What can I do to help dd (year 1) - parents evening woes

[faintpinkline]

In short her teacher says she's mentally and intellectually in the top couple in the class. Her reading is best in class. Her ideas, comprehension and leaps of logic are brilliant. Her ability to understand maths concepts is easily in top third of class.

However she's sitting on bottom table of 3 because she really really struggles to transfer her ideas and understanding into writing. she reverses lots of numbers and letters and writes very slowly. She won't write in sentences not because she can't but because she says it hurts to write at all. Its obvious she knows the answers but she is saying she finds writing very tiring and it hurts her hand so she does not like to do it. If she's asked the answer she can say it out loud and if she's given plenty of time she can write the sentence in full, mainly well spelt and without any help.

I don't know what to do. She's been saying for a while she's bored at school because the work is too easy and the people on her table are stupid :(. Her teacher sort of confirmed this saying that DD really needed to be sitting with her intellectual / academic peers but they couldn't justify it because of the amount of writing support she needs.

:( help. Please?

Sorry they do move her for group reading but nothing else

Ask for an OT assessment to see if there are physical difficulties, or if you can pay for one - it will be quicker.

Meantime, get her drawing over patterns (spirals, circles, etc) you can find on the internet for a couple of minutes a day. Make it fun with special coloured pens, crayons, etc.

I didnt want to read and leave but I have to say I'm not sure what you can do. At this age so much of time is spent on handwriting practise, writing numbers, setting out maths questions. Its an important skill. Have you spoken to the senco? Her saying it hurts to write rings alarm bells slightly - I think she should be being given support such as pencil grips and writing boards, but obviously cant say specifically without meeting her!

Her teacher has recognised her ability and is doing what she can. Teaching your child to write is her job so plese dont worry. I completely understand your concern but I dont think bombarding her with handwriting practice at home will help; let home be her place to relax.

Has she actually been taught to write letters and numbers correctly or has she picked it up resulting in reversals?

I'm not sure about the statement that she needs to be sitting with her intellectual/academic peers has the teacher never heard of differentiated work in a mixed ability group?

She has been taught properly but she just can not seem to get it. I worry as I'm dyspraxic and this was one of the first signs :(

Well if there is a family predisposition then you can bang the drum to get her assessed by the SENCO. She is bright but not being given the support she needs to reach her full potential.

The staff need to be having a bit more back up to enable them to spend time with her to find ways around the dyspraxia (or whatever it is)

When my daughter ws diagnosed with dyslexic traits we were all relieved strange as it might seem because we had a reason for her awful writing & spelling despite her being bright. She thought she was stupid and still has self esteem issues because it was missed in early primary school.

Keep pushing for an assessment,& help.

mrsz is right about differentiation, if they are saying she is struggling with xy & z then my question to that teacher would be Ok what are you doing to address this and how can I help at home?

Good luck

Faintpinkline. I too am dyspraxic, and I noticed the same signs as your DD in my DD when she was 5 or 6 (but had a few suspicions earlier) can your DD throw and catch? what's her coloring in like? is she a bit clumsy and messy?
My DD was all of the above, school were a nightmare and like your DD she was put in the bottom set.
My DD is very clever, we took her out of her primary and she goes to a private school, where a great deal is done on laptops.
She is now in top sets for pretty much everything, doing really well. Does all homework on pc, and is much happier.
I wish you lots of luck.

If there is a family history of dyspraxia I would suggest getting an OT referral personally I wouldn't recommend a laptop or computer as she is only six and with the right support there is nothing to stop her overcoming her current problems.

