Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Alternative learning methods for 2E

Instead of having my son, who has handwriting difficulties, do worksheets or copy things from a board for language arts, I let him type paragraphs from books he enjoys. I don't get mad if he changes the words around a little to make a funny, which he often does, just so long as he uses proper punctuation. He enjoys this and is able to type very well now. He would not use the typing program I got for him to learn to type a couple of years ago. He developed his own method, first one-handed, then using both hands. Somehow, he learned to type quickly--I am guessing about 50 wpm. My husband told me that his older highly gifted son from a previous marriage also taught himself how to type when he was young but insisted on doing it his own way and once tested at over 100 wpm, but my husband's older son did not have sensory or motor issues to deal with. I am happy that my son can type as fast as he can. There is no way that my son could write that fast or write that much, so I haven't been having him practice handwriting as much as I probably should. The doctor even recommended having him learn to type two years ago and it worked so well that I just haven't had him write that much any more.

How long should a kid with handwriting problems practice? I'm sure I will be asked about this when he sees the doctor.

The doctor might ask me how he learns the boring rote memorization things like spelling and I haven't decided if I should tell her about letting him do this while playing video games. He is learning an average of 100 words a week this way. He says he has to keep his mind active and he has always been able to do things like listen to the news while playing games in another room and remember more of it than I do. He told me yesterday that if he doesn't do something like video games while doing something boring, he makes up stuff like changing letters of words around in his head to see if he can make anagrams--even while he listens to people speak. He wanted to know if this was weird. He was worried that other people might think it was strange.

Tell him for me that this isn't weird, but it isn't what most people have to do. And it's a wonderful skill to be able to "turn up the interest" on dull problems by adding his own challenge. That's one of the key differences between GT kids who can hack school and those who can't. Not that school is his concern, but in adult life there are plenty of dull, have to jobs, and being able to make a game of it might be the difference between doing ones taxes and jail. ((wink))

Honsestly if you could get him to do handwriting practice for 3 good minutes a day, will full consentration, and he really did it, you would see some improvement. If you throw in one fun hand strengthening activity (holding the stylus on the Nintendo DS while playing "My Word Coach"? for 4 minutes I'll bet that would help even more.

I'm so glad that you have found work-arounds that work for your son. My hat is off to you and I am waving and cheering for you!

Trinity

Thank you, Trinity.

We have thought about getting "My Word Coach." I think that is a good idea. He liked Brain Age. But first he will have to buy a new Nintendo DS because his old one broke.

And now, for the rest of the story. I only posted about the "easier" problems I deal with, the ones that I have found some solutions for or found really good advice. I didn't have a chance to post the rest of it.

I think my son probably has some kind of dysgraphia, along with his vestibular and proprieceptive issues, and we hope to get a diagnosis in January when he sees the developmental pediatrician that he last saw two years ago at age 7. He was reversing some letters and numbers when he was tested then, but we were told to try Handwriting without Tears and since this did help with spacing issues and legibility, I thought his handwriting was as good as it was going to get and, of course, typing solved a lot of our problems. My son only reverses letters and numbers when he is tired, stressed, or distracted and he seems to be doing okay learning the Handwriting without Tears cursive.

But... we have not solved the problems that writing issues cause with math. Aleks lets him move forward as he learns new concepts quickly and he is doing middle school math and he even seems to like it, but it tests him regularly over the material he has learned. When it comes to things like long division and multiplication where he can't use a calculator he gets very upset that he has to do all of the writing because then he has to make sure that the 2's he has written are really 2's and not a 5 that he wrote backwards and then lining the numbers up is more difficult for him than other kids. He has always been able to do a lot of math calculations mentally but I know he will have to do a lot more writing in math as he progresses, so I have been making him do his own writing.

I homeschool, but I have read things on teachers.net about similar kids and most teachers do not understand this problem and some describe kids like mine as lazy because they resist doing a lot of written work. I can't imagine being a bright kid with this problem in our public school. I want to help my son but he gets upset with me to the point that he yells at me and wads up the paper and throws it out of frustration. He gets upset with me when I don't know how to answer his questions like "why can't I do it this way if I come up with the right answer?" He insults my intelligence because I don't have a good enough understanding of math to be able to answer all of this questions. I got upset when he told me he wanted a math tutor and I told him I would put him back in school and his "math tutor" would be a special ed teacher who would have to figure out what to do with him. I know this was a terrible thing to say, but I just lost it. There is just so much stress in our family right now and as a verbally gifted kid he knows how to push my buttons.

