We'll try to add some more articles about writing and dysgraphia later this week - but here's one for starters. We'll also attach pdf files of small and large box graph paper that you can print out and use if it helps with math work.

What It Takes to Write

Signs of Dysgraphia

- Incomplete work
- Homework Wars - hours to complete short assignments
- Irregularly written letters, poor spacing, poor spelling and grammar
- Persistent reversals after the age of 7
- Negative self-talk, Hiding work
- Writing can be neat, but very slow!
- Close visual monitoring while writing
- Beyond early elementary school, dictation much better than writing
- Trouble writing the alphabet

There are many factors that influence fluent, automatic writing, and careful analysis of written work can help target how you might be able to help.

Copying Letters

Writing often starts with individual letters - and even simple letter copying requires visual perception (seeing the letter, recognizing spatial relationships), fine motor coordination (hold the pen), motor imitation (imitating the movement making the line), motor inhibition (stopping movement at the appropriate time), and sensory and visual feedback (to monitor accuracy of movements and correct errors visually).

In order to copy letters quickly, a child also has to be able to quickly recall how to position fingers to hold a pencil, the sensory-motor plans for the making of the letter, and the correct directionality of the movement.

Copying Words

Copying words requires all of the skills above, but it is also more demanding visually (looking up at the example, then down at the writing in progress, accurate reading of letters in their correct order) and spatially (correct orientation and spacing between letters), and when performed quickly, visual memory for the letters in sequence.

Free Writing

Free writing is a much more challenging task than copying, because it requires much more in terms of memory and planning. When a big gap exists between copying words and being able to write them to dictation, students usually have problems with their visual word memory or a limited working memory.

Working memory is a short term type of memory that helps keep information "in mind" to finish a task. In some children long term memory may be strong, but working memory weak - so that they can learn very well as long as some care is taken how tasks are undertaken or presented.

With story or non-fiction writing, writing in response to prompts or otherwise, cognitive demands now include formulate ideas, translating them into words, retrieving correct word meaning, spelling, sentence organization and grammar conventions, and the other mechanics of writing - how letters look and how they are formed, etc.

Sometimes students with clear-cut talents in their fund of knowledge or verbal ability appear stymied because they don't know how or where to begin with answering an open-ended question.

It should come as no surprise, then that many students who dutifully practiced copying letters and sentences, might meltdown when asked to do their first spontaneously written work. When this occurs, parents and teachers should look for ways to break out the different steps of the writing process - single word dictation, fill-in the blank word choice, narrated responses, etc. to chunk the process into smaller steps.

For writer's block, parents and teachers may need to be more ingenious, tapping into student's interests, strong opinions, or sense of humor. Children with organizational challenges may benefit from writing curricula that show plenty of examples, and step-wise practice with persuasive or colorful writing.