I think that attitude you're seeing about writing in your school sometimes shows up in different ways in other g/t school programs - we purposely chose not to pursue our district's g/t magnet program because of the feedback we heard from other parents that many of the teachers equated gifted education with loading on lots of extra work and by the time kids hit upper elementary and middle school there was very little time left for nurturing their creativity because they were so bogged down with lots and lots of busywork and homework. There was also a lot of pushing for "achievement" when with our ds I've always felt he does best when not pushed, but given the opportunity to follow his interests at his pace and in his direction.
Re writing, we didn't have that same attitude at the school my kids went to in early elementary, instead when our dysgraphic ds was in K-2, before we knew he had dysgraphia or had even heard about it, we were noticing that he was refusing to write, had terribly sloppy handwriting, lots of reversals, wasn't developing punctuation etc, and we were told many times (many many times lol!) that it was just developmental, they didn't expect those things to resolve or start worrying about them until a child reached third grade... soooo... there are a few schools at least out there who see hw development rates as a spectrum just as most schools see reading.
There are some very strong attitudes about handwriting in elementary school too - I ran into the director of my ds' preschool a few years after all my kids had gone on to elementary school. I was working out and had a book with me about dysgraphia - she saw the title and asked about it, and when I told her about what dysgraphia is and that ds was dysgraphic she literally burst into tears because she thought it was so sad he'd "never learn to have beautiful handwriting". I've never once burst into tears over that lol! I've been sad and frustrated and worried about a lot of other things relative to his disability, but having the ability to handwrite in this technological day and age? So many of my friends who are parenting totally completely non-dysgraphic kids with beautiful functional handwriting could not understand the emphasis on it in elementary school and wished their children had had half as much time spent on keyboarding and much less emphasis on handwriting. Yet there was at least one upper elementary teacher who absolutely refused to let any of the children in her class turn in any kind of typed work - when she was speaking at a meeting one day she was adamant that she felt all children should be using handwriting until their handwriting was perfect, and she had no understanding at all that giving a child a keyboard could free their mind to develop written expression.
DeHe, is your child stressed out about the writing? I don't think I'd push him to practice extra at home just because the school is pushing it - chances are he's fine and being "behind" early on in elementary isn't going to be an issue, he'll get hw when it's time for him. OTOH, if he's struggling and his teacher is insisting on more repetitive practice worksheets etc, I think I'd look at his hw samples vs other childrens - if they're similar, again, I'd ignore and just let it evolve. If it seems like there's a large gap, then ask the school to do an OT eval. But fwiw, I think in K it's going to be really tough to look at any child's hw and definitively know there's any kind of challenge. I think that what OT would do is help him learn a good pencil grip and posture, but if he's already got that, I'd just let him be.
polarbear
