-

Get DS to screw small pieces of paper up and then get him to flick them across the table, he could pretend he is playing flick football!

Get Ds to use pegs, get him to use finger and thumb to open and close the peg.

Get DS to pretend to play an imaginary piano.(this is really good and encourages each finger to move)

I'm sure there is a couple of more exercises he could do, just cant think of them at the moment!

If DS is not keen on the play do, make up some salt dough and tell him you are going to start making Christmas decorations, or make bread(dough) and get him to experiment with it.

Good luck, dont despair, with practice hopefully things can improve!

Does your DS do cursive handwriting?

Pegs as in clothes pegs!

Thanks everyone. I do live in SW London. He is the type of child who like to read or watch TV or talk incessently to us about all manner of things. He never seems to want to use his hands which is why playful activity holds his interest for a nano sec.

He prefers to use cursive writing so when they started at school I bought an exercise bool form the GLTC and vowed we would do 10 mins or so night. It wasn't long before he started to moan and groan and moan some more. I will start this again I think but it will take a while for cursive writing to become automatic.

Have you heard of braingym? I don't know much about it other than it involves brain co-ordination "kinesiology". I have heard good things from friends with dyspraxic / dyslexic children, also aspergers.

It sounds as though your dc has a very specific problem though, to do with palm control (not fine motor not gross motor, in between). My dd had this as a toddler but is growing out of it now.

The school SENCo should deal with it. It always seems to be like that at school - you wait years with a problem, patiently, then suddenly they hit you with the news that something's wrong.

Yes someone else has mentioned it before. Thanks I will look at it. He is 100 times better at cursive writing but of course that is a whole new discipline to learn (have started again for about 10 mis a day). I remmeber when I was kid I had prett poor writing (not as bad as ds) and it wasn't until I did calligraphy in Art in my teens that my writing transformed. Using a fountain pen is great to imorove writing but I do think confidence has a lot to do with it.

The thing that got me cross was that the new teacher seemed to suggest he was being lazy and didn't do it because he simply didn't want to.

Just out of interest - does he prefer to draw circles or lines?

Hmmmmm I would guess circles given his penchant for cursive but will ask tomorrow.

What are you thinking?