Great Resource

I just discovered and now recommend this link if your child has learning or attention issues. 

Lost in Space

A few weeks ago I saw a baby blue jay attempt and miss landing on a small branch. Fortunately the little fledgling didn't hurt himself; and after a few minutes on the ground, with a lot of encouragement from his parents, managed to fly up to another limb. We probably don't give birds enough credit for their spatial awareness. They manage to figure out where they are in space, where their landing spot is, and do it all in the wind. Of course, as the fledgling demonstrated -- it is a learning process. Compare an infant to a 9-year-old child and one can see that, even for humans, learning where one is in space is a process.  

"When conditions are good, babies learn spatial awareness with no special assistance." But even with good conditions some children have difficulty with spatial awareness. I knew that one of my 4th graders might have a spatial issue when at least one of these problems showed up:

• A child would often head the wrong way out of the classroom to go to PE and lunch, even after several months of school.
• A child might not know how many stories we had in our two-story school. One child guessed that there were five floors since "We go upstairs all the time." He appeared unaware of the times the class went down the stairs.
• A child would have difficulty finding pages in a book. A request to turn to page 58 would have him slowly starting at page 60 page and moving forward turning pages. When asked "Is 58 less than 60?" the child could state that it was, but continue to go forward.
• A child's handwriting was cramped and intermittently floated below and above the line.
• A child might consistently have the correct letters in a word but write them in incorrect order. For example: a child who only had dyslexia might write sed for said. A child with a spatial problem might write asid or esd for the word said.

When these problems showed up I would refer the student to an Occupational Therapist (OT) for evaluation(including a visual perception test) and  therapy if needed. I wonder how much easier school would have been for these children if their spatial awareness problems had been discovered earlier than fourth grade.

Spatial problems can affect many areas in a child's academic life. A child with spatial problems may have:

• Difficulty following directions - especially those involving words such as beneath, behind, right, left, etc.
• Difficulty with handwriting - holding a pencil too tightly, constantly pushing too hard and breaking the point, writing above or below the line, or incorrectly spacing letters and words.
• Difficulty reading and spelling - a child with dyslexia has problems with sound symbol recognition. Add a spatial problem and that child may have additional problems with order of letters or remembering to read left to right.
• Difficulty in math - keeping numbers lined up, remembering to work right to left on addition and subtraction, understanding area, perimeter, or other geometric terms
• Difficulty with other children - always stepping on heels in a line, forgetting which way to run in a game, difficulty with directions when playing a new group game

Some things to remember about spatial problems:

• We tend to think of these children as klutzes, but some of them are excellent athletes. It is the fine motor skills that may create difficulty for this athlete.
• Some of these children have problems with math, and some of them are very good with math.
• Spatial skills include visual perceptual abilities such as  visual discrimination, visual memory, spatial relationships, form constancy, sequential memory, visual figure-group and visual closure.
• A child might have mild to severe spatial awareness problems in the areas listed above. Severe problems may indicate developmental coordination disorder.
• There are some studies that found being tired may have an effect on our spatial awareness of things on our left side. Attention deficit  seems to exacerbate the problem.
• Parents can help a child become aware of space words: up, down, right, left, near, far, etc. They can give visual clues with directions.

Most of us know adults who frequently get lost, can't follow directions, or are poor judges of distances when driving. Occupational therapists can screen your child for these types of  problems and, if needed, help your child understand and overcome these difficulties.

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Spelling and Writing Redo

If your child's written sentences look like chicken tracks filled with misspellings, it not too late for improvement. The two old-fashioned skills of cursive and keyboarding(touch typing) may help a child improve his spelling and writing. To work, however, the skills must be taught correctly.

Cursive seems to be a dying art. Many school do not teach it. Others give it brief lip service. Taught in a specific way, cursive can help a child with LDs improve in spelling and make writing readable. Why? With cursive:

• A child gets to feel the word as a whole. Children with LDs often misspell short, non-phonemic words such as said, of, or one.  Cursive gives a child an introduction to the feel of a word as a connected entity.
• When printing some children have a terrible time with spacing between letters and words. In cursive, it is more apparent when a word stops and a space is needed.
• Cursive can be taught so that each letter begins on the line. This consistency helps children with spatial problems. (Fig. 1, Initial stroke)
• Reversal of letters tends not to be as much of a problem in cursive as in print.
• Although learning cursive slows down writing, it is faster than printing once learned.

My personal opinion is that cursive letters should be taught to a child with LDs with an entrance and release stroke. (Fig. 1) I know there are methods that just make cursive a rounded form of printing, but that still results in crowded letters for some children. My favorite method of teaching cursive is using Diana Hanbury King's workbooks, but there are other methods in which all lower case letters start on the line. To teach cursive

1. Write a large letter to show the child how the letter is written.
2. Have the child write the letter in the air while saying the letter. Guide the child's hand if she has difficulty writing the letter correctly in the air. 
3. Have the child trace your letter on a large sheet of paper. (Newsprint folded in half is a good size to start.)  Make sure she starts on the line and traces the letter in the correct direction. This large letter will now be her reference model.
4. Have the child write the letter while looking at the model. If she can do this correctly turn the paper over and have her write the letter saying its name. 
5. If he writes the letter correctly have him write the letter with his eyes closed. 

 If your child starts getting confused go back to steps one and two.

