Assessing and Correcting Reading and Writing Difficulties

Writing is a complex and cognitively demanding task that requires a child to bring together both lower and higher gild skills, including manipulating abstract ideas while paying close attention to the spelling and punctuation conventions of written English language.

If the concrete act of putting letters on a folio is problematic or a learning difficulty gets in the way of fluent language production, students may struggle to come up with legible and coherent compositions. This tin can lead to poor marks on quizzes and exams only can also touch learning when note-taking skills are compromised.

Because writing is central to most subjects across the school curriculum, over time poor operation on written assignments can outcome in negative associations with classroom learning, depression cocky-esteem and a general lack of confidence at school. A child may believe he or she is a bad writer and begin to avoid writing activities, which in turn results in a less developed skill set.

The tragedy is that with the right strategy training and appropriate accommodations, every child can attain his or her full potential.

Learning to read and write

Many children begin learning how to read and write past the age of 6. Success in early on-literacy skills development is related to a child's familiarity with the alphabet and also his or her ability to hear the sounds that make upwards words.

Decoding (or sounding out words in reading) is the inverse operation of encoding (or spelling) in writing and is why reading and writing skills develop in tandem. Both processes require the breaking down of words into phonemes and pairing of sounds with the appropriate letter or letter combinations.

English is considered a challenging language in this respect because there are more sounds than letters. That means readers will run into dissimilar spellings that represent the same sounds, as well as words that do non conform to spelling rules. Both require memorization of the final discussion forms. Larn more near English spelling and phonics instruction as a method of teaching reading in these posts.

The mechanics of handwriting

In gild to develop handwriting ability, a child must possess the fine motor skills to hold a pen or a pencil and the hand-eye coordination needed to form letters. Letters in English are made upward of "balls and bats," circles and curves paired with lines. Writing skills require practicing the pen strokes needed to create each letter and are learned through copying exercises.

Capital letter letters are more similar in shape to each other than lower-case messages, which is i reason why some children adopt to write using all caps.

Learning to write in cursive is even more challenging given letters tin can change shape depending on where they occur in a word, as well as join upwards at different points. Letter of the alphabet writing becomes more regular with practice, and in the beginning, reversals and flipping are common.

Notwithstanding, if a child is still reversing letters in third and 4th course it may be a sign of a learning difficulty. Larn more in our post on reversals. As a child'south writing becomes neater they volition also get faster. Note that this may not be the instance for all learners.

Thinking on paper

Forming written linguistic communication is ane hurdle but a kid besides needs a wide vocabulary in order to translate his or her thoughts into linguistic communication. An understanding of English punctuation is of import and a child must be able to hold abstract thoughts in working retentiveness and produce grammatically sound sentences. The more a kid writes, the easier this process becomes. It can exist learned via plenty of free writing practise preceded by brainstorming activities.

Equally a kid advances to later grades he or she will besides need to contend with specific task restraints that help to inform the kind of information included and the linguistic communication and format in which an answer should be given. Writing must be organized in such a manner that ideas flow logically and paragraphs are connected via transitions.

The more than a child reads, the more he or she volition exist exposed to these features in writing and begin to prefer similar techniques in his or her ain work.

Learning difficulties that can bear upon writing

Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia is a writing-based learning difficulty that may forbid children from producing legible text. It tin impact on alphabetic character formation, handwriting, spacing, spelling and more. Learn about the signs of dysgraphia.

Dyspraxia

Dyspraxia causes fine motor skills difficulties which may make holding a pen or pencil painful and tin crusade issues with planning and sequencing of information in writing. What is dyspraxia?

Dyslexia

Dyslexia can cause problems with spelling and reading—which makes revising work challenging. The root cause of spelling difficulties can have to practice with hearing the sounds that brand up words. Learn more about dyslexia.

ADHD and Add

ADHD and ADD

tin result in problems focusing on a writing prompt, sticking to a topic, and impulsivity. The latter may atomic number 82 to crossing out words and erasure marks, which can make written work quite messy.

While not e'er classed as having learning difficulties,

gifted children

and learners who are on the

autistic spectrum

sometimes experience difficulty sticking to a topic.

Children with

visual processing difficulties

may have problem with copying exercises and handwriting in full general.

7 Writing difficulties and how to assist

1. Trouble getting started

   Staring down at a blank page is never easy but creating a listen map is a bang-up fashion to get things going. This will assist a kid recollect about the topic and generate some vocabulary before writing. Teachers might also have students brainstorm a list of ideas as a class. If you observe kids accept a hard time coming up with ideas, you tin can dissever them into groups and give out give-and-take topics to spur conversation.

   Go on in mind that a lot of worksheets used for mind maps are full of small boxes and circles in which students are instructed to record their answers. These sheets can be a nightmare for a child who struggles with the mechanics of writing, peculiarly those kids with dysgraphia or dyspraxia, so a freeform response might be more appropriate. Acme TIP: There are apps for tablets that allow students to photograph classroom worksheets and annotate them electronically.

2. Anxiety and a lack of conviction

   Feet can brand it hard for a kid to write. Anxiety might be the effect of past failures, a lack of self-confidence or misconceptions about the writing process, especially that a first typhoon should be perfect. Teach kids that writing happens in stages and the goal isn't to produce a perfect judgement on the beginning go. Yous tin can do this by not correcting a rough draft for spelling or grammatical errors.

