I'll offer up a few suggestions based on my experience as a parent of a dysgraphic child and also as a parent of a child who has a reading challenge (not traditionally dyslexic) - but first I'll add that the singular most helpful thing to me was to have a diagnosis by a professional, and I believe that it was ultimately extremely helpful to my children too. Having a diagnosis meant they didn't have to wonder why they were struggling; having a diagnosis meant I was able to make sure they had appropriate remediation and accommodations. Having a diagnosis by a professional was also extremely helpful in advocating for resources, remediation and accommodation. Last thing - having a professional explain what was up with my kids was really important, because all the researching and really great guessing I was doing on my own didn't lead me down the right path.. but there was no way of knowing that without having a professional look at global functioning.
That said, what you've written sounds a lot like dysgraphia. It also sounds like he's been diagnosed with dysgraphia through a professional eval (?). A few things you could do at home to help determine whether or not the grammar issues your ds is dealing with reading challenge vs dysgraphia (or maybe dealing with both):
1) Does his grammar improve when he uses technology? If it does, that's a sign that the issues with grammar are due to dysgraphia. If he still has grammar issues when he's using keyboarding or oral response, it could be something more.
2) Do you know that his reading comprehension is as high as the level of books he's reading? Has he been tested for comprehension, or have you read the same books he's reading and had a discussion with him about the books? What is his oral reading like? If you have any questions about these, it might be more than dysgraphia.
Re spelling, it might improve with typing or might not (for dysgraphia). However, if the spelling challenge is solely due to dysgraphia, you might note that spelling individual words, such as during a spelling test, doesn't pose an issue, but spelling while writing (a paragraph, story, etc) is an issue.
Last thing I'll mention - if your ds has been evaluated by a professional, did they note any issues with fine motor specifically? Dysgraphia is an inability to develop automaticity of handwriting (i.e., a disconnect between what the finger muscles involved in fine motor need to do vs the brain instructing them to do it) whereas an actual fine motor disorder means there is an additional challenge with the fine motor functioning. My ds' primary diagnosis is Developmental Coordination Disorder, which impacts his fine motor functioning, and secondary to DCD he's dysgraphic. The impact of the DCD means that his dysgraphia isn't as easily resolved by giving him a keyboard as it is for kids who don't have a fine motor challenge. Hope that makes sense!
Best wishes,
polarbear
ps - fwiw, diagnosing and understanding my dd's reading challenge has been much more complex than recognizing/diagnosing/understanding my dysgraphic ds' challenges - when fine motor/etc is involved, it's not easy to slide under the radar. With the combination of a high ability child and a reading challenge, it's much easier for the child to compensate and come up with ways of not showing that there's a struggle. Personality also plays a part - my ds was quite open with acknowledging he was struggling, my dd does not want anyone to know she's not on top of the world in all areas of ability, so from an early age she went to great lengths to hide the fact that she wasn't comprehending what she was reading. I'm not saying that's the case with your ds at all - but it was around 3rd-4th grade that my dd's ability to keep ahead with her pretending everything was ok started to crumble as the pace of actual reading for learning in the classroom stepped up. If your ds is actually testing at a high level of reading comprehension then I wouldn't give it a second thought... but if you have any doubts about reading, I'd recommend an evaluation.
Last edited by polarbear; 02/14/17 06:01 PM.
