Writing Difficulty-Dysgraphia

Open-Ended writing is usually not difficult for children on the “smooth road,”  the ones without the myriad of variables leading to school struggling.

For the “Smooth-Roaders” their sentences are complete and varied in style.    There is flow to their written stories generated and logic in their paragraphs.

With open-ended writing, children are given some type of prompt, such as, “write about your favorite trip,” or “write about your weekend.”

It is open-ended, because it can go in any direction.  The idea is that the children will tap into their creative selves and be able to express themselves on paper.

However, for those children on the rougher road, the ones with a variety of learning problems, open-ended writing is brutal on many levels.

Here’s an excerpt from a writing sample of an 8 year old writing about his favorite vacation:

“Uurvl is a ghat pls for a sekal reris.  At first jassit park miat besley but the seord time you go it is cool…..Evening no it’s the slisy rias in the park it goes with Dr. serrl!  Thes saren is call serrl laanring.  Lastly, I’ll talk about the qrslins.  Tars go lef and rert and lef and rert and, you get the ideas. There are sehal rrenis why I love going to uurvl.”

Or there was the 9 year old who wrote a story to a picture that he had drawn:

“Once aqha time ther was a boy namd levi he lived in a hog house and it was so mosh fon. and he livel in lll borenrom lahe.  And he had loss of frahs and naders.  The End.”

In screenings of their cognitive and intellectual capabilities, both of these kids demonstrated at least average cognitive potential.

Neither child was classified or receiving any type of service or official accommodation under a 504 Plan.

When the parents questioned what they should do they were told by the school to “read to your child.”  There was also the veiled suggestion of putting the child on medication, “even though we are not doctors.”

For these children, reading to them or medicating them will not accomplish much relative to their fundamental inability to write.

Continuing with any open-ended writing will be particularly problematic,  as they have no concept of what a sentence is and their spelling is severely impacting their thought process.For them, the concept of what represents a basic sentence is not something they have been taught or internalized and they are in need of intense, focused remedial instruction,

I usually dwell in metaphors or basic images that help to put things to parents in down-to-earth terms.

The metaphor of taking them back to the shallow end of the pool is fully applicable.  They need to spend a lot of time in the shallow end of the pool (writing simple and basic sentences) and then incrementally moving out beyond, one baby step at a time.

Instead of encouraging creativity and “write what you feel,” they need to practice at the most simplistic levels building on a logical sequence of one skill leading to another.

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In my office I sometimes feel like I am in an outpost of the galaxy.  Messages come in periodically informing us of things going on in the schools, such as, “All the kids are now getting Chromebooks for writing.”

Out in my corner of the universe, I just scratch my head and wonder how something like Chromebooks is really going to help kids who struggle to learn how to write.

I see the use of Chromebooks as fun and they probably help kids become more technologically literate (not that they really need it, as most of them seem pretty literate as far as technology goes), but how does it help kids become competent writers?

For the 60% of those that I referred to on the positive side of the bell-shaped curve, Chromebook or even a  nubby pencil and paper can probably work fine for them in terms of being able to generate a solid paragraph or a three paragraph essay.

A second grade child who had no learning problems recently wrote this as part of a classroom exercise:

“Shells work great with mulch.  Mulch is wood, sand and mussel shells that go over the dirt to keep the soil wet and keeps weeds from growing.  That is what happened at the end of the story after Grace asks about the shells.”

The words were nicely spaced and there were clear punctuation marks. (The writing was completed with a nubby pencil, I might add.)

Contrast this with Charles who was also a second grader, writing about something funny that happened in school. When I asked 8 and a half year old Charles to write a story that had a beginning, middle and end  about something funny that happened  in school he told me, the following:

“When my totoere read what I root it made me lauhg so hard I could not stop”

For the kids with learning problems, those in the 30-40% group, neither Chromebook nor paper and pencil are effective medium for them since writing is hard no matter what.   Whether it’s old technology (a pencil with an eraser was at one time a cutting edge technology) or modern technology like a Chromebook, without direct instruction the child will be at a loss as to how to organize his/her thoughts into a solid paragraph.

Direct instruction means that the child will be directly taught discrete skills that will be practiced to mastery.  For the first child who wrote about mussel shells and mulch, it looks like she has a pretty good grasp of sentence and paragraph structure.  This child can already engage with open-ended writing.

Not so, young Charles.  For him, focusing on simple sentences for a while would be a good way for him to go.  Let him master writing basic sentences and after he’s done that he can write more complex sentences, ultimately leading up to the writing if a paragraph.

