Author:
Kamrunnissa M Kader
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Date Posted: 01:28:15 05/03/12 Thu
I have just got a student for private tutoring, he is in 4th grade. He has a problem with creative writing / composition etc. I saw his notebooks & spoke to him & his mum. I asked them a number of pointed questions & their affirmative answers led me to the conclusion that he does have a learning disability. He has not been tested.
He converses well. He is good at English & speaks fluently. He said he was being bullied in school but now that boy & he are friends. He does not finish copying down the work from the board, the words are moving/wave like motion on the board. His handwriting is quite illegible, capital letters are put at random, poor letter formation, no spacing between words, no concept of commas, full stops etc. He does not write on the line, he writes in a sort of print form, letters are floating. When I gave him a few spellings to write, he wrote objkt for object, squr for square, freind for friend, siad for said etc. He was holding the pencil in a tight fist like grip with all fingers pointing towards him. His mum said his pencils & crayons break often.
This is what his mum said: till last year he wrote reversed letters for p, q, m, s, c, w, etc etc. He cannot write in cursive or joined handwriting, he does not write on the line, he is good at orals, he has low self- esteem,he cannot understand 2-3 step directions, he always wears his clothes, underwear facing the wrong way, his things are always a mess, he cannot organize things, he always misplaces his tiffin, bottle, pencil box, books etc. he doesn't know where he has left them, directions are problematic for him. He is unable to write compositions, for his interview he wrote just 3 sentences. I asked him to write 5-10 sentences on his favourite sport. He said his favourite sport was Basketball. He coulldn't write more than 2 sentences, with prompts & help from me he was able to write 2 more.
The sentences were incorrect.
I have been given the task of teaching him English as a subject (written, composition, grammar etc.) & teaching him to write in cursive. My query is how many times a week should I tutor him & the duration. Listed below is what I have thought of…..if any of you have any suggestions/techniques I would be more than happy to hear from you.
In my experience joined/cursive handwriting helps children to learn spellings better, to retain the sequence of letters. Moreover, almost all schools here start with cursive first. I teach cursive letters in LKG itself. It avoids the confusion between b, d, p, q etc. I also make the letter all in one movement with a lead in & follow up stroke & ask them to verbalize the direction of the letter example 'over & back.'
I thought I would take the following measures:
To do a lot of colouring & clay activity to improve his motor coordination.
To carry out some activities to improve finger dexterity & eye hand coordination.
To use sky writing & writing in sand as one of the mediums.
Start writing by requesting him to go over the dots, (start with the easy alphabets), trace the letters till he can write the alphabets on his own & then move on to joining of two letters & so on. Draw a faint line for the height of the letters.
To show him how to put his finger on the paper in order to leave space between two words.
I hope I receive some helpful suggestions from you.
Thank you all in advance.
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