Fine Motor Skills
Things to remember:
Upright working surfaces promote fine motor skills. Examples of these are: vertical
chalkboards; easels for painting; flannel boards; lite bright; magnet boards (or
fridge); windows and mirrors; white boards, etc. Children can also make sticker
pictures; do rubber ink-stamping; use reuseable stickers to make pictures; complete
puzzles with thick knobs; use magna-doodle and etch-a-sketch as well. The benefits
for these include: having the child's wrist positioned to develop good thumb
movements; they help develop good fine motor muscles; the child is using the arm
and shoulder muscles.
Fine Motor Activities
Moulding and rolling play dough into balls - using the palms of the
hands facing each other and with fingers curled slightly towards the palm.
Rolling play dough into tiny balls (peas) using only the finger tips.
Using pegs or toothpicks to make designs in play dough.
Cutting play dough with a plastic knife or with a pizza wheel by holding
the implement in a diagonal volar grasp.
Tearing newspaper into strips and then crumpling them into balls. Use
to stuff scarecrow or other art creation.
Scrunching up 1 sheet of newspaper in one hand. This is a super
strength builder.
Using a plant sprayer to spray plants, (indoors, outdoors) to spray snow
(mix food colouring with water so that the snow can be painted), or melt
"monsters". (Draw monster pictures with markers and the colours will run
when sprayed.)
Primary
Picking up objects using large tweezers such as those found in the
"Bedbugs" game. This can be adapted by picking up Cheerios, small cubes,
small marshmallows, pennies, etc., in counting games.
Shaking dice by cupping the hands together, forming an empty air space
between the palms.
Using small-sized screwdrivers like those found in an erector set.
Lacing and sewing activities such as stringing beads, Cheerios,
macaroni, etc.
Using eye droppers to "pick up" coloured water for colour mixing or
to make artistic designs on paper.
Rolling small balls out of tissue paper, then gluing the balls onto
construction paper to form pictures or designs.
Turning over cards, coins, checkers, or buttons, without bringing them to
the edge of the table.
Making pictures using stickers or self-sticking paper reinforcements.
Playing games with the "puppet fingers" -the thumb, index, and middle
fingers. At circle time have each child's puppet fingers tell about what
happened over the weekend, or use them in songs and finger plays.
Place a variety of forms (eg. blocks, felt, paper, string, yarn, cereal,
cotton) on outlines
Match shapes, colour, or pictures to a page and paste them within the
outlines
Primary
Self-Care Skills
Buttoning
Lacing
Tying
Fastening Snaps
Zipping
Carrying
Using a screwdriver
Locking and unlocking a door
Winding a clock
Opening and closing jars
Rolling out dough or other simple cooking activities
Washing plastic dishes
Primary
Sweeping the floor
Dressing
Scissor Activities
When scissors are held correctly, and when they fit a child's hand well, cutting
activities will exercise the very same muscles which are needed to manipulate a pencil
in a mature tripod grasp. The correct scissor position is with the thumb and middle
finger in the handles of the scissors, the index finger on the outside of the handle to
stabilize, with fingers four and five curled into the palm.
Cutting junk mail, particularly the kind of paper used in magazine
subscription cards.
Making fringe on the edge of a piece of construction paper.
Cutting play dough or clay with scissors.
Cutting straws or shredded paper.
Cutting
Use a thick black line to guide cutting the following:
A fringe from a piece of paper
Cut off corners of a piece of paper
Cut along curved lines
Cut lines with a variety of angles
Primary
Cut figures with curves and angles
Sensory Activities
The following activities ought to be done frequently to increase postural muscle
strength and endurance. These activities also strengthen the child's awareness of
his/her hands.
Wheelbarrow walking, crab walking
Clapping games (loud/quiet, on knees together, etc.)
Catching (clapping) bubbles between hands
Pulling off pieces of thera-putty with individual fingers and thumb
Drawing in a tactile medium such as wet sand, salt, rice, or "goop".
Make "goop" by adding water to cornstarch until you have a mixture similar
in consistency to toothpaste. The "drag" of this mixture provides feedback to
the muscle and joint receptors, thus facilitating visual motor control.
Picking out small objects like pegs, beads, coins, etc., from a tray of salt,
sand, rice, or putty. Try it with eyes closed too. This helps develop sensory
awareness in the hands.
Midline Crossing
Establishment of hand dominance is still developing at this point. The following
activities will facilitate midline crossing:
Encourage reaching across the body for materials with each hand. It
may be necessary to engage the other hand in an activity to prevent
switching hands at midline.
Primary
Refrain specifically from discouraging a child from using the left hand
for any activity. Allow for the natural development of hand dominance by
presenting activities at midline, and allowing the child to choose freely.
Start making the child aware of the left and right sides of his body
through spontaneous comments like, "kick the ball with your right leg." Play
imitation posture games like "Simon Says" with across the body movements.
When painting at easel, encourage the child to paint a continuous line
across the entire paper- also from diagonal to diagonal.