Figure 1

Some children get confused where they need to change direction in cursive. They may end up going round and round like a traffic circle with letters such as o and g.  Other problems are bridges such as ow, ou, oy, oa, etc. (Fig. 1, Bridge) In the beginning mastering the letters may take more time than you might predict, but with effort and practice your child should learn how to correctly write all the letters.  Start with very large letters. Move to smaller letters when the child has mastered writing the large letters correctly.

In touch typing the first goal is to use the correct fingers. With touch typing a poor speller can also feel a word. I have seen children who touch type, move their fingers to give themselves reminders on a written spelling test. I like the book Keyboarding Skills because it quickly teaches children how to type the alphabet. Just as in cursive, children should say the letters aloud as they learn to type. The key is making sure the student says the letters and uses the CORRECT fingers. I let the child look at his fingers as he is learning. Although there are computer programs to learn to type, I have found that children with LDs often need a human encouraging them to use only the correct fingers and say the letters. Remember the goal isn't just typing but re-learning spelling. 

After a child knows all the lower case letters in cursive, or the correct fingers in keyboarding, let them practice the alphabet.  In cursive give them a model and some practice before you time them for a minute. On the keyboard have them practice without looking at the keys. Tell them if they finish, they should start over at "a". Most children are delighted how well they do and how quickly they improve within a minute. Another practice should be writing or typing spelling words while saying the letters. After writing or typing the word correctly two times, say, "Hands on home keys or pencil on line, close your eyes and begin. " These practices work best if they are short and frequent.

Despite predictions of no need for cursive or typing in the future, right now they are tools to open new doors for a child with LDs.  Children have at least 12 years of school facing them, and adults should work at giving them tools to make the journey enjoyable.

Getting It Down on Paper

Although computers are permeating the classroom, most school children still have to pick up a pencil and write. In fact most have to write everyday. Young students have to write numbers, spelling words, workbook answers, etc. They have to write during tests which are created to prove a child’s knowledge about a specific subject. But what if your child is not demonstrating what they know because they are having trouble getting it down on the paper?

There are various arguments about teaching manuscript (printing), cursive, or keyboarding to a child. This post is limited to helping your child in his or her current situation. Dysgraphia is considered a learning difference (LD) which affects a person's handwriting ability and fine motor skills. The Learning Disability Association of America lists several signs of dysgraphia.

Many first and second graders do not have dysgraphia but do have difficulty with handwriting.  

One reason may be poor fine motor skills.
"Fine motor skills are small movements -- such as picking up small ovjects and holding a spoon -- that use the small muscles of the fingers, toes, wrists, lips, and tongue." http://www.babycenter.com/404_whats-the-difference-between-fine-and-gross-motor-skills_6562.bc

Children refine their fine motor skills by picking up and sorting tiny objects, threading beads, coloring between the lines with crayons, building with tiny blocks, or doing other activities that strengthen small muscles and improve eye-hand coordination.

American children often are expected to write without much practice on how to control a pencil. Unfortunately, the  abundance of electronic device play may give a child carpal tunnel syndrome before he learns to correctly hold  a pencil. And speaking of holding a pencil, children who are writing in school need to work at holding  a pencil correctly before 2nd grade. I often joke with children to let their pencil breathe. A tight grasp creates stiff hands and tired writers.

If your child seems at ease with a pencil the next check is letter formation. First, make sure your child knows how every letter and number is written. Some children start the letters in a way that forces them to trace around them several times. Other children get confused when writing a seldom used letter such as a “V”. Reversals are not uncommon with children up to second grade.

Another area that may create problems is the paper used for early printing. You know the type with blue, red, and dashed lines. That paper was adopted to help a child know where and how big to write a letter. The problem is the number of lines on the paper may make it difficult for a child with figure-ground problems to figure out where to put the letter. "Visual figure-ground discrimination issues: Kids with this type may not be be able to pull out a shape or character from its background." https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/visual-processing-issues/understanding-visual-processing-issues

Some hints to help your child with writing:

• Explain to the young child that seeing things from a different angle usually does not change its name. Demonstrate with a toy that it doesn’t change names if we see it upside down, from the back, from the front etc. Explain that letters are different. Demonstrate how you can turn a lower case d around and make a p, q or b. Plastic letters are good for this demo. Say it is very important to know that a letter is that letter only when it looks like this. It cannot be turned around and stay the same letter. This link has some explanations on confusion with letters. http://blog.maketaketeach.com/why-students-reverse-letters/#_

• Put a small alphabet and a number strip on your child’s notebook so she can refer to it in class.
• Help your child learn the shape of letter by having them write with a finger in shaving cream, sand, or on rough paper.  
• Get large tablets of newsprint. Write the letters as big as possible and then have your child fill in the letter with smaller versions of the large letter. Let your child practice making large, small, tiny, and very fancy letters or short words.
• After a child practices writing a letter or a word a few times on the newsprint have them close their eyes and write. Kids think this is great fun and usually are delighted at the results. One interesting outcome is that there are a few children who write better with their eyes closed.
• Have your child copy a sentence you have written. If he has a difficult time with word separation draw a line with a highlighter or crayon between each word.
• In the early grades find out how tests are given.  If spelling words must be written, have your child practice writing them - not just spelling them out loud. If math facts must be written, don’t just work with flash cards.

The above activities above should be brief and fun. Children still learning to write should not be overwhelmed with extensive written homework. Any extensive writing at home for a first or second grader should be split up with a few stretches or breaks.

With practice most children find writing easier. There is nothing more frustrating to a child than to feel stupid because he knows an answer, but gets it marked wrong because he can’t write it down on paper correctly or fast enough.