Homeschooling Online

Homeschooling Online recently learned about something we had never heard of before, called “Dysgraphia”. Since we’re members of HSLDA we receive email updates from them. Surprisingly, the same day that it took Branden over an hour to write ONE sentence… we got an email from HSLDA explaining Dysgraphia.

I have seriously wondered why our oldest seems to have so much dang trouble with writing. Taking an hour to write just one sentence, had me thinking he was just being “lazy” - not to mention he had a number of different mistakes. Things like missing spaces between the words, first writing small letters, then bigger letters, and he has ALWAYS “reversed” letters. For instance lower case b’s, d’s, g’s, and p’s are often reversed, and also s’s. He has on occasion also reversed capital letters and other letters, and numbers too.

Once I read the email from HSLDA I thought Hmmm…. wonder if this might possibly be Branden’s situation? Of course I didn’t think he had any real problems with learning, he reads very well, is quite intelligent… but the writing. Horrors! He fights writing often, doesn’t LIKE to write - and generally tries to leave the room every time he sees me pulling out the writing equipment.

Following the instructions on a website HSLDA linked from their site - we did a quick eye test. You put a small hole in the center of a sheet of paper, then have your child look through the paper at an object across the room - through the hole - with both eyes. While they have the object in focus, you cover one eye and ask if they can still see the object. I had covered Branden’s right eye first, and said, “can you still see the fan?” “Yep!”

I said “OK, now focus again with both eyes, and I’ll cover the left one this time”. He did, I covered the left eye, and said - “can you still see the fan?” He was kind of funny, when he said “no.” He was seriously wondering why he could no longer see the fan with his other eye, when it was so easy a minute ago to have one eye covered. LOL!

This is how we found that he was “left eye” dominant - and “right handed”. I tested myself, and I am “right eye” dominant, and “right handed” so I have absolutely no problems writing. Apparently the cross between the dominant eye, and the dominant hand somehow causes writing to be difficult. Branden’s dad is “right eye” dominant also, but he’s “left-handed.” He told us how he used to have to write things OVER and OVER again, because he also had a lot of trouble writing when he was young.

It’s actually really nice to be aware of Dysgraphia, and I’ll probably try getting Branden tested for it to see if he does in fact have this issue. He has MANY of the symptoms, so it’s worth checking into. Both boys have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow - so I’ll ask about it then.

Here is the link from HSLDA on Dysgraphia if you are interested in learning more. That link will tell you about the symptoms of Dysgraphia and will tell you more about the “hole in the paper” test we used.

Hope you have a great Monday! Homeschooling Online will be extremely busy, starting with the Doc’s office at 8:45am. Yippee.

Thanks!
Michelle