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My son's kindergarten teacher wanted to hold him back a year so he could work on coloring in the lines even though he could read at a 5th grade level before he started kindergarten at age 5 and could do mental math including some multiplication. She thought coloring in the lines was important enough to hold him back even though we told her that he had low muscle tone and mild muscle weakness that caused him to have trouble with fine motor skills and even though he made what would have normally been a passing grade on an end of year first grade test to see if he could skip ahead to second grade the next year. I had asked for that testing before she told us about the coloring problem. I volunteered at the school during his kindergarten year and I took home some left over third grade language arts worksheets in copy room to see if he could do them. He could do the third grade worksheets without any problem yet he couldn't or wouldn't color in the lines. He could write his name before he started kindergarten and could write all letters of the alphabet legibly by the end of kindergarten but his problem was that it took him longer to write than other kids and he fatigued faster than other kids because of the physical issues. I think he could color in the lines for a short time but he would get tired and he wanted to get his work done on time so he did the best he could and when he realized he couldn't finish in time he would scribble just to get it done. He also would only draw stick figures and was embarrassed by his lack of drawing ability. The teacher would hang their pictures outside of the classroom for everyone to see. They did a lot of coloring at his school and I still think my son was better off practicing writing instead of coloring since he had the fatigue issues. My husband agrees with me. We just didn't see coloring in the lines as an important life skill. He can color in the lines now without that extra year of practice but he spent his time reading and learning things that in my opinion are much more important than coloring in the lines. We have homeschooled since my son finished kindergarten.

My son wasn't diagnosed with motor dysgraphia until he was 11. When he was tested at age 7 the OT said his writing was low normal and she did not test him long enough to see that his writing falls apart when his hands get tired. I remember getting upset with him a few times when he wouldn't do all of the writing I wanted him to do. I remember threatening to put him back in school when the OT didn't find a problem because I started doubting what I saw. I wondered a few times if maybe he was lazy but then I realized that he didn't like doing coloring or writing assignments because they made his hands hurt and made him tired. If something causes me pain I try to avoid it too or find an easier way to get things done. He learned to type.

My son started taking piano lessons when he was five to help with fine motor issues and he used Handwriting without Tears to practice writing but I never made him color in the lines again. He still draws using stick figures. He did practice drawing a few years ago using some online how to draw examples.

I have a somewhat different take. DS hated homework from the instant it was offered in K. He could do it, of course, but he hated the very idea of school intruding on his free time. (He has never been diagnosed with dysgraphia, but that may be in his mix; we remediated handwriting fluency heavily in the early grades. He also has AS, which makes him generally less flexible and less willing to do things he finds intrinsically worthless.)

IMO learning to comply and do it with reasonable quality was part of the bigger issue of learning to do things you don't want to in life. We hugely rewarded compliance and were as positive and encouraging as we could manage, so it wasn't all awful. We taught DS to make a "coping statement" like "I can probably knock this off in about 10 minutes" or "I'll do the easiest part first."

In school, in work, even in play, you will meet people who want you to do something a different way, and often you have to go along with someone else's way of doing things, or do a task you don't want to do. This becomes one of the most important skills in keeping a job, down the road. (I knew someone once who was fired because she didn't like the idea of brewing a pot of coffee.) DS is now in 4th and gives us no flak about homework; he gets it that it's part of his job, even if it's just review and not that interesting.

So DeHe, if it seems to you it's a motor issue or dysgraphia, by all means get him evaluated; but if you think it's purely that he doesn't want to comply, it may be worth working on.

DeeDee

DeeDee I think you nailed it for me - I can't tell. Interestingly, the K teacher, who has been supportive really pushed for an eval and we are allowing that to happen, said he might not qualify for anything. She notes that it just seems so hard for him and he seems to really be trying. So I am torn, I know the eval will show he is at the lower end of K, his teacher thinks he will be under it.I am not sure as this is a gifted school how that translate into what she routinely sees. But anyway, he needs more help. But on top of that, I think I am concerned that he is starting to develop what so many here have talked about - a realization that he is not learning anything and that it is a waste of time. But the attitude only manifests in the stuff he isnt good at. Some of it is definitely his current attitude - he is about to turn 6 and really seems to be in a "no" mindset - he doesnt want to do anything but read, he doesnt want to eat foods he used to like. Its weird he is taking on more responsbility by his own choice and reverting to babyish behavior in other areas - I forgot that he gets like this, sometimes before a growth spurt and sometimes before a brain spurt.

