Tactile Discrimination

One reason a student might be struggling to write is because of poor tactile discrimination. A student with poor tactile discrimination has trouble differentiating between how different things feel, including but not limited to his or her fingers, a pencil, a crayon, and scissors. Even with repeated interactions with the same materials the student might be taken a back each time by the feeling of the material. Think about it like this, what is an item you have touched that you have disliked or never touched before. The first time you touched sandpaper, jello, dirt. That is what this child experiences every time they touch a pencil. They struggle to manipulate the pencil because it is always a foreign object to them. New tools are difficult to use, as are old tools. Look out for this student in your class because they will need a lot of help to feel comfortable in writing. (Footnote 4).

Letter Making

Handwriting For Kids has a great flash animation of the creation of letters, an excellent web supplement to have kids watch at home and to show parents in order to help their children with this method of handwriting.

Teacher Fonts

So, last week I had a few people ask me, "wherever did you get that font!" So here are some great links to "teacher fonts".

Desktop Publishing has a selection of free fonts including standard letter formations, dotted lines, cursive dotted, and cursive.

Downhill Publishing has a comprehensive set of 31 teacher fonts for a reasonable price. In it you get dotted line letters, standard print, letters with directional arrows, letters on dotted line handwriting paper (great for making worksheets and activities for the classroom!), phonics fonts, math fonts, and many more! I bought this last year and I have to say it is the best investment I have ever made.

Billy Bear For Kids is a great website with some basic fonts for handwriting, but mostly fun fonts for decorating. While not specifically geared towards graphomotor development this has some fun fonts to use for print in the classroom.

Happy writing!

Two Intervention Strategies

There are many ways to help students with handwriting problems. Zwicker and Hadwin performed a study where they looked at two major forms of intervention for students with handwriting difficulties. While their results were limited both strategies provide useful tools for the every day classroom and a greater understanding that students simply need more intervention in school (the study hypothesized that results were limited due to the brevity of the intervention plans).

Let's take a look at the two intervention methods:

1. Cognitive intervention

This form is, as the name connotes, a more mental strategy. In the study children who underwent cognitive intervention first practiced naming letters at random, and out of order. They then went on to use letters with numbered arrows to practice making the shapes of the letters and the therapist discussed how to form the letters. Then the students traced the letters and the student and therapist discussed how letters were the same and different. Last the students practice writing the letters with the arrows, and then independently.

2. Multisensory intervention

In this the therapist started by targeting a group of letters and showing them to the student. Then the child copied them on the board. After that the student and therapist wrote the letters in the sky (sky writing) and then in sand or cornmeal three times. After that the child traced tactile letters and then traced them on paper. Last the child wrote them independently.

The study notes that cognitive is more useful for second grade students, and in fact more beneficial at this age. This simply might have to due with developmental needs and understandings.

In my classroom we use a combination of cognitive and sensory approaches to learning letters. I incorporate many of these strategies as a form of universal design for my students. Something to think about is that the study notes the lack of time for intervention in how often students get occupational therapy. As educators it is our job to bring these strategies into the classroom and to also show our parents how to use these strategies at home. Next time you are teaching a letter think about which strategy you are using. One? Both? Now think about your students, which strategy might they benefit from? Now reflect on your lesson and see if your students needs are being met. (Footnote 12).

Spider Letters

I always have parents asking me for websites to send their kids to for help in reading. Here is one that can help students with reading and writing in seeing how the spider forms different letters. The student can also practice making the letters on the computer.

Spider Letters

What is graphomotor dysfunction?

Graphmotor dysfunction, also called writing or handwriting dysfunction can be defined as, "a disconnect between a child's thoughts and his or her ability to write them down," (Footnote 8).

Betsy Bates further states that graphomotor dysfunction is different from fine motor function. Graphomotor skils include: previsualization, memory, production, and feedback (Footnote 8). When looking to see if a child has graphomotor dysfunction you should be aware of all of these components.

Why is this important? You can have an incredibly bright child, but if the thoughts in their head are not making contact with the paper, then their academic future is at risk. Feder and Majnemer state that, "handwriting dysfunction in children range from 10 to 30% and the consequences for academic performance have been well documented" (Footnote 9).

What should you look for when trying to identify graphomotor dysfunction? You have to look at two different components: legibility and speed. In this you have to look at letter formation, spacing, size, slant, and alignment. The most important parts being letter formation and size. While as educators of young children we do not want to compare children it is important to compare writing speeds. An incredibly slowed down speed of writing is a sign of graphomotor dysfunction (Footnote 9).

There are variety of characteristics and causes common to graphomotor dysfunction. Each child with graphomotor dysfucntion may exhibit one or more of the following characteristics.

1. orthographic motor integration: "the process of retrieving letter forms from memory and then producing them in written form," (Footnote 10).
2. orthographic coding: "how students store and later retrieve letter forms from memory," (Footnote 10).
3. fine motor control: those small movements in the fingers which often interferes with pencil grasp (Footnote 9).
4. bilateral integration: "the ability to perform symmetrical and asymmetrical movements of the body during an activity" (Footnote 9). Think about holding the paper with one hand and writing with the other, not so easy for some students.
5. visual-motor integration: how the eyes connection to the hand movements (Footnote 9).
6. sensory awareness of fingers: a low awareness of feeling in the fingers can lead to a poor pencil grip (Footnote 9).
7. ADHD: a lowered attention span can hurt graphomotor processing (Footnote 9).
8. hand strength
9. motor planning: the lack of coordination can hurt handwriting and directionality (Footnote 11).

Okay, try not to be overwhelmed, but try to think of it as taking the first step towards truly understanding why students struggle with writing, and why telling them to write more and hold their pencil correctly is not an effective strategy. For students with graphomotor or handwriting dysfunction you need a wide variety of strategies. You will get students who need help, so let's start acquiring some strategies now.

Handwriting Standards

It's a small section on the ELA literacy competencies. When you are planning a lesson you probably don't think about that handwriting competency too much. For those students who have an easy time with handwriting and graphomotor skills the standard can be easily mastered. Yet, for those students who struggle writing letters legibly and writing uppercase and lowercase letters can be a real struggle.

Handwriting Without Tears has provided a list of extensive grade level standards for handwriting that help the teacher to,

• "Assess student proficiency
• Determine the need for additional instruction or remediation
• Monitor progress
• Help students achieve academic goals".

These standards can help us as educators truly understand where our students are in terms of graphomotor development and if they are on grade level or not. Understanding the student's grade level appropriateness and where the handwriting problem might lie can further help us develop intervention plans for the the students.