I stopped concentrating so much on my son's handwriting when I saw that it really held him back from getting his thoughts on paper. He did try cursive but he chose to go back to printing. He only uses cursive now for signing his name. His spelling, grammar, vocabulary and ability to organize his thoughts are really good when he is allowed to type. He can write legibly, but his hands tire quickly and when that happens his handwriting isn't as legible.
Teachers in our small town public school use difficulty with coloring in the lines and sloppy handwriting as an excuse to hold kindergartners back a year which is one reason we had to homeschool. My son was reading at a 5th grade level and doing mental math in kindergarten but the teacher wanted to hold him back because of a fine motor disability without any occupational therapy. Smart kids with disabilities do not receive an appropriate education at this school.
To me, not allowing accommodations for kids with dysgraphia seems almost as bad as telling people who have disabilities who can walk short distances that they can't use their scooters in the Walmart or anywhere else until they have walked to the point where they are going to fall down on their face and then and only then are they are allowed to use the equipment that makes their disabilities more manageable. By forcing them to walk as far as they can they might be able to walk a few more steps the next time before falling over. It just makes more sense to me to use accommodations and spend the energy that would be used on dealing with the disability to learn or do something more productive instead of, in my son's case, working on handwriting so that he can double the amount he can write without pain to ten minutes instead of five. In my opinion my son is better off working on his abilities and not the disabilities. There are a lot of people who will not agree with me, but my husband and I have done a lot of thinking about this. My husband is a supervisor and has had some very bright employees with disabilities that affected handwriting. He only cared about the excellent job these people did, not their inability to color in the lines well or write legibly for long periods of time.
My son found that he can type very quickly on his iPhone or iPod that he keeps in his pocket to take notes but he can write brief notes with pencil and paper if he has to and type or write out the rest later. Dysgraphia just doesn't seem like it will be that much of a disability for my son as an adult if he is allowed to use technology.