For the dysgraphia/dyslexia crowd, my worries stem from how hard he has to think to get 9 and 6 correct, when he gets tired he reverses, etc. But the main oddity I noticed is that he never starts numbers or letters in the same place or does it the same way. Making the shape is not rote. But then most of the time it doesnt manifest in a wrong shape - so normal age thing, or not, time will tell, I guess.

At any rate, we are very conscious of his self esteem - but also there seems to be a bit of arrogance developing about his reading level, etc, mainly in reponse to the fact the he gets things from school labeled for 2nd or even 3rd grade - so we had a discussion that brain age is not always the same as physical age - same as soccer skills or art skills. Funny to be talking about asynchrony with him!!!

So get the eval, praise the effort and a positive attitude, manage the crappy attitude and try to get him doing more fine motor.

And piano sounds like a great idea!

Everyone thanks! everyone says this all the time, but you really can't talk about this with other parents - even when you are in a gifted environment!

DeHe

I volunteer weekly in my kids' classes. I saw quite a few kids even in second grade reversing letters, 6 for a 9, etc. I see very few now in third grade. I think it still can be "normal" up to age 8 or so. If your child is in kindergarten, maybe it will settle out. Piano is a good idea for fine motor control, as could be taking drawing lessons, etc.
We have my son (who doesn't have dysgraphia) do the first two books of Handwriting Without Tears, a page a day, and his handwriting looks much, much better.

We were also told that reversals are very common through 2nd grade. Jack'smom's reply reminded me of something that might be worth considering. Once we had a dysgraphia diagnosis for our ds, we were told to try Handwriting at Tears at home to attempt to teach him the correct way to form each letter. Our neuropsych's recommendation was to work on HWOT for 20 minutes per session for several months over e summer. Our ds couldn't make it past 5 minutes without extreme hand pain and was never able to finish more than 1-2 lines of practice printing in the HWOT sheets.

If you were to try HWOT or a similar handwriting program at home and saw similar things, that would be a strong indication of dysgraphia.

I also think that's what "normal" has to be viewed in light of two extenuating circumstances for DeHe's ds - he has a dyslexic relative (genetics can be a clue) and his teachers have raised concern.

polarbear

It does sound like a great idea. Just keep in mind that if your DS does have dyslexia and/or dysgraphia it will NOT come easily. We pushed DD through two years of piano and it was a toss up as to who suffered more ;-) Dyslexia makes it very hard to read music and dysgraphia makes it hard to control your fingers. In theory, it sounds like a great exercise for all of those weaknesses. In reality, be prepared that it may be yet another battle ground.

(And I am soooooo pro-piano otherwise... I have my grade 9 RC, put myself through university by teaching and played piano/organ at church for 16 years. It broke my heart, but I had to let DD stop lessons)

Five minutes was about my son's limit for handwriting also and it still is even though he takes piano lessons and he did use a squeeze toy to strengthen his hands.

My son would occasionally reverse letters and numbers even after the age of 8. Sometimes he would do math and tell me the right answer as he was writing it but his 5 would be written backward and looked more like a 2. He didn't do it all the time, just occasionally. He never did it when the OT was testing him and he didn't have trouble learning to read, in fact he taught himself to read at 2 but couldn't read for very long because his eyes got tired quickly but would continue to identify the words if I spelled them out for him.

In piano his teacher has always had to highlight the right and left hand notes that are played together because of some strange vision issue that I have never been able to figure out and he would sometimes play a chord with the top and bottom notes reversed--some kind of vertical reversal thing and it tends to happen when he is getting a migraine but there are other days when he plays really well even though he didn't practice at all for a week. When he first started piano the teacher had him using an additional book that required writing but it was so hard for him to write small enough and in the lines that she stopped having him use it. She said she could teach him without using that book.

He couldn't practice as much as other kids could because of the pain and fatigue problem so his handwriting never really became as automatic as it should have but it is legible enough that if he has to fill out a form at a doctor's office he can do it. He will just have to type things that require a lot of writing.