We are trying to get her to learn to type but she prefers to handwrite - at a glacial rate. Partly I think she wants to do the opposite of whatever we encourage... sigh.
We had to give our ds time to get on board with typing. We started with letting him use the learn-to-type programs that he liked and also gently encouraging him to type his homework. He was really resistant to typing at school for a long time because he didn't want to open up a laptop in class and look different from the other students (even after he was in a class with two other kids using laptops!). It took several years but he's now using AT almost full time in middle school. The things that helped the most with transitioning to keyboarding were:
* Gradual pushes from parents to do it - there were a few places and times that we made him, because if we hadn't he never would have been brave enough on his own to open up his laptop at school when he was in class with the other students. Just opening it up and seeing that the other kids weren't going to treat him like he was from Mars helped him realize he could do it.
* Increase in workload - as the amount of homework increased with time we encouraged him to use his laptop at home and eventually the workload increased enough that he realized he needed to be typing in order to keep up.
* Increase in intellectual challenge at school - this helped indirectly in that he became motivated at school and wanted to do well
* Getting past other things at school that were making him uncomfortable (I'll post more on this later - have to leave for an appointment in a few minutes).
I'll be back with suggestions on the math and writing.
polarbear
