There are two types of trouble a child can have with writing. In our homeschool, we’ve faced both challenges. There’s the challenge of actually getting ideas on paper and organizing thoughts: that’s the challenge most people think of when they hear someone has trouble writing. But there’s also the physical challenge of putting pen or pencil to paper and moving it across the page, of forming the words on paper. Officially, the diagnosis for these types of challenges is a disability called dysgraphia. (You can find the full list of symptoms and a more in depth description click here.) But it’s also a common difficulty in left-handed learners; the challenges are similar.
My son throughout his schooling has had these challenges. Dyslexia flips letters and numbers out of order as he reads and writes, but he also has always found it difficult to form the letters and words and write across a page. (Though his perfectionism can over-compensate in this area and allow him to write beautifully, it’s painfully tedious for him and takes a lot of time.) He’s also left-handed.
In spite of these challenges, we’ve had years where he sailed through schoolwork, with only a bump here and there. Then there are years where, for whatever reason, the challenge rears up like a multi-headed dragon and stops us in our tracks every where we turn. (Last year was one of those years.) So what do you do when these kinds of learning challenges seem to show up in every subject and halt the learning in your homeschool day?
