My nearly 8 year old can barely write

[ClareVH]

My DD is nearly 8 years old. When she was at nursery, she showed great promise. She could write her name, count, read a few words, we were very happy with her progress. She stood out as being bright, a quick learner and we had no concerns whatsoever.

However, since moving to primary school, she has really struggled. She has friends and is very popular, but academically she has hardly made any progress in the 3 years she's been there.

It's a well-resourced private school with small class sizes and lots of extra help. She was getting 4 hours a week private tuition that the school provided for free to help her. She did make some progress, but not much. She is at least 2 years behind her peers.

The problems are that she cannot hold a pen properly. And her handwriting is atrocious. Most of her letters and numbers are backwards. It is very difficult to read what she has written. Her Maths is OK, but again probably 2 years behind her peers.

The school advised that we take her for an assessment, which we did, but it was inconclusive. I have mentioned Dyslexia a few times, but neither the school nor the educational psychologist agree. They did, however, suggest she has some OT for her pencil grip, but the quote I got was $2k, which we don't have as my business has just closed down and my husband's hours and therefore salary has just been cut.

Any ideas what could be wrong? I would really appreciate any help. Thanks.

She sounds wonderful - that memory recall will serve her well.

In my opinion, this is not necessarily solely a processing issue such as dyslexia (although of course I wouldn't rule that out) but as you say she can't hold, much less control, a pencil so I would suggest it could be a physical issue affecting her here.

Fine motor skills are super important but they can only be developed if the gross motor skills are pretty secure. They are also not the only important factor in writing. There are lots of really great ideas in this thread to support her fine motor skills, but I would definitely also suggest you incorporate activities that support her gross motor skills, upper body strength, balance and proprioception (awareness of own body parts relative to each other and where your body is in space) as these are all key factors in developing writing and as you've said she does seem to struggle with these areas too.

I won't bombard you in this thread but I can give you more information and ideas for activities if you would like. I'm not an expert but I have worked in Early Years for quite some time now and have multiple degrees in child development and teaching, and this is my area of passion so I've done a lot of research on it

I am not an expert in any of this, but I am investigating a bit around this for my Dd and, as many people have mentioned, both fine and gross motor skills can gave an impact on reading, writing and maths.
While you wait for professional support, there are many things you can do at home to start working on motor skills.
Some examples :
www.amazon.co.uk/Maze-Learning-Developing-Motor-Skills-ebook/dp/B079YWQ67F/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Maze+of+learning&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1585922847&sr=8-3
www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Sync-Child-Has-Fun/dp/0399532714/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=out+of+sync+child&sprefix=Out+of+sync&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1585922993&sr=8-3
As I mentioned, this is not a substitute for proper assessment.

If you have private health insurance it might cover OT assessment and/or therapy. You could check dyspraxia foundation's website for ideas to help motor skills and planning - playdoh, wet sand, construction toys, puzzles, exercises (like trying to touch each fingertip to thumb in turn), fidget cushion and writing slope (a4 file turned sideways). Poor posture and core strength can also affect handwriting so physical activities involving upper body and shoulders. Is she hypermobile? Does she also have sensory issues?

Has she been assessed for Dyspraxia? It sounds like it. My DS is the same age and significantly behind but that is down to autism.

Look at dysgraphia which is a writing disorder but writing letters backwards isn't unusually.

Try piano or guitar lessons to strengthen her fingers and look at typing the work. Does it make sense when typed? is it just a control and ordering issue or is it a mental progressing, organisational problem.

Touch-typing and a laptop is the way forward.

I have a very dyslexic DD who also has hypermobile fingers so writing is both difficult and painful (and really painful to watch!). Tried every helpful device on the market and nothing made any difference.

We're using lockdown time to get her touch-typing as good as possible and to try out speech to text software.

I can recommend EnglishType Junior for touch-typing - however it is British English in terms of spelling.

Theraputty is good for fine motor problems - we have the blue one, but there are various different strengths.

Dyspraxia. My son has it & had an extensive test at age 6/7 which was a guarded diagnosis. At age 8 they can diagnose it properly. It would be worth getting a loan out as these things are best sorted out when the children are young as it's then possible to develop new neural pathways through specific exercises. Leave it too late & there's a limit to what can be done to help. Unfortunately my son will never speak perfectly as he has verbal dyspraxia and we didn't know this - he got his help a little later than was preferable.

There are some brilliant suggestions here, thanks so much. Gonna speak to DH tonight about it all. Thanks again, you ladies are awesome!

