Displaced, I am replying on my phone so please excuse any bizarre auto-corrects
DS 5.9 has had to afterschool daily to remediate handwriting and reading, despite being G. I feel a lot is d/t his age, requirements of school, etc. We're working often also during the summer (5x per week).
I was curious about why you were after schooling reading and writing so I glanced back through your previous posts. From what you've previously written it sounds like ds had a tough year in kindy and was considered to be struggling according to his teacher, you've had him evaluated privately but no LD was found, there is dyslexia in your family, and there's a possibility that teacher fit this past year was an issue.
If I've misunderstood any of that please let me know. I restated it here because I feel it helps having that background in answering your current questions.
eta - note to add about testing for LDs - they aren't always straightforward or revealed easily through testing. Sometimes it takes a few years of academics to see the impact of the LD (sometimes it can take years), and it's also important to be sure you understand what a person means by "LD" when they use the term - school districts may be referring to very specific (and low) bars that a student must be functioning below in terms of academics to call that student (officially) "LD", and psychs often don't use the term "LD". A student might not have an official LD and yet still have a challenge that is going to be almost impossible to work around and over without significant effort in remediation or accommodations.
The problem I have is his extreme emotions to challenges.]
Do you feel he has extreme emotional challenges to any types of challenge or to this work in particular? If he reacts this way in general to challenges or things he doesn't want to do I would try to work through it, but if his reactions are magnified with respect to reading and writing work I would think through and possibly rethink the approach. His reactions *might* be his almost 6 year old way of telling you that the work is *truly* difficult for him.
[quote]On a good day, our "ten minute" handwriting session lasts probably 15 min, with minimal but still present fussing, whining, etc. On a bad day, there are tears, crying, extreme emotions, and the session lasts probably 20-30 min, most of that time with me sitting there and trying to *talk* about emotions, not needing to be perfect, inventing funny letter stories, etc. He is probably writing for only 5-10 of those min.
This indicates to me that - no matter what the reason - the sessions aren't accomplishing what you want them to.
The majority of issues brought up by DS: his letters don't look perfect like mine, he wants to make me happy, he can't do it, if he takes his time to do it correctly it will take too long, etc.
[quote] I daily have to remind him I have sloppy handwriting unless I'm working with him, it took me a while to learn handwriting, nobody's perfect, nobody's good at first, some skills take months and years to develop, there's no need to be perfect, I'm not perfect, it's good to aim to do your best but no need to be perfect, etc.
There might be a bit of a disconnect between what you are telling your ds here and what you are having him do - from his perspective. You're essentially trying to let him know he doesn't have to be a high-achiever at handwriting right now and skills take time to develop, but you're also having him practice for what can seem like a huge amount of time to a child his age. jmo, but I think that it's easier to motivate young children to work on this type of skill when they have a clear reason why they need to learn it.
I require letters that are done with the wrong technique re-done (we're doing handwriting without tears).
If this is causing issues at this point in time I would back off for now and maybe for a week or so focus on having ds write a row of letters and circle the two he thinks look best. Praise him for those good-looking letters and quietly observe which letters he is not forming correctly. With HWOT you will go over the correct formation at the start of the pages where you copy a letter for practice. Try to notice what's up with not using the correct formation - is he just trying to get through quickly, is it due to not understanding, does he seem to not be able to control where he starts, is it consistently incorrect or randomly incorrect?
I hate to outsource handwriting practice, which should theoretically take only 10 min! But I'm starting to consider just dropping him off at a physical therapist to do this instead. Speaking of PT, I've had him evaluated and he does not have a fine motor delay (which I found hard to believe).
If it *is* dysgraphia it's important to understand that an eval by a PT isn't necessarily going to reveal it. Handwriting would specifically have to be part of the eval - many dysgraphic children, including my severely dysgraphic ds, have good fine motor skills for certain types of fine motor tasks. The disconnect with dysgraphia is in the inability of the brain to learn the automaticity of forming letters. The reason behind the dysgraphia could be fine-motor impacted of it could be due to visual-motor integration. The clues that showed our ds was dysgraphic were in observing his writing process, comparing his handwriting samples to peers in early elementary (which is tricky - dysgraphia isn't the same thing as sloppy or early-developing handwriting), and discrepancy on ability subtest scores as well as widely varying achievement test scores. Additional testing from his neuropsych helped verify it was dysgraphia and delineated the type.
Reading is similar, but slightly easier now. I attribute that to having working with him during the school year mostly on reading so his skills are much beyond his handwriting. But there's still a lot of resistance just seeing a word he thinks he can't spell out, or saying it wrong, a lot of whining and "I'll never get it right", etc.
You might find it helpful to have your ds to through a thorough reading eval by a specialist. I only mention this because you are seeing resistance and because there is a family history of dyslexia. Reading requires a wide range of skills all coming together and it can be extremely difficult to tease out a reading challenge. Two of my kids struggled with early reading - for one it was simply a vision issue (eyes not working together, issues were resolved with vision therapy and her reading took off), for the other it was a challenge associating symbols and sound which has required very specific and intensive reading tutoring.
I used to have him read a small book, but because of this I limit reading to 10 min at a time, and then come back to reading later on.
It was mentioned already but worth mentioning again - our teachers have always stressed the importance of parents reading out loud TO their children, no matter what age/grade. I would put that as my first priority at this point, and try to make it fun, books that your ds is interested in. When you are having him practice reading with you, try making it light and simple. Start with him reading a sentence or two and you reading the next few sentences and over time work up to alternating pages. Don't stress out when he misses a word or can't decode a word, just let him know what it is. Try to just observe over time what type of roadblocks he hits - is it a certain type of word, does he have challenges with big words or does he get tripped up randomly with small words you would expect him to already know? Does he read more consistently when he is starting a session than later on when he might be tired? Etc.
Part of the problem is our parent/child dynamic I'm sure. I myself am frustrated and upset that so far our summer has been met with almost daily sessions like this. I don't even want his summer to be spent doing this, but it's necessary or he'll be behind in first. Even doing this he may be behind in first grade.
To be honest, I would seriously consider dropping the sessions for the rest of the summer. It sounds like they are producing far too ugh stress for both of you with only minimal gain. You really don't know at this point how first grade will go. He may star out behind but then catch up easily in school if he doesn't have any deeper challenges with reading and writing. If he does have challenges, working without understanding them is most likely not going to help significantly. Instead focus on observing but not pushing - hope that makes sense.
Best wishes,
polarbear
