My dysgraphic 5th grader's teacher sent me an email today letting me know that he had talked with my son and recommended a new way to practice his spelling words. He asked that he finger spell them into sand paper while spelling them out loud to me.
Don't know why it never occurred to me to try this since we used sand paper letters in the Montessori school where I student taught in college, but it hadn't.
So I did an experiment. We tried the spelling words out loud; he got about half correct. We tried later in the day with the sand paper, and he got every single one of them correct. It still remains to be seen whether it helps retention for tomorrow's test, but it is still a rather dramatic improvement for a child who regularly leaves letters out of words and misspells even basic words.
Has anyone else tried this? How did it work out? Any other tricks you've tried?