I use a Busy Finger Box in the classroom but you could easily find most things at home

1. Pegs ?

You need pegs of different sizes, clothes pegs, small bulldog clips, stationery clips etc. Get the children to use one hand only at a time. I usually get them to peg about 10 pegs of different sizes onto the sides of a gift bag. They might put them on with their left hand and take them off with their right. They can also try squeezing the pegs between the first finger and thumb (on each hand) then the middle finger and thumb and so on.

1. Elastic bands ?

Elastic gymnastics! ? Start by putting 2 elastic bands (the same size) around the thumb, first and middle fingers, ask the child to open and close the fingers. Then add another 2 elastic bands and so on. The more you have on, the harder it is to move your fingers. These exercises help to develop the muscles which make the web space when writing.

1. Beads ?

Get beads of different sizes and thread. Ask the children to thread some beads onto their string. The smaller the hole obviously the harder it is to thread. Develops hand/eye coordination.

1. Ball bearings and tweezers ?

Put the ball bearings in one little box and ask the child to try and pick one ball bearing up at a time with the tweezers and place in a second small box. If this is too tricky try using Hama beads and tweezers.

1. Floam / Playdough ?

These products are great for squeezing and rolling which provides necessary sensory feedback and helps to develop hand strength. Ask the children to squeeze the dough and roll it with the palm of their hand.

1. Doodle board ?

The Doodleboard is just a way of children practising handwriting patterns or letters without having to commit them to paper. Provide some patterns and shapes to copy.

1. Gummed Shapes ?

Give the children a sheet of plain paper and ask them to make patterns or pictures with the gummed shapes. Just picking up on shape at a time, licking it and then sticking it down all help to develop hand/eye coordination and the pincer grip.

1. Hama Beads ?

Hama beads are good for pincer grip and hand/eye coordination. The children have patterned sheets to copy and peg boards to put them on.

1. Lacing cards ?

Also good for hand/eye coordination. Just give each child one card to lace.

10. Bean bags ?
    Give a child 4-5 bean bags and place a container about 3 feet infront of them. Ask the child to try and get as many beanbags in the container as possible. (Hand/eye coordination)

11. Chalk and blackboard ?
    If you can, try and wedge the blackboard between two tables and provide the child with a piece of chalk in each hand. Ask them to draw the same pattern with both hands at the same time on both sides of the board. This helps develop bilateral movement.
    Allow the children to draw patterns, shapes and letter shapes on the blackboard. The chalk gives sensory feedback and sound simultaneously.

12. Stencils ?
    Children can use the stencils to make a picture. Helps develop pencil control and special awareness among other things.

13. Feathers ?
    Ask the children to try and balance a feather on different parts of their body. This helps to develop balance and coordination.

14. Handhugger pens ?
    Hand hugger pens are the triangular shaped pens. These help the children to establish a better pencil grip.

15. Tissue paper strips ?
    Place the child?s palm (at the wrist) on the end of a strip of tissue paper. Ask them to only use their middle finger to get the paper to scrunch up under their hand.
    Repeat, but this time place the side of the child?s hand on one end of the tissue strip and ask them to only use their thumb to scrunch up the paper and bring it under their hand.
    These activities really help to develop the hand arch, web space and muscle tone of the hand.