Can you request a referral for an OT assessment through your GP? I'm just going on my own experience as a parent of a very bright child with various SEN, but it sounds like it could be dysgraphia and/ or dyspraxia. We saw an OT privately for an assessment and weekly sessions in a sensory gym (and the cost was not as much as you are quoting!) and another OT via the NHS specifically to tackle handwriting. The NHS OT came into school to train the teachers and made regular home visits to train me and to monitor progress.
Based on my own and my son's experience, I would recommend you seek out some specialist intervention, but at the same time be open to the idea that this may be one mountain that is too steep to climb and handwriting may not be the way forwards. Be ready to jack the whole thing in and explore alternatives!
I would highly recommend the American programme 'handwriting without tears'. It may be called 'learning without tears' now. Ideally you need an OT to train you (and school) up on this. Before you tackle the workbooks, work through the sensory letter learning with mini chalkboard, wet sponge and chalk. Don't be scared of going right back to the very beginning and expect progress to be very very very slow.
My DS now in secondary does handwrite a bit (a mix of capital and lower case, lots of reversals, very little respecting that writing is conventionally ordered in lines from left to right in descending order!) He mainly touch types and uses voice to text software. Nessy fingers is great for learning to type. It's free at the moment I think!
Bear in mind that too much focus on the mechanics of handwriting at the expense of developing other key areas (critical thinking, creativity, curiosity...) can lead to a lopsided education, lack of experiencing success, low self esteem and being turned off completely from learning. Little and often works, though progress may be so slow as to feel invisible at first.
Good luck!

Just to add to my post above my DS doesn't have dyspraxia but he does have sensory issues, low tone, hypermobility and dyslexia. I think there is a whole host of things that can impact on handwriting.

Sounds so familiar. My son was doing fine until school became all ab out handwriting and times tables, at which point he and his self-esteem fell to bits. He's dyspraxic with working memory problems. School was a nightmare in many ways but came right in the end-he's off to Cambridge next year. Switching to typing, so that handwriting doesn't matter and to make it easier to plant and structure made an enormous difference

Typing is great but don,t ignore handwriting. I type for work but at times still have to write reports for parents and other profesionals. So yes one does need to know how to spell and write and do maths. (I struggle and it is pain, even with IT.)

Have you had her hearing checked? Falling over could be a sign of inner ear issues...my son had issues with this and grommets helped. Of course hearing issues can also affect understanding in class.
I think the backwards letters are also a sign of dyslexia - my dyslexic son got bs and ds the wrong way round (still does at 14 but tries to correct it) and that was the start of his diagnosis - after years of denial by the school.

I wouldn't worry too much about diagnosis at the moment, just try some of the brilliant things suggested here and see how she gets on

I thought dyspraxia and dyslexia too. Her timetable looks like she put 'sport' and 'recess' to me, it's phonetically plausible from the little I could see.

@Norestformrz thank you for all the exercises and the resources you posted, DS1 struggles with some fine motor skills and this is all really useful.

How was her birth? Have u had her eyes checked?
From the writing she does have letters/ numbers reversed but the actual formation of the ones she has written seem OK. Although looks like she got easily distracted and drew faces in the 0s.
If it's dyslexia you could try giving her written stuff to read / copy on coloured paper - yellow is a common one. Also teacher shouldn't be asking her to copy from board with her current difficulties but if she has to copy can she copy from a printed copy of the slides.
You have got a pretty extensive list now of ot activities.. Check out disco dough on YouTube she might like it and gives hand strengthening activities
Lexia core is good programme for kids with literacy difficulties. Check it out online. I am not sure if it is possible to sign up as a parent but worth checking incase school have a subscription
Cosmic kids yoga etc might help too with balance stretches etc also on YouTube

Has she been assessed for dyspraxia.

Fine motor skills are affected
How is she at holding cutlery???
Can she ride a bike???

As others have mentioned you can get grips for pens.
And mats so that paper doesn't slip.

Look up Pen Again - pens for people with Rheumatoid Arthritis. You can only hold them one way. You can also get pencils.

Also I am very clumsy, I eventually taught myself the proper pen grip by using an ink pen. If you don’t hold it properly it doesn’t work. A cartridge pen might be worth a punt.

I’ve not read the whole thread but both my kids have dyspraxia dyslexia. Have a look at that as your girl sounds similar. They aren’t horribly clumsy but never excelled at sports and are terribly disorganised and messy.

Both have had a scribe or used a keyboard for school work or exams.

Eldest is now 22yrs old and a computer coder and has never even mentioned it to his employer as it doesn’t hold him back. He can’t write or spell for toffee, but can type, weirdly. Youngest is less dyslexic but you can’t read what he has correctly spelled . Same thing about typing ok though.

I suppose I’m trying to say that she will learn to compensate and there is more to learning than being able to write. She’ll get round it with your support.

*dyspraxic dyslexia.

Ask for an assessment for dyspraxia, it's quite often combined with dyslexia. Sounds very like my friends dd

How was her birth?

It's funny you should ask that. It was traumatic. She got stuck, they tried many times to pull her out with forceps then used a vacuum. I lost so much blood I nearly died and was in ICU for days.

There is a high correlation between assisted deliveries and such issues as dyspraxia, hypermobility, low core strength, poor hand/eye coordination, poor proprioception etc. Depending where you are dyspraxia may also be referred to as Developmental Coordination Disorder. Did she meet early physical and developmental milestones?

@LIZS

Funny you should ask how OPs DD’s birth was, my DS who is dyslexic and dyspraxic was a forceps birth and the forceps were over the back of his head and over his right eye.

I have always wondered if that damaged a part of his brain at the front.