/ /

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia

Homeschooling a child with dysgraphia can be complicated, especially because so few resources exist to support a dysgraphic child. This behind the scenes look illustrates the reality of homeschooling a child with dysgraphia and includes resources to help.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia

In all my years of public school, the only bad grade I ever received on a report card was in handwriting.

I got a ‘D’. I had straight A’s in every other subject and a ‘D’ in handwriting. (My cursive tends to go straight up and down, and this was back in the day where cursive wasn’t cursive if it didn’t slant perfectly to the right.)

I was devastated. I begged my teacher to help me improve my grade. He was kind and took pity on me. He handed me a set of worksheets with lines to practice and told me, “If you work hard and complete these, I will raise your grade for your diligence alone.”

I think I cried with pure relief.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia

Last week, my high-schooler and I once again sat down together to practice his signature. At this point, it’s the only thing I require him to hand write – and even this, some days, is too much.

I am not dysgraphic. I just don’t have very slanty handwriting. You can easily read what I write (most of the time). I actually enjoyed practicing my swirly signature when I was my son’s age. For me, completing those worksheets in fifth grade was boring but achievable. It was simple.

For  my children however, there is no simple solution. A handful of worksheets would never be beneficial for their needs. In fact, most of the time, it would be counterproductive.

Both have dysgraphia and it is a part of how we homeschool every single day.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look

What Is Dysgraphia?

Dysgraphia, according to AdditudeMag.com can be identified in the following ways:

  • A learning disability that affects handwriting and fine motor skills.
  • It interferes with spelling, word spacing, and the general ability to put thoughts on paper.
  • It makes the process of writing laboriously slow with the end results often being impossible to read.

When the act of forming letters requires so much effort that a child forgets what he wanted to say in the first place, it’s not surprising that children with dysgraphia often hate to write, and resist doing so.

In real life, this translates into very specific and ongoing issues with writing, including basic handwriting and spacing as well as the actual ability to compose phrases and sentences in a coherent fashion.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look

What Does Dysgraphia Look Like In School Aged Children?

Although this list is not inclusive, here are some of the signs of dysgraphia in school-aged children.

  • Illegible writing (even without a time limit)
  • Inconsistencies between print and cursive, upper and lowercase, or size, shape, and slant of letters
  • Unfinished words or letters
  • Cramped, unusual grip
  • Holding the writing instrument very close to the paper
  • Holding the thumb over two fingers
  • Using the wrist for movement
  • Expression which does not reflect the child’s other abilities in language and vocabulary

If your child is dyspgraphic, you are probably nodding in recognition and agreement right now. 

The truth is, most of the time, dysgraphia looks like  a combination of all of these.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look

When I stop to think about it, I realize how complex writing really is. So many things need to happen, almost simultaneously, in order for us to effectively express ourselves in written form.

We need to think of the words we want to say, recall the letters to spell them, use our hands and fingers to write them, all the while maintaining the overall thought of what we are trying to express.

Accommodations For Dysgraphia

Because of the complexity of the processes involved in writing, there are multiple accommodations that can be employed to help a child with dysgraphia – all focused on targeting a different element of the writing process.

In our house, accommodations include:

  1. A scribe (that would be me) for ease of expression
  2. The option to type vs. hand write almost any assignment
  3. Extra time (in fact, as much time as needed)
  4. Different pencils, pens and paper (For example: my oldest prefers writing with sharpie markers. The thickness of the marker makes it easier for him to control.)
  5. Writing activities for kids that are centered around topics of interest.

This is perhaps, one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling a child with dysgraphia. While these types of accommodations are available to children in school with a diagnosed disorder of written expression, they can be cumbersome and embarrassing for the child. It’s a non-issue at home.

Adaptive Technology

As my boys grow older, the need to move past the constant handwriting practice and pen grips is clear. Because we are looking for independance in learning and in life, we have also started to use adaptive technology to help my youngest son.

This includes speech to text (and text to speech) software on his laptop. He also now has a phone that allows for speech to text in almost every capacity. He can search for items, look up how to spell words, and even text his friend, all with the sound of his voice.

Again, the advantage of homeschooling is that my dysgraphic children can employ these technological aides without any paperwork or meetings. There is no embarrassment associated with needing to use these helps.

At home, it is just simply how we learn.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look

Activities For Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia

These are the activities and ideas that I have found to be most helpful, specifically in helping my children with their differences in writing.

This is perhaps the greatest benefit of homeschooling my kiddos. Using hands-on, interactive learning activities that require more action than writing help both of my children not only learn the concepts, but retain them as well.

Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look
Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look
Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look
Homeschooling A Child With Dysgraphia: A Behind The Scenes Look

Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia: Homeschooling The 3 D’s

This post is part of an ongoing series all about Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia.

homeschooling dyslexia

In the coming weeks, we will be taking an in-depth look at dyscalculia, as well as all the best resources available for families homeschooling children with dyslexia, dygraphia and/or dyscalculia.

Similar Posts

12 Comments

  1. Thank you for this. I’m homeschooling 2 children with dysgraphia and would love to hear about how you handled the accommodations with the transition to college.

    1. I have been thinking about doing a live session (recorded as well) with moms to talk about all the college stuff, once my oldest is back in school next month. I will keep you posted!

    2. My daughter records all of her college lectures with her phone and uses speech to text for writing her papers and even her discussion answers for online courses. Speech to text has been a lifesaver. She lives at home, so I still edit most of her work because she often misses the errors that speech to text makes.

      1. Having access to assistive tech is such an amazing gift (I am the editor as well here!).

  2. Excellent series topic. As the parent of a dysgraphic teen, I agree, there is simply not enough information about Dysgraphia, nor are there easy to find lists of the resources (technology and otherwise) available to help kids and families address and support and relieve the challenges Dysgraphia brings.

    1. Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia are so hard to find resources for! I think there will be more in time (I can’t believe how much more there is for dyslexia now vs. ten years ago) but in the meantime, we moms have to figure this out as we go.

  3. Shawna,
    Thank you so much for all of this! So helpful as I try to navigate homeschooling my quirky 3. I’d like to start a typing program with my 3rd grader. Do you have any advice or favorites to share as I search?

      1. Thanks so much!

  4. This is a great. My 11yo has all these difficulties and more. So often I don’t want a notice if web pages are updated, but I would love to read any updates that come out. Unknown I will forget this page in no time, even though I don’t want to.

  5. How are you teaching doing his signature?

    1. We practice it a few times and talk about the importance of consistency.

Comments are closed.