16. Stickers ?
    Children love stickers. Just peeling them off provides an opportunity to develop fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination.

17. Peg boards ?
    These can be peg boards where the child has to place pegs in the holes, maybe copying patterns.
    They can be the boards with plastic pegs already on where they have to stretch elastic bands between them to make patterns.

^^what she said. you can ask for an ot referral, but they will advise you the same.

get on the list for ot anyway, whilst you are working on the above (some areas have looooong waitlists) as it may be that she has hypermobility or similar and an 'eye' might be able to come up with solutions - sloped writing board etc. but all of those activities will help.

and reversals of letters in yr 1 are really not the end of the world.

dd does sound as though she's given up putting effort in, so you'll have to make it fun. and every time she says 'it's boring' you can say 'i know darling, wouldn't it be better if you were on table x? let's get the pencils/ play doh/ scissors out and practice so that you can keep up with them!'

I am tempted to do a John McEnroe...'You cannot be serious!'

So the school knows that your daughter is academically bright but has specific difficulties with the process of writing. And they group her according to her difficulty not her ability??

In the long term, obviously the cause of the problem needs to be investigated and anything which can help should be implemented.

However in the short term, the school needs to start thinking rather than being so defeatist. In EVERY lesson, the teacher needs to be thinking 'what is the objective?' and 'how can children show they have met the objective'. There are very few lessons in which the ONLY way a child can show that they have met the objective is through handwriting on a standard piece of paper sitting at a standard desk.....handwriting lessons themselves and perhaps an occasional piece of writing in which ALL aspects of writing are being brought together. However, in ALL the others, there is another way of showing understanding if the teacher only did some thinking.

In all lessons - would it help if she wrote much larger? (DS in Reception used to do the Year 2 spellings...but photocopied up to flip chart paper size because he couldn't do 'read / write / cover / check' at the normal size even though he could spell the word) Or on a vretrical chalkboard rather than a horizontal piece of paper?

Could she speak her ideas and have them recorded? There is software available for a child to speak a story over a series of pictures, for example, or to speak the sentences describing a particular sciene investigation. The objective of 'create a well-structured story' or 'report on our visit to a castle using time connectives' can perfectly well be met without any writing at all. Or she could dictate to a scribe. Or make her own video, or be videoed by another.

In maths, she could use magnetic or plastic numbers to show her answers, or number fans. Or speak her answers or choose things like names of shapes from a set of pre-prepared labels. Or work on a programme like education City where a track is kept of what she can do. Or use ICT in a much more basic way - e.g. dragging and drooping pre-prepared numbers to make number sentences. Or use concrete objects such as blocks, and have her work photographed as a record for her book (we use the digital camera several times a day for this kind of purpose - and I'm in Year 3).

If support is available at a particular table, there's no reason at all why she should be doing the 'low ability task' set for the rest of that table. Why can't she do the same work as her 'ability table', just getting support for the writing if she's capable of the thinking. Or seat the whole class in mixed ability tables, with work differentiated for each child rather than by table, and ensure that she has the support she needs for the few tasks that HAVE to be done through writing.

It seems to me that the school is hung up on a single method of recording work - pencil and paper - and haven't bothered to do the thinking about what the objective of each lesson REALLY is (not the 'make work' task of 'and write a sentence about it and then draw a picture and colour it in') and how your daughter can show what she could do. Makes me cross, both as a teacher and as a parent of a very bright child with fine motor skills issues...

Cross-posted with Mrz: do all of the exercises she suggests, get school to do them too, AND make certain that your daughter usually has a way of showing her understanding without 'normal' writing (then move gradually back to writing as her ability to write improves).

aw, teach, that's sadly not unusual. we were told that dd2 couldn't possibly join the regional g&t programme because of her handwriting. (she has cp lol. she uses a laptop.) so it doesn't matter how bright you are, or what's causing the writing issue... it isn't even as if her fine motor can be fixed. clearly stephen hawking wouldn't qualify, either...

