[senco-forum] Handwriting help

I feel the most important issue with your student is not recovering his
handwriting by giving him full curriculum access.

I suspect that the easiest way forward for him would be to move to
DragonDictate.  If he spent a long time in hospital I would think that also
that school will tire him very much too. I think he will find it easiest to
learn to dictate a lot of his work and to move to make this his prime way
recording work.  It is now very quick and easy to make a voice file on
Dragon, and a week or so of correcting every error that comes up will lead
him to be able to dictate his work very speedily.  

I personally can think of nothing more horrific than learning to write again
in year 10.I speak with some feeling on this issue as last year I lost the
ability to write as well.  At the time it happened I thought it was a
disaster. I also had certainly far more important things to do than to sit
practising my writing.  It is likely to take some time to return and it may
be debatable if he will ever regain the kind of speed he had before. Dragon
is a tool that will make him truly independent - surely what we seek for all
our students.

I don't mean that he should never ever write again. This is where
physiotherapists will suggest the best way forward for him.  He will
probably also do better doing this out of school rather than part of his
normal curriculum. I re-learned writing in five minute sessions.  And I
spend a lot more time using Dragon than I did writing.  Now I dictate
virtually everything.

One thing I am sure of, is that it will be much better for him where self
esteem is concerned, to be sitting with a laptop dictating away, than it
will be for him to sit in class not able to put pen to paper, and waiting to
go off for some nice handwriting practice!

Make him the envy of his peers - get out the laptop - fitted out with Dragon
- spend those few hours in school building up a voice file - send him home
with it and get him to read bits from the papers, a playscript, whatever to
get his accuracy and speed up to scratch at whatever level he currently
performs at.

Given the choice - see which he would prefer to do - use Dragon or learn to
write again - in school.

Regards

Ruth

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Lesley
Sent: 03 April 2007 21:06
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: [senco-forum] Handwriting help

We have a year 10 boy who had a serious road accident back in October, and
as a result spent a long time in hospital. 

He has recently returned to us for a couple of hours a day to begin the
begin the reintegration process. We all know that this is going to be a very
slow process for him and we are not trying to rush him into anything that he
isn't ready for.

However as part of his reintegration we are looking at putting together a
handwriting scheme for him. He will had a word processor to record any work
that he does and access to laptop computer where necessary. He isn't ready
for the typical handwriting schemes yet ... we tried these last week and
they knocked his confidence. 

I have started to use the Teodorescu scheme but I think he will whizz
through these at the rate of knots, I had thought of using dot to dots and
maze pictures but after searching the web for a couple of hours  today I
haven't found any that a 15 year old boy would be happy to do in a classroom
of mixed ages.

So I wondered if you clever people could recommend any thing that would help
with refining handwriting skills and rebuild his confidence in his abilities
at the same time. 

Many thanks in anticipation of your help.

Lesley.