Dysgraphia?

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Answer:

Generally speaking, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia are closely related aspects of disability. Dyslexia affects the ability to learn to read, dysgraphia the ability to process writing, and dyscalculia affects a child's ability to do mathematical calculations.

Often a child has difficulty in one or more areas, but typically one area is notably more severe than the others and that is where the "primary" disability lies.

Since your child can now read well, I would say.. Yes, it PROBABLY is dysgraphia. As recommended by Stacy, Handwriting Without Tears is an excellent program for getting started. You may also find it beneficial to teach your child keyboarding skills. Depending on the age, Disney has a "fun" typing program, and older children like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. About 15 minutes per day will suffice for advancement, but the work must be done daily or ground will be lost.

Also, for a child with dysgraphia, it is often difficult for them to formulate their ideas, organize them in their mind, then go through the physical process of putting the information onto paper. It is too much for their brains to process and hold simultaneously and they loose their thoughts in the process of trying to write. It is extremely beneficial for learning to avoid writing during the remedial period. In other words, write for remediation purposes, but let the child dictate their answers to other schoolwork requiring writing. The children can often dictate wonderful ideas, stories, and answers to questions when writing is taken out of the equation. Thus, you do not want to slow their learning in all other subject areas by requiring tedious amounts of writing. Once the child is remediated, writing will come more readily, but will likely always be a relatively disliked task.

Hope that helps!
Sandy
http://www.LearningAbledKids.com/

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