Thanks NikiHarp and Polarbear! There is a lot of useful info in your post Polarbear. I will definitely try some of your suggestions. DS is really resisting all writing practice at the moment. I think this will be a stressful year because of it, but hopefully we can make some progress.
We have had some assessments done. At age 4.5 DS took the wppsi and his processing speed was 40 points lower than his verbal. At 5.5 he did woodcock Johnson cog and ach tests. His achievement scores we all consistent with iq, but many of his category scores on the cog were uninterpretable due to big variations in subtlest scores. The psych commented that his writing was below age expectations, but that he was too young to qualify for dysgraphia. I was okay with that at the time, but that was before we knew he would be skipping into year 2 this year. Ahhh the joys of asynchronous development, his handwriting will be below average for his year 1 age level, and he will be in year 2. But I am glad they are taking a strengths based approach, as I don't think being academically under stimulated in the year 1 classroom and struggling with his writing would have been a better situation. I think I need to just get ready for a bumpy road.
