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By Glenda Thorne, Ph.D.
1. For children who have difficulty with orthographic coding,
it may be helpful to tape an alphabet line to the corner of
their desk for easy reference.
2. Students with graphomotor problems should be given extended
time to complete written assignments and/or a reduction in the
volume of written output. For example, if the exercise given
is
to correctly capitalize and punctuate sentences or a passage,
these should be provided to the student in typed form so that
he/she has to only correct the work, rather than write it and
then correct it. Also, if the assignment is to answer the
questions at the end of the chapter in social studies, the
student should be required only to write the answers, not both
questions and answers. Additionally, he/she should be allowed
to state answers in short phrases. In other words, if the
subject matter being assessed is knowledge of information
presented in the social studies chapter, it is this that
should
be assessed, not how competent the student is with the
physical
act of writing, or how much writing interferes with his/her
ability to demonstrate his/her knowledge of social studies.
3. Children with handwriting difficulties may need to be given
the opportunity to provide oral answers to exercises, quizzes,
and tests.
4. Learning to type is helpful for these students. Writing
assignments should be done in stages. Initially, the child
would focus only on generating ideas. Next, he/she would
organize his/her ideas. Finally, the student would attend to
spelling and mechanical and grammatical rules. There are
computer software programs available with spell and grammar
checks.
5. Students with graphomotor problems may need to be provided
with information presented on the board or on overheads in
written form, such as teacher-prepared handouts or Xerox
copies
of other students' notes.
6. Children with handwriting problems should be provided with
written outlines so that they do not have to organize lectures
or class materials themselves. This becomes particularly
important in junior high grades.
7. Parents should be given the opportunity to purchase an
extra
set of textbooks for the purpose of highlighting, particularly
for content area subjects. Also, notes may be made on Post-Its
and then the Post-Its could be attached to a larger sheet.
8. It is often necessary to use alternative grading systems
for
children with graphomotor problems. One grade would be given
for
overall appearance and mechanics of writing, and the second
for
content.
9. When writing reports, it may be helpful for the student to
identify his/her own errors and to correct these after
learning
specific strategies to do so. He/she would then list his/her
most frequent errors in a workbook and refer to this list when
self-correcting.
10. It should be stressed to school personnel that slow work
habits are often a result of graphomotor difficulties and do
not reflect deficits in motivation.
11. Electronic devices, such as the Franklin Speaking Spelling
Ace may be helpful for students with handwriting problems.
About The Author: Dr. Thorne is the clinical director at the
Center for Development and Learning (www.cdl.org), a
nonprofit organization that specializes in the development and
dissemination of research, knowledge, and best practices that
impact teaching and learning.
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