Thanks guys.
Polarbear: She is dyspraxic. We have not had her tested for dysgraphia yet. Her handwriting looks okay (my husband's does not), but she really freaks out unless she is copying something that someone else wrote down. (That doesn't mean she can't do it, it just means she freaks out.) She has a much more difficult time drawing and then writing in things like Venn Diagrams or those spiderweb looking charts they make. Her mind just can't organize information that way. She has trouble reading graphic novels too, doing directionally organized things (turning paper horizontally when requested) and missed 50% of following instructions subtest on the Woodcock Johnson while getting all questions in all other listening categories correct. I don't know what that means, but it means something.
We were waiting to test her, but she still doesn't seem to have enough actual handwriting instruction to make us rule out the fact that she just hasn't learned to write while struggling with dyspraxia.
I asked last year and they said they formally teach handwriting in first grade, and I just emailed her teacher to ask when it gets taught (no answer yet), but I'm not sure when it does or if there is enough of it for a dyspraxic kid.
So that's what I'm waiting for. Some signal to say go get the next test, go get the 509. The school has said to wait for formal handwriting instruction, but she's been writing and developing bad habits for two years now, should we just move forward on our own? After all, we didn't wait for formal math instruction or reading instruction to introduce those things. But then again, she welcomed that. She'll read and play math games for fun all day long, but writing and drawing aren't activities she wants to "afterschool" in, if you know what I mean.
The school administration has really been on board with her, and I trust the admin (counselor and academic coordinator). I feel like they were really responsive. Her counselor likes her and helped her get through a less than ideal teacher/student match last year. They want to wait on the 509. The put her with a great teacher. They want to see what they can do informally and just want her teacher to get to know her first and I DO trust this teacher. It's just frustrating and then there's what the school sees as doing well (passing) and what meeting your potential is, something neither my husband nor I experienced until grad school for similar reasons. We don't want that for her. Loving school, having school not love you back and then just assuming that means school isn't for you really sucks if it actually IS for you.
She definitely "hit the shut down and stop trying because they've continually gotten the message internally that they can't" stage. That happened a long time ago, before she was developmentally ready to write. She's still stuck in it. But I have to get her past that. And if she's going to get past that, she's going to have to work really hard for it. That means trying in a way I don't think she's tried before and probably means working harder than her friends have to.
Does this seem like I'm just losing patience or should I be doing something now, even if the school's position (knowledgeable people who I believe care) think waiting is best? It would be easy to be all tigermom about it, and say, "here is trying: don't leave this table until you have colored in x all the way." That is what her kindergarten teacher did and that doesn't work for her. But saying "oh, great job sugarmuffin that scribble DOES look like a cookie!" isn't going to help her either.
Edited to say that there are responses between the time it took me to read Polarbear's post and write this. But I did hear them :-)
