How to help a child suffering from Dysgraphia?

One of the symptoms of dysgraphia is a child with handwriting that is poorer than what one would usually see in children of their intelligence, age, and educational level.

However, dysgraphia is not just messy papers. Students suffering from dysgraphia may also seem very lazy or unmotivated. Because they have so much trouble expressing their ideas and thoughts in writing, they may start to avoid writing completely. Dysgraphia may also make your little one avoid normal situations. For instance, does the child shy away from going to clubs or scouts because they may be asked to fill up applications or forms? Are they hesitant to participate in activities that comprise of writing, even tasks as easy and simple as signing their name? 

If so, then your homeschooling student is experiencing the anger, and frustration that dysgraphia may cause.

The many symptoms of Dysgraphia:

Like with all other learning difficulties, dysgraphia symptoms can range from severe to very mild, and the signs may vary depending on the child’s age.

In general, children with dysgraphia will have trouble with the following:

1. Spelling words correctly
2. Forming numbers, letters, and words
3. Organizing ideas and thoughts into written expression

To put it simply, dysgraphia can make the writing process very difficult, so children with this difficulty often have an easier time expressing thoughts verbally than writing them down.

Here are some other symptoms of dysgraphia:

1. Gripping the pencil in an awkward manner.
2. Quickly tires while writing
3. Writing is inconsistent, illegible, and has badly formed numbers and letters
4. Incorrect positioning and spacing of words, letters, and written text
5. Writing is labored and slow
6. Difficulty following grammar and spelling rules
7. Difficulty aligning number columns
8. Trouble with tasks that require concurrent thinking and writing

One of the first steps is compensation:

Compensation basically means helping a child “work around” their handwriting issues so that they can continue to learn. This will help reduce the stress that the little one is likely to experience, and also ensure that the student can keep on learning.

But the best way to compensate will depend on the age of the child and the subjects being studied.

A few ideas that may help:

1. Develop keyboarding skills. Instead of using pencil and paper use a keyboard to motivate your child to express their ideas and thoughts.
2. Work orally. A lot of assignments can be done orally.
3. Use speech-to-text applications and tools. There are several software that recognize speech. These tools permit the child’s work to be orally dictated and automatically translated into text.

Once the main pressure is off, it is time to work on your child’s penmanship.

Check for the right handwriting position

Since a lot of children with dysgraphia have wrong pencil grip and writing postures, it is important to get the child to learn the right handwriting position. Once this is sorted, make use of a well-researched handwriting program like, handwriting without tears to effectively tackle handwriting problems.

Remember, dysgraphia can be hard for your homeschooling student, make sure you let them learn in their own pace to avoid frustration.