Homeschool World Forum

[ShanaSmith]

HI, I am new to this board and am looking for information on teaching my child how to write. (handwriting) he is six years old, diagnosed with spastic diaplegia. We were not in the "system" in regards to early intervention, government assistance, etc. It was our determination that he is our son to love/teach/ take care of, and he is very well adjusted, socially and emotionally and is very brite. I do not want to send him into the public school system..I am not a fan of the philosophies found in todays school system.

My challenge is how to physically teach him to write. I have not been able to find an online source anywhere! HELP! Has anyone else chosen this route with their CP child?

Thanks!

[Theodore]

This thread seems to have some useful ideas. A summary goes as follows:

- Forget cursive.

- Printing is possible, but will take a lot of practice. Get him some softer lead pencils, which will be easier to write with.

- Typing is best. Get software that can guess the endings of words, so as to cut down on keystrokes. This is the computer age anyway, nobody will think it odd if he uses an aid.

And if all else fails, he can always deliver his reports in oral form, either personally or as a recording.
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[leebryan]

Hi Shana,
I'm brand new to this site and just poking around since we're re-commiting to homeschooling our 13 yr old son who has CP (spastic-dipl.) Writing has been an ongoing dilemma for us. At this point, we're asking Wes to do his own writing on phone messages, most math, short things...but have discovered voice activated software for longer assignments. I highly recommend it since we've seen that when he HAS to write his own answers out to anything, he'll write the shortest possible thing, which means in language arts we won't see anything like what he's actually capable of composing. Dragon Naturally Speaking is the best voice activated softaware we've found. Have you consulted with an occupational therapist? The one we've used has helped steer us to rubber pencil grips that helped his handwriting, special paper with raised lines so he can "feel" them better with the pencil, and hand strengthening exercises. I suspect we'll be doing lots of testing this year orally! Hope this helps a little....God bless you!
Lee

[ShanaSmith]

Thanks for the ideas...We are enrolling in our church school which begins August 24th. I will be my sons teacher and full time assistant. I know he is capable of learning....but am somewhat skeptical of my own abilities with him. (I do have teaching experience...homeschooled our first 4 kiddlies)

I guess I will just have to get used to going back to school everyday myself!

Thanks again.