This Spelling Moment Brought To You By Dysgraphia

The above is life at our house. At first glance you might think this was DragonFly's spelling test, and you would be correct, but it is also more than that. It was my test, too.

I started out this test by telling DragonFly to get out a sheet of paper. He asked if he could use pen. Normally I would have said no because he has to erase so much when using pencil. I figured a pen would be a nightmare. For some reason, I said, "Sure." The first word, eat, went okay. The second word, please, became a study in frustration. He made an f. He knew it wasn't a p. He made a 9. Then his letters were all out of order. The lid blew off the top and the crying started.

DragonFly, you know how to spell this word. We've spelled it everyday this week with the tiles. What's the problem? At this point I'm just as frustrated as he is. Silent thoughts swirl in my head. "He's behind. Is he ever going to get this?" He's thinking, "I can't do this! Why is everything so hard?"

Then I had an epiphany.

DragonFly, you DO know how to spell this word. Your hand just doesn't know how.

DragonFly looked up at me with something like, "Yeah, right. You're nuts, Mom."

I know you are upset but look at momma. Do you know how many steps it takes to write down a spelling word? Did I know how many steps it takes him to write down a spelling word? Let's think about it. 

1. You have to hear me say the word the right way to you.
2. You have to hold it in your head long enough to think about it.
3. You have to try and get a picture of the word in your head. (And he fails...)
4. You have to start breaking down the sounds, asking yourself if that one sound is made with one letter or two letters or even more?
5. You have to ask yourself if there are tricksy letters that you can't hear.
6. Your brain has to send all those individual letters on a train down your arm all the way to your fingers.
7. While the train is traveling you have to remember the word and the sounds and the letters that you really can't see in your head.
8. Your hand has to understand what your brain just told it to do.
9. Your hand had to keep all those letters that came on the train straight. Sometimes the train cars get all mixed up and the letters are jumbled.
10. Not only does your hand have to remember all those letters in the right order, but it has to remember how to form all those letters physically. You can't see them in your head so it is a bit like trying to remember a long string of oral directions on how to draw something (try that sometime).
11. Then and finally your hand muscles have to actually move the way your brain is telling them to move, and we know that hand doesn't always like to do that. After all that is why we spent a lot of time on small hand coordination exercises.

So I KNOW your brain knows how to spell these words. Let's see how we can help you get the information to your hand better.

How about if you TELL your hand what to do? You know, out loud?

DragonFly says, "Okay, we can try that. Maybe my hand will listen then."

DragonFly spell "please" for me.

DragonFly starts spelling out loud...P - L - E - A - S and I have to add the E so that please doesn't look plural (a rule we learned). 

Awesome! Let's see if your hand will write it now.

And what you see above is the result.

If we had stayed with pencil, I would have just let him erase and erase and erase.

That's what I mean by that spelling test being my test. Every day in our house is like that. I'm learning too. I've read just about everything I can get my hands on about dyslexia and dysgraphia, but the best way to teach DragonFly isn't found in a book. It is found in patience, persistence, and lots of prayer.

I had one happy child at the end of that spelling test.

We both earned gold stars (this time).


Disclaimer - I have to say it so here goes. None of the above constitutes professional advice and should not be used in informally diagnosing your child. If you suspect your child is a atypical learner please pursue a professional evaluation.