Writing Difficulty-Dysgraphia

On Writing, Chromebooks & Nubby Pencils

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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The Writing Road: Write On, Write On

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.”

 

 

Overcoming Early Writing Malaise

Open-ended writing can be dreadfully difficult for school-struggling children.  Many kids, especially in the early grades, find the task of writing to be overwhelming on a variety of levels.  Typically, schools recommend occupational therapy (OT) to address the issue.

While OT is a valid approach to start with, it really addressed to the lowest level of the process-defined-motor/motor-planning aspects of writing.

The problem is, beyond this level children often feel at a loss and the need much more guided and direct instruction.  To address writing difficulty, the intervention/remedial program needed is involved and follows a similar sequence to the structured, multisensory reading programs that are a part of the Orton-Gillingham methodologies.

With such structured approaches a child would be started at the smallest possible sentence level, that is a two-word sentences.  Children would be trained to see that every sentence has at least a square (now) and a triangle (verb).

 

Fish                        Swim.

(square)                 (triangle)

Kids would be practicing the mastery of two-word sentences before moving on to more complex 1’s.  When they have this skill mastered they can add other elements to the sentence, with the sentence such as the following:

The lively Fish swim.

(circle) (diamond) (square) (triangle)                

The corresponding shapes which would be on a white board in the form of manipulatives  provide children with tangible, visual anchors and allows them to understand that sentences have component parts.

The simple level of sentence structure would be practiced in many different ways with some variation to keep it interesting.  From there, more complex sentences can be introduced.

Once different sentence styles are mastered, the child can work on the concept of one paragraph, with a topic sentence and four or five supporting sentences.  This approach would represent a highly sequential skill-mastery approach to writing development and is contrary to the more popular open-ended approach that is the norm across the country.

To some, such an approach may not be seen as much fun, but it is an approach that the struggling 40%  of the school population can get their minds are around.

By practicing with smaller, digestible bites, the child can gain a sense of confidence that he or she does not typically experience with open-ended writing.

Adapted:  “School Struggles,” Richard Selznick, Ph.D. (Sentient Publications, 2012)

Development Rules

To finish out the week, I am going to make a simplistic point, but one that I think is often forgotten.

Development rules.

To illustrate, let’s forget disabilities for second.  Let’s say your 7 year old is one of those Science Channel kids who knows everything about everything – you know, swamps, reptiles, dinosaurs, and planets just to start. Your family and friends are amazed by his encyclopedic knowledge.

Yet, you wonder if he doesn’t have a disability like “dysgraphia” because the teacher noted, “His writing just doesn’t reflect his knowledge.”

Of course it doesn’t.  It’s a rare smart 7 year old whose writing can match his/her knowledge base.

Froom what I can tell, since writing has been a part of the school curriculum, 7 or 8 year olds were never expected to be able to produce extensively in written expression.  One good, well-constructed paragraph with a few complete sentences was always the developmental capability of these kids. (Think back to the Mother’s day letters you used to write your mother in elementary school.  Maybe she’s saved some and you should read them again to remind yourself.)

The fact that the child  can  talk a “blue streak” about lizards, ecosystems and planets is irrelevant.  Development in writing takes a long time to catch up to the child’s knowledge.

Take Away Point:

Think development first before wondering about “dysgraphia.”

“And the Beat Goes On…And the Beat Goes On”

Directions to Child on Worksheet:

Look back and Write:   Look back at the question on page 99.  Think about the most important events that happened in the story.  Now write a response to the question.  Be sure to include details from a story to support your answer.

 

Response from Child:

“Kumak got to us the amasin hoking stick that colt mor fish then ene wun in the werd all the   tawns peopoll hed to the poll all the fish in the lack had the pulld all the tawn pepel got a fish.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that this 8 year old was seen to be ineligible for getting tested.  He was, “doing fine in school.”

 

Take Away Point:

“And the beat goes on…and the beat goes on.”

“OT” for Writing: Step One – What’s Next?

When children struggle with written expression, “OT,” or Occupational Therapy appears to be the go to recommendation that is often given.

Writing has been shown to be the single most complex skill domain of the academic process.   The following quote from “Developmental  Variations & Learning Disorders” says it well:

“The transmission of thoughts onto paper calls for a delicate and highly complex process of neurodevelopmental integration.   Writing necessitates synchronizing all of the developmental functions (described in part I).  Writing is a final common pathway of these functions, a confluence of processes demanding attention, spatial and sequential production, mnemonic facility, language ability and motor skill.”

Motor skills (the skills targeted in OT) are the tip of the iceberg.   It’s a good first step.  What’s the next step?  Most of the time, I am not hearing the next step.  I only hear about the child getting, “OT.”

Beyond OT, a child needs much more remediation to address their deficits in writing (which are becoming more and more pervasive with the kids I am seeing).

For some time I have been beating a drum (although I understand no one is really listening), that a child struggling with writing needs to work first at the sentence level and master the skill of writing a good sentence before moving on to more complex operations.

Analogous to reading remediation, a child needs to work at very simplistic levels initially, derive a sense of mastery and then move forward to higher levels of complexity.

Most of the kids that I assess have little ability to understand what goes into writing a sentence or a paragraph, so to have them writing lengthy essays is way beyond them. It’s somewhat like asking someone to lift 25lb weights when they can barely lift 10lbs.

Takeaway Point:

Once your child has a had a good dose of “OT” to address his or her writing, ask, “Now what?  What’s next?”

What’s next needs to be the heavy lifting of writing remediation.

‘Rubrics – Shmubrics:” Absurdities in Kiddy Land

Writing rubrics are familiar to most parents these days.  The rubrics are the criteria used to assess a range of writing skills for a child.