I so wish we could just be unschoolers. This would work well for language arts (since he can type) and history and science and just about everything, but there is no way he would do math on his own because of his writing problems. I lurk on their message boards and they sound like they are having so much fun with their kids and...

I am definitely not having much fun at the moment.

My husband, who is retiring from a very stressful job and is home a lot more now until he finds another job, says he hopes he can find another job quickly because he doesn't want to listen to this.

I have no advice to offer but I just wanted to wish you strength and good luck.

The only thing I can think by the way is maybe it is worth to check his eye vision, especially eye coordination and tracking.

I really hope things get better soon.

Oh Lori H!
I feel your pain! For a while I did scibing for Math, because I felt my son's messy writing was holding him back. Yes there was yelling (we now call it "other-directed perfectionism") tears and threats! I call it the balanced-push. I believe you when you say you can't unschool.

here's what helped.
I scribed until he couldn't stand it, then we took turns.
I let him use a calculator sometimes.
I had him turn the notebook paper sideways, so the lines could keep him lined up.
I insisted that he use one page for each problem. It helps to say, over and over, "Trees love to die to be made into paper for math problems."
If he was getting slowed down by errors, he would do the problem, I would check it with a claculator, and tell him if he got it wrong, so he had a chance to do it over, without the penelty of having to do so many more.

Aleks was wonderful for us because it convinsed him of the value of slowing down, checking his work, and writing down steps. I made the deal that he could use the calculator to check any written down step.

I've never tried this, but how about you ask him to come up with a neumonic device to seperate 2 from 5. Such as color in the bottom of the 5s - Maybe that would help?

((big hugs))
trinity

I asked my son to show me how he wanted to do the division problems, because the way he was doing them was different from the way I had been taught and the way the books said to do it and because he was doing some of it mentally and I couldn't see what he was doing.

Example: 984 divided by 37. Instead of using estimation and multiplication to solve the problem he counts by 37's mentally until he finds how many times it will go into 98 and so on. No estimation involved and no having to multiply it out and change your answer if you didn't get it right the first time. He also does the subtraction mentally so there is no regrouping. He just writes the answer. He usually does get the answer right but if he doesn't, I can't quickly tell where he went wrong because I am not as good with mental math.

Maybe I should let him use a calculator to check his answer. He hates to be wrong.

My husband told me he has always done division this way (my son says it is obvious he inherited his dad's math genes) and can't see a problem with it. He told me when he was in school he was chosen by his school to compete in an interscholastic regional math competition when he was only in 8th grade and all the others were high school students. My husband never had handwriting problems--he just found it easier to do things his way.

When my son does problems that involve order of operations he is able to remember the PEMDAS rules and can even solve some of those problems mentally, but again if he doesn't write anything down and he gets something wrong, I can't tell what he did wrong.

I can see where a dysgraphic kid might benefit by using as much mental math as possible.

As far as writing backwards 5s occasionally, I think it is some kind of quirky left-right confusion thing that comes out when he is tired or distracted. I have noticed that he is still somewhat ambidextrous and will use both his right and left hands to eat.

Your DS's way seems like a lot more efficient method than the estimating, Lori H. I was always annoyed when doing long division if I guessed wrong the first time and had to erase. I like his way better!

I just found some helpful advice in the May/June 2007 issue of the 2e Newsletter. Advice like "Let students discover their own methods of problem solving and do not insist that students show their work." "So I guess I don't need to worry about the math differences.

I have also been doing a lot of reading about motor dyspraxia and so many things seem to fit my son--visual motor integration and handwriting problems, not crawling when he was a baby, sensory issues, hypotonia, motor planning issues, lack of interest in doing puzzles (except online), and difficulty learning a sequence of dance steps, occasional left/right confusion, the tracking issues he used to have, and even the headaches. I even found "momentary lack of oxygen" at birth listed as a possible cause and I have always wondered if his difficult birth was the reason for his difficulties. There is no family history of anything like this, so my son even asked once if I thought it was because of a genetic mutation and has jokingly referred to himself as a "freak and a geek" because of his differences. It would be really nice to finally have a diagnosis and hopefully we will get one in a few weeks.

((prayers for you, Lori H))

Hi Lori H.:

It sounds like following the 2E newsletter on problem solving and showing work will cut down on some of the arguments and tension!

Good luck!

bk