But he improved in pre-k and now in K - we see MASSIVE improvement - so what we have been pushing back against with his K teacher is that he needs to be at gifted K levels for writing and handwriting. She says he is below K, we aren't sure, but that is why we finally agreed to the testing.
Improvement: that's awesome.
I'd say, if he's lagging his peers in the gifted K, it's worth getting him up to speed if it can be accomplished readily, but also knowing that physical growth and continued effort over time may help close the gap.
DS has turned a bit of a corner - he must have been in some sort of growth spurt because he had been resisting everything and is now back to his more agreeable self - he said they are still doing handwriting without tears in class - and said he would be willing to get it for home to so he could do it here too.
If you have access to an iPad, we have had huge mileage out of the Letter School app. It's intrinsically rewarding (funny things happen to the letters) and reinforces skills like using the same starting place for the letter each time. It's helping us separate out pencil frustration from mental sequencing of strokes frustration.
Plus, I know that some of the problem is that he feels much of the work is a waste of his time or is not interesting - so we have been working on that. When the subject is interesting his handwriting improves - not a lot - but enough
Inconsistency can be a hallmark of 2e... or it can be a hallmark of childhood. I think in your case you might get good info from the testing, and then over the next few years you'll get lots of info from watching your DS's work change over time.
DeeDee
ETA: have you tried having your DS use golf pencils? They're half as heavy, of course, and our younger DS prefers them...