Here’s a writing rubric that was handed to me recently for David, a child who I was going to assess.  On a four scale rubric, David was given a score.  As it turns out, David’s score was the lowest level of functioning among four different criteria.

David was said to show the following in his writing:

  • No sequence; no sentences; numerous grammatical errors; no attempt to revise or edit work; no supporting details; incorrect spacing and letter formation.

On the upper end of the scoring criterion where David was not functioning was the following:

  • Clear beginning, middle, and with clear sense of closure; vary sentence length and pattern; no grammatical errors; three or more editing strategies demonstrated; consistent use of supporting details, descriptive language; clearly legible, with proper spacing; product shows great effort.

Given the two polar opposite criteria for writing rubric described to evaluate him, take a guess how old David is and his grade level?

Perhaps you might be thinking David is approximately a middle schooler, maybe in seventh grade.

No, David is not a seventh grader; David is a six-year-old first grader.

Here is what David wrote when I asked him to tell a story about his weekend:

It was a it was a tid baseballgame my tem hit a lot of gramslem.

                          then we had to sing happy brthbay.

Keep in mind that obtaining this sample from David was not easy, in fact it was painstaking.  Resistant to writing anything, David needed a fair amount of external prompting to produce this sample.

I understand that I am shouting into the Grand Canyon on this one, but from where I sit it is fundamentally absurd to have children assessed with standards such as the rubric above used on a child like David, when he clearly has only very rudimentary, emerging skills.

Writing paragraphs or essays with a clear beginning, middle and end with a sense of closure as noted in the above rubric is a much later skill for someone like David.  These skills are way down the road (as it is for most first graders).

Where are we getting these notions on children’s development? Putting the standard down on paper as a does not make it a reality for many children.

Just like there are people out there who try and toilet train children after their first birthday, this seems to me to be completely insensitive to the child’s level of development.  Writing full essays for first graders, especially struggling ones, is similarly insensitive.

Yet, we persist.

 

Piano Playing & Learning to Write

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.

“Prompt & Write:” Frustration in Kidland

Here’s a little interaction using an approach to writing that I call the “Prompt and Write approach” to teaching writing:

Writing Prompt:

 “What is something you really wanted,  but an adult would not let you have?”

Response: 

Wons I whanted a lego set but my mom said it was to match money so I get mad so I was sad I threw a tamper tantrum tis is when I was 3 so I relly  wanet it I saved and saved for about 5 weeks until we went back to the Lego store bat my mom still did not get it my birthday was coming so I wanted to show the kids then my mom got it for me.

So, this was written by a fourth grader, George, age 9.  George is not classified and is on no one’s radar at school. In fact, according to the school he is meeting his “standards” with on-line, multiple choice only assessments. (George scored in the 71st %ile in reading.)

Let’s assume for argument sake that George does not have some type of learning disability. (I think he does.)  Even if he does not have a “disability,” I think we would all agree that at a very basic level George does not have a clue what is involved in the writing of a sentence.   

If that is the case, shouldn’t the focus of the instruction with George be on the sentence level?  How is more and more open-ended "Prompt and Write" going to help George internalize the components of a good sentence?  (Keep in mind that George is now five school months away from fifth grade.)  

From where I sit, George needs a  lot of practice (perhaps even through the whole year) writing simple sentences.  Once George has mastered the ability to write a simple sentence, the next step would be for George to practice writing more complex sentences.  Following the mastering of writing these sentences, George can learn how to put together one solid paragraph.  (The writing of one paragraph would probably need to be practiced repeatedly for a fair amount of time for the skill to be internalized and mastered.)

I know what I am proposing goes against the grain in terms of the way writing is popularly being taught, but I simply can’t understand how someone like George will ever learn how to write even a solid sentence using the “Prompt and Write” method.

Writing – Throwing the Child in the Deep End of the Pool

Let’s say you have a little child, perhaps five or six years of age.  He doesn’t know how to swim, so you decide it’s time to give him lessons.  What if the swim instructor said something like, “You know we have strict standards for six year olds and we have determined that they need to start swimming in the six foot water instead of the shallow end of the pool.”  You would probably be heading for the exit as fast as you possibly can.

Let’s switch to a different activity – writing.  Take young Franklin, age six, a firs grade student who is showing signs of early struggling.  Franklin knows a small number of sight words and he can write his name.  In a somewhat discernible scribble, Frankin can write letters from A – Z.   (Well, maybe he misses a couple of letters.)

On a recent report card, here’s what Franklin’s teacher stated about his writing:

Franklin requires adult assistance completing various writing tasks including writing narratives and informational texts.”

Narratives?  Informational text?

Franklin could no sooner write, “I got a new puppy” or “We went to the zoo,” then put together a narrative.

What am I missing here?  Why talk about narrative text when the child is in the equivalent of the three foot water of the pool?  Wouldn’t a better point on the report card say something like, “We are targeting Franklin’s awareness of simple sentences.”

To borrow another image, before playing pieces of music you need to learn how to play simple notes and simple chords.  The same is true of writing.  Before asking a child to write narratives or journals asking for connected information, he needs to master very simple sentences.

Increasingly,  I am seeing  children (especially the boys)  who haven’t the foggiest idea how to  express themselves in writing.   They have no sense of sentence awareness or paragraph structure.  The simple fact is that asking them to write a paragraph and to perform open-ended writing tasks such as “Write about your weekend,” may simply be too much.  Asking them to do so is misguided, placing them in situations of sheer frustration.

Takeaway Point:

Keep talking to the teacher.  Let her know that your child can’t do what he is being asked.  Help to get him out of the deep end as quickly as possible.