Tips To Help A Child With Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia, a serious learning disorder is characterized by illegible handwriting, frequent spelling errors and an inability to understand spelling and grammar rules. Many children with this writing disorder successfully improve their writing skills with proper accommodation. Teachers, parents and caregivers like nannies could play a key role in improving learning ability and quality of life for children with dysgraphia.

Tips to help a child with dysgraphia:

Do not compare a child with dysgraphia with other normal children and  but allow him/her to acquire writing skills in his/her own time; the child should not be trapped by the pace as recommended for his age, grade level or his curriculum.

The child’s daily routine should consist of writing sessions also; find ways to allow learning to happen without pen and paper. It would help to work on improving your child’s ability to write by finding ways that he/she can complete schoolwork with less writing. It would also help to engage a nanny or private tutor that specializes in learning disabilities.

Encourage the child to use a computer and develop strong keyboarding skills. Most children with dysgraphia are capable of typing well, with the spell-check features helping these children to master spelling skills. Also the use of the keyboard in place of paper and pencil motivates even the most reluctant writer to express his ideas and thoughts.

The child could be given a blank notebook to list abbreviations for difficult words, such as "b/c" for "because." This would enable the child with dysgraphia to write more quickly and effectively.

 
Most homework worksheets can be done orally with the parent/nanny, with the caregiver completing the written assignments on dictation from the child. Speech-to-text tools like Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Sound Note can also be used that allow your child to dictate his/her work orally to be automatically translated to text.

Provide short bursts of handwriting exercise with the goal of helping the child to become more comfortable with using paper and pencil; short and easy handwritten assignments will encourage writing with less frustration.  

It would help to work on handwriting skills that would help improve the child’s skills in the long run. It would help to work on correct letter formation by using multisensory methods and techniques that don’t require writing. These skills include finger-writing in the air, in sand, in shaving cream, or on sandpaper; these great exercises practiced consistently encourage improvement in proper letter formation.

Parents and nanny can encourage the child with dysgraphia to outline assignments before actually completing them in essay form; effective writing could also be helped by having a clear typed outline. Next it would also help to encourage the child to dictate one’s assignment on a recording device in a clear and articulate voice; this would make it easy to transcribe an audio recording than to write an assignment from scratch.

To conclude parents and caregivers have to be very patient in dealing with a child with a writing difficulty by setting attainable goals. Encourage the child on his/her small achievements; then you will find him/her improving in one’s skill and stamina of writing.   

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