(Channels John McEnroe again, including throwing racket and screaming)

what a load of * I can't even think of a suitable adjective!!!!
rubbish rubbish RUBBISH!!!!!

the new ht appears to reside on this planet, however.

nothing surprises me, these days.

oh, oh, and it was the senco that told me that.

ya gotta love it.

she was actually calling me to get permission to see if my other dd could be assessed for the programme. dd1 is a hard worker, but nowhere near as bright as dd2. i asked the senco if she talking about the right kid.

sure enough, dd1 had the same tests as dd2, scored lower, but was still accepted for the programme. dd2 was still barred. you couldn't make it up.

apols for random hijack

We currently have a child in Y6 with the most beautiful handwriting ... in Y1 his OT said get him a laptop as he would never be able to write. His mum insisted that he should ... and she was right

Thank you for all of this. Its a huge amount to take in and I am tierd and pregnant so when I have more energy I will sit down and go through it all.

I think the teacher really wants to get this right, she seemed really upset with what she had to tell me. They have done some work with her on other media - eg they've voice recorded some of her stories, they are doing cross stitch with her to try to help co-ordination and they have let her compose songs and poems which have been written down for her. They are also working on her IT skills with her The view is that in terms of her language, vocabulary and imagination she is clearly gifted for her age and its a real shame she can't get it on paper.

I'm not sure if she's dyspraxic as she's good at throwing and catching and jigsaws. Her sense of direction is very good and she can use a scooter etc. there were all things I could not do at her age or now (I get lost in blooming department stores ) However, I think she may have mild tendancies towards it.

sorry for another long post and thank you all for your help

Mrz, I should probably make it clear that I am absolutely all for working on a child's handwriting as a process in its own right, with all the exercises you suggest. However I do think that there is a place for teachers being creative about 'non writing' methods of showing understanding to use in parallel with these, especially when writing is very much not the focus of the learning (e.g. in science or in maths).

My class made cross stitch calendars and the little boy since diagnosed with DCD really struggled. He's on his third week of OT (although we have been following our own programme with him since Sept when he joined my class) and his handwriting is definitely improving.

I agree there are many other ways of recording work for children who struggle with writing.

we're persevering. they are finally fast-tracking cursive instead of print, which is helping. but her athetosis means it's fine, if large, one minute, and then illegible the next. so, laptop for speed and legibility, pencil for practice...

op, if she is gifted for her age, ask them if they intend to come up with an iep so that there is aplan as to how she will meet her potential, particularly given her current difficulties with print. she does need appropriate differentiation. (they may just use a scribe on/ off as they have been, which is fine, but you do need to know they are meeting her needs. and if she is 'gifted' but kept on the bottom table, i don't understnad why they haven't put her at the top table with a scribe...)

We've used voice recognition typing software for some children for creative writing

I was like this at this age- my parents had me assessed (by child psych I think, don't think there were SENCos as such then) and found to be very bright (well- I was a year ahead in school, so I'm sure they didn't need a psych assessment to say that ) but my physical skills couldn't keep up with my mental speed.

They suggested a tape recorder to record my sentences/stories then I could transcribe them.

Not sure why (probably funding) but it never happened, and my physical skills caught up when I was about 7. My handwriting is still abominable btw, but it is fast now...

mrz's list up there is fantastic- so many ideas to help her with her motor skills, I'm sure there are many she'd enjoy.

Is it worth making a series of cards with the ideas/instructions on for her for a number of the tasks, and keeping them in a box along with the necessary equipment, and then when baby arrives she can sit alongside you when you're feeding and do her little games? A bit like the 'special basket' many recommend for a child when DC2 arrives and you need them to be occupied whilst you're feeding/changing newborn...