Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Schools patient with reading, not with writing?

Hi
Noticing something very curious at DS5 gifted school. From the very begining, info sessions, orientation, meeting with the priciple, the teachers - everyone is super gentle about the kids who are not reading. There seems to be a nice soothing process, even while they are moving at a quick pace aiming for an accelerated reading level by the end of K. they seem very understanding, not quite they get it when they get it but not pressured either.

Yet with writing, there is no soothing pace, and seemingly no understanding, especially for the boys, its you need to get it and if you don't you need outside therapy or you need more worksheets. I understand that in a gifted school everything that comes involve writing and so they need to get it but I am very bewildered by the approach. I suppose it could be about the disparity in DS - making them push and me sensitive - but still is there a rationale for this? And how much push back should we do - he has made such progress, I would say he is at grade level or slightly below of regular K.

DeHe

There are studies about boys handwriting vs girls. Boys are way behind for many years due to much greater finger dexterity of girls. Just one of many obstacles placed in front of boys in some schools.

I sort of expected that, given all the coverage of that here and other school sites but what surprises me is the difference in attitude towards intellectual development vs physical development. Why does no one make the "they all catch up by 3rd grade" statements aboutt writing. Its very strange to me!

DeHe

my dd8 is third grade and her handwriting is...well, actually, it's been improving since we went to homeschooling and I'm not making her write anymore than I think she has to...but it's not very good, that's for sure. Additionally, she doesn't really like to write, though she does like to draw and writes better on spelling tests.

My neighbor is an OT and says many kids who skipped crawling (which is many giftees) have this problem with writing...couple that with often minds that go faster than pencils can move...

I don't believe writing ability is a measure of giftedness...if so, every doctor I ever met was actually a moron, lol! If anything, the giftees seem to have more issues with it than less and I would think a gifted school would get that?

Why not ask about keyboarding? I also don't understand why gifted would equal writing alot? My DD has the option of things like dioramas or redesigning a book jacket for a book report...most of the tests are bubble in so I have just decided it's not important to me that she have perfect writing, but is able to exprerss herself and demonstrate she knows the material.

fwiw-my mom has textbook perfect penmanship, mine is slightly less, but quite nice...my dad is a lefty and when he was a kid, they tried to make them righties, so he twists his hand around and has very slanty, spiky "closed" writing. My DH is also a lefty with really, BAD writing, lol! Sometimes I'm not sure what he's written! haha! Both DD's of ours form letters in an unusual way, like from the line up and it often makes me wonder if they should actually be leftys even though they both use right...

My son (now 8 and in 3rd grade) has always had OT yet still had/has horrible printing. We saw a HUGE improvement once he started writing cursive. I thought cursive would be a disaster, but it looks at least as good as, if not better than, his peers. I don't know if the OT finally kicked in (ha ha) or if he HAS to slow down for the cursive because it is new. I'm curious to see if his writing gets worse as he gets used to it and starts speeding up. I can't wait until the emphasis is off handwriting and all kids are allowed to type everything. I think good handwriting is a stupid skill, but it is an actual grade on his report card. So DeHe, I have noticed the same phenomenon you have in the school.

I agree with the handwriting- I think teachers lose sight of your child's giftedness if they have poor handwriting. I have my first grader working through Handwriting Without Tears- his handwriting has gone from literally the worst in the class to average. I don't expect it to zoom up to best, but at least this is something.
Practice, practice, practice!
The Asian kids who go to Chinese school weekly all have phenomenal handwriting- maybe practicing characters in a different language really helps. And the little girls have better handwriting than most adults!

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

I think it is great that the school is at least aware that sometimes handwriting difficulties indicate issues that require OT and that they don't look at it as a character defect or as laziness or lack of motivation. I don't think that an OT evaluation is a bad idea. If you have a thorough evaluation from a good OT who is familiar with gifted kids, you will either find out that your child's fine motor and handwriting skills are developmentally appropriate, or that they aren't.

If you find out that they are appropriate, you can share this information with the school, which may help you get them to back off on the pressure, if they are expecting output that is unreasonable for a normally-developing child. Advanced intellectual abilities don't necessarily imply advanced physical abilities, and age-appropriate fine motor skills should be perfectly acceptable. They can't really reasonably demand that your child needs to somehow alter the rate of his normal physical development (and I would absolutely phrase it that way if I ran into resistance.)

If you find out that there is an issue, then you are in a great position to both address it early and to get accommodations and support in place for your child before it becomes a huge source of frustration and loss of self-esteem.

[quote=polarbear]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.
[/quote

I type 99% of my "expression" and write the rest. A lot of math classes now require students to use some form of computer "expression" as well. At work, the rule is, if its not in a document, it does not exist - I use word, excel, visio, CAD daily and Mathematica on a weekly basis.

Handwriting is critical, but its just one of many "skills" that a child needs to learn. Not every child has to become a calligraphist.

thanks everybody for your thoughts! Always helpful to get other opinions - the one thing that was mentioned here that we don't know is what the other kids work looks like - because of work I havent been in the classroom yet, DH was, but much earlier in the year. And in terms of doing the work, he is doing it - its just bigger and more spaced out than they want - so its not preventing him from doing what they want him to do. I don't object to practice, I just think they are not going to get him to improve with worksheets - you can see his attention and effort start to drift - when its an interesting assignment he works on his writing without much resistance.

DeHe