She is weak in skills related to writing: punctuation, capitalization. She spells poorly when she writes but has a very easy time with spelling words. It's not that she doesn't know the rules. She just can't apply them. She has no confidence in composition and doesn't get much practice.
This summer she has agreed to spend 30 minutes a day on learning to type and writing of some kind--and we'll do something fun to celebrate. I can't be sure, but I do feel like her writing problems are tied to the DCD and harbor this secret belief that if she just practices enough, writing will become more automatic.
Excellent advice from spaghetti on all counts. I couldn't agree more. It actually IS possible to completely avoid writing if necessary, and for some people, it's necessary. They can hand write or they can think, but they can't do both - and which one is actually important?
Given your comment above (warning: incoming amateur diagnosis!), it sounds like she may be dealing with dysgraphia as well as DCD. That is to say, the issue may not be just physical, but there may also be a cognitive processing deficit that keeps handwriting from becoming automatic. From what I have learned over the years, the fine motor deficits may perhaps be more amenable to remediation than the processing ones. The good news is, dysgraphic handwriting issues can simply be by-passed with typing and voice recognition.
Like spaghetti, I've spent years scribing, so my kids can get their actual thoughts and ideas out, and learn, and demonstrate their learning. In parallel, I'm getting them to learn to type and use voice recognition, and teaching them writing planning and organization. It's not a fun way to spend their leisure hours, but it's been essential to their survival. For quite different reasons, neither of my children can produce written output without these tools. Now (grades 4 and 6) they mostly write independently, but there's no way they could in grade 2. They need the tools, and they need the years to learn how to use the tools, and in the meantime, I needed to make sure those processing deficits don't destroy their mental health. You've seen yourself what happens when a child is working as hard as they possibly can, and keep getting told to "try harder". The damage over years can be huge, and hard to undo.
So like spaghetti suggests, be careful not to inadvertently perpetuate the negative views of herself she's likely built up, and the idea that she can do this if she only tries harder. Handwriting may never become automatic, and that's OK. As has been discussed on a couple threads lately, decouple the thinking from the mechanics. If you want to work on actual expression, let her do the thinking and creative parts with you scribing or recording. Deal with practice on the mechanics (handwriting, typing, voice recognition) as a separate and unrelated exercise. In early days, it may feel like you are doing too much for her, but she needs that back up until she can access those tools for herself.