   Instead, provide feedback on ideas and sequencing as well as encouragement and praise for language use. When a child becomes more confident, peer editing activities can also be useful simply this may depend on the personalities in a item class.

3. Difficulty with cocky-expression

   Sometimes a kid may struggle with expressing him or herself in writing. This is rarely about a lack of self-knowledge and more ofttimes related to vocabulary or spelling skills. A child may be hesitant to put a word down for fear of making a spelling mistake or simply take trouble producing the written language needed to capture an idea.

   If y'all observe a large gap between spoken and written power, a specific learning difficulty like dyslexia or dysgraphia might be causing the problem. Hash out it with your child's teacher. The earlier a learning difficulty is assessed, the greater the chances yous can provide the right accommodations and strategy preparation to aid him or her.

4. Trouble organizing ideas

   Some children take problem putting their ideas into a logical guild. To help with the organization of ideas, practise with word and judgement cards. You may desire to make cards with main ideas and details written in different colors and talk through the all-time way to conform them. At later stages, photocopy a kid's work and cut his or her own sentences out then they can exist re-arranged and and then re-written in the new social club. You might also provide a few bare cards so new ideas can be added to help with transitions and help a piece menstruum.

5. Having a hard time sticking to a topic

   For some learners, the issues is non in writing but rather producing written work that stays on topic. For example, gifted children may adopt to answer only one function of a prompt, specially if they don't detect the assignment challenging enough. The impulsivity feature of ADHD can also cause children to focus on but one aspect of a topic.

   While information technology isn't necessarily advised to mark a kid down for this (which can be demotivating), one strategy might be to encourage writing in stages to help students narrow the scope of their writing in later on drafts.

6. Poor spelling, spacing and punctuation

   While over-correcting spelling and punctuation tin be demotivating, these are yet aspects of writing a child needs to learn. In society for surface level features to bear witness up consistently and correctly in written production, they starting time have to be noticed and learned. Mock editing activities can assist this process along.

   Give the child a cherry pen and ask him or her to go through and comment unpunctuated text. Provide a list of correctly spelled words and in a new color have them do a search for misspelled vocabulary—you may even include a prize such as a sticker for each fault establish. This teaches children how to proofread and these skills tin then be applied to their own work.

7. Messy handwriting

   In elementary school almost all writing is done by mitt, which makes handwriting ability a major focus in the classroom. Notwithstanding, in later on grades and loftier school, much of an private'south writing will exist produced on a reckoner. Moreover, for a child with motor-skills difficulties writing by hand can be painful, frustrating and a de-motivating experience that actually prevents him or her from generating ideas and thinking about language. (Note children with messy handwriting are not beingness lazy!)

   That's why in many cases of dyspraxia and dysgraphia it'due south advised a kid learns how to affect-type so he or she tin can use a computer at an earlier age. In touch-typing muscle retentivity in the hand and fingers is harnessed to automatize spelling and no attending is needed for letter production. Mistakes can be corrected without any embarrassment and ideas menses freely through the fingertips and onto the screen.

The benefits of developing writing skills

Helping kids develop their writing skills is important to keep future didactics and career opportunities open up. Writing also offers another outlet for creativity and self-expression that tin assistance children tune in to their own emotions and process their feelings. For example, writing a diary or journal is helpful when kids experience frustration and negative emotions, including as a result of a specific learning difference. If writing a journal by hand isn't possible, electronically typed entries or video diaries are great alternatives.

Moreover, with today'south accent on engineering science, writing online in forums, on websites and on social media is increasingly of import for social interaction. While it is different from the writing learners do at school, whatever training in written production increases automaticity and helps words and ideas flow more readily onto the page (or screen!). The more a child writes, the more than confident he or she will feel nigh the skill and the less it becomes an unknown or anxiety producing job.

Resources and tools

Scribeasy

When information technology comes to helping a child become a more than proficient writer, the startup Scribeasy has developed an excellent and cost-effective solution that helps learners generate ideas using image prompts and stickers which tin can be practical to various settings, incorporating drag and drib technology to aid go a story started.

Learners tin can choose to write stories of different lengths working by time on chore vs. word limits. They can share their stories with classmates, friends and family and gain access to a repository of other stories produced by Scribeasy users around the world. They tin can too like, comment and go inspired as they get.

Affect-type Read and Spell

To aid children use a computer based writing plan like Scribeasy and/or support students with learning difficulties and those who take a hard time writing by paw, Touch-type Read and Spell is an optimal solution that provides instruction in touch-typing specifically geared for users who desire to focus on developing accurateness over speed.

The class is based on a program of phonics so learners strengthen spelling and reading skills as they acquire how to type. TTRS has helped learners with dyspraxia, dyslexia, dysgraphia and a range of other learning difficulties reach more in writing.

Learn more

Acquire more virtually dysgraphia and writing difficulties in these articles: Handwriting difficulties, Dysgraphia vs. dyslexia, Strategies for dysgraphia, Dysgraphia symptoms in children, Letter reversals in writing

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Source: https://www.readandspell.com/difficulty%20writing

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