My DD9 has major blocks stemming from spelling, handwriting, and what I discovered a few days ago: a horridly painful pencil grip. We're addressing them by doing our own spelling at home - the method the school uses is ill suited to her. Starting last week, I integrated using a pencil grip that forces the tripod grip, and we pick two common letters from the list and focus on the formation of just those two letters. We have a timer set for 8 minutes, and the whole shebang is done in just 8 minutes a day. We're about two weeks into the spelling, and a week into the handwriting and pencil grip part of it. At a very minimum, she's more engaged in each of the three activities than she's ever been before. I think it's a factor of knowing it will be over soon, as well as having learned through other experiences over the summer that she really can make a ton of progress in just a few minutes a day.
