Plus we have been worried about dyslexia / dysgraphia in his case so all that together just scares me. Everything else comes so easy to him, he's extremely verbal but other than knowing some sight words, reading and writing is a very strange world to him. He knows phonetic rules but can't use them, a lot of letter reversals, writing mirror images of letters, etc. The whole reading / writing thing is why we even put him to Kindergarten. Otherwise he'd be homeschooled for now but I want to make sure professionals can pick up on any LDs if there are any to worry about.
Mk13, as the parent of a dysgraphic student, I would think the challenge of relying on a K-1 teacher to pick up that dysgraphia is an issue is going to be complicated whether or not they are correcting spelling. The challenge in recognizing dysgraphia at that grade level and age is that there are going to be completely neurotypical students who also are reversing letters and not developmentally ready to spell correctly.
I am not sure if there is a link for it anywhere online, but when my ds was in early
elementary his teachers had a handout they gave parents that showed in pictures, with a description in words, how writing typically develops in young children. The stages included lines of scribbling to writing letters one at a time, to the disappearance of reversals up through correct spelling. If you could find a resource that describes and illustrates the Pre-writing through early writing stages and compare them to your ds' writing development that might be more revealing than waiting for a teacher to recognize signs of dysgraphia. I remember not thinking much of it when I first saw it because my ds had done nothing like it in his development, and then realizing as my younger kids went through learning to write that their development totally matched those stages - and they are not dysgraphic
Can you ask your school to do any testing? I am not sure if the TOWL would help but it might - what I'm not sure about is the age range and if a child needs to be 6 before taking it. If your school can administer something like the Woodcock Johnson Achievement Tests that include timed and untimed and oral vs handwritten or drawn responses that can also be used as a flag for potential dysgraphia
It's possible your ds teachers will be proactive or recognize signs early, but our experience was that every time we asked about letter reversals and spelling etc from K-2nd grade we were always told by ds' teachers that it was completely age-appropriate and not something to worry about until 3rd grade. I wish I'd known enough back then to know that it could mean something more because we lost a lot of time and ds became increasingly stressed out and frustrated with school to the point of having panic attacks, all because his teachers and parents didn't realize how difficult it was for him to write.
Best Wishes,
polarbear