Takeaway Point

Sentences can be practiced on Chromebook or with an old school technology like paper and pencil.  It really doesn’t matter. What matters is recognizing that kids who struggle with writing, need patient, direct instruction to be practiced over time to mastery.

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Those  of you who have been following Shut-Down learner for a while know that I have a bit of an obsession with kids’ writing.  It’s true.  I am endlessly fascinated by the writing samples that they generate.

When I look at a writing sample, usually I know immediately whether something is going on with the child.  Somewhat like the courts ruling on obscenity (“I know it when I see it.”), the same is true with writing.  (“ I know a problem when I see it.”)

Unfortunately, most of the standardized writing tests on the market are pretty useless to me.  I don’t find them to be particularly helpful or reliable, so I prefer to obtain what are called “informal,” or non-standardized writing samples.  For my purposes informal samples are very helpful.  They give me insight into the level of struggling.

Here’s one from young Aiden, a spunky 10 year old boy receiving no remediation who came in to see me recently.  I asked Aiden to tell me a story about something funny that happened in school.

The Game

Once I was playing on the playgrown then I heard a group of people lafing.  So I went over to the, ang sed why?

They seid because of a game.  One purson ses what’s doing.  The purson sess eating chocle. The other pusron ses whare you get . then the purson seas dogy droped it.  Then they all lafed.

Aiden’s parents were frustrated to hear something they had heard every grade, “Spelling doesn’t really matter.  He can use spell check.”

Years ago, a neurologist I held in very high regard, Dr. Martha Denkla, said to about 500 of us sitting in the audience in her down-to-earth way,  “It’s like these kids with these problems (i.e., reading, spelling and writing) are not tuned in to the language – somewhat like not having an ‘ear’ for music.”

Yep, Aiden’s playing some pretty screechy music here and he doesn’t even know it.

To him, the words as they are just fall out of his pen and somehow land on the page in whatever form they are  in and whatever combination of words  or letter order.

Going forward, to make any inroad , Aiden needs to be brought back to easier levels to  learn the “notes and the chords.”  Then he needs to put them together in little tiny phrases, leading to simple sentences, to lead to more complex sentences and the writing of a coherent paragraph..  The Aidens of the world need to be taught directly and explicitly.

It’s slow, hard work, but I don’t know any way around it.

Takeaway Point

Aiden’s 10.  There’s still time.

But as Yogi said, “It’s getting late early.”

Let’s say a child knows a few notes and chords on the piano and can play a handful of very basic songs. Would it make sense to ask him to play a challenging song that was clearly beyond his level? Or even learn the art of creating music using great software from Amidio?

I don’t think so. I think it would create undue frustration. Best to get him set up on some proper piano stools and keep him on the basics, so that in time they can approach the more difficult compositions with confidence.

Well, young Ethan, age 10, isn’t taking piano lessons, but his writing class approaches the teaching of writing very similar to the above scenario. Ethan does not really know how to write a sentence, but every day or so he is asked to write to an open-ended essay.

Heres a recent writing sample Ethan completed to a picture prompt:

On a Saturday morning a dog broke from a leash it was Jays leash then the dog ran ascrost the street tom turned in his car he hit the frie hydren water went evry were Tom got up and complained to Jay about keep your dog on the leash then the teacher go t up from the car the police offerrer gave them a ticket.

Then there is the sample from 9 year old Jake when asked to write an essay about his favorite thing

My favrit thing to do is lern about spas. Spas is one thing I love. I like spas bechas I can larn about the Sun and all of the Planets and when the end the world is end. And I am not ciding about the end of the end of the world bechas siantists have Prof of it. Bechas of the suns Pul gravity the erth will be Puld into the sun ubilleen yers. They are sum reshens I lick to larn about Spase.

(Keep in mind that the typed samples above, do not do justice to the actual samples in terms of the way the words were organized on the page. They were very hard to decipher in terms of basic legibility.)

For both of these kids Occupational Therapy (OT) has been the only recommendation to address their writing. They each have had OT.

Doing more fine-motor exercises is not where the action is for them.

What they do need is good, structured instruction that will teach them how to write a sentence. Once the skill of writing a sentence is internalized and mastered, they may be able to work at the paragraph level. The ability to write a solid paragraph takes a lot of time and practice.

Getting back to the comparison of playing music, looking at these samples above, do you really feel that just doing more of it (open-ended writing) will result in improved skill with written expression?

I dont.

Its the equivalent of learning a few simple chords on the piano and then playing a very basic song. Anything more than that is simply too frustrating resulting in a product that receives a poor grade and leaves the child unnecessarily discouraged.