Dysgraphia: Treatment & Tutoring in Houston, TX

Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects a student’s ability to express ideas in writing. This can include numerical ideas as well as letters and words. Dysgraphia results in difficulties with spelling, poor handwriting and trouble putting comprehensive thoughts on paper. Sometimes, simply having bad hand-writing is mistaken for Dysgraphia. However, Dysgraphia umbrellas many specific characteristics as indicators of this disability.  For example, most commonly Dysgraphia results in unfinished letters, letter inconsistencies, irregular letter sizes and shapes, a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, or print and cursive letters. Because of Dysgraphia’s tendency to prevent individuals from adequately expressing themselves through words, these individuals are often mistaken for being incoherent. However, this difficulty may exist in varying degrees and does not match with either the person’s intelligence, which may be above average, or their ability to read. Often times, many skillful students will be able to dictate thoughts in an incredibly articulate manner of high intelligence, yet not be able to write this down. In terms of numbers, a person with Dysgraphia may be able to orally interpret numbers in sequential order, but have difficulty writing them down in order or on a straight line.

Dysgraphia Treatment Houston

In Educational Therapy, many of our techniques address the needs of Dysgraphia. Rhythmic Writing improves visual-motor integration, hemispheric specialization for language, and sensory integration. The Blue Book Method improves encoding skills, long-term visual-sequential memory, and the ability to apply spelling generalizations orally. Dictation and Copy aims to improve near-point copying, develop proofreading skills, develop understanding of written language such as paragraph and correct sentence structure, and application and transfer of spelling rules.

Dysgraphia Tutoring & Therapy Houston

These techniques will help improve academic performance for students with Dysgraphia in multiple areas. Our dysgraphia therapy includes rhythmic Writing which will improve letter formation, the ability to complete letters in an automated fashion in correct structure, and improve overall handwriting to be neat and legible. The Blue Book Method will significantly help students with spelling by making connections between sounds they hear and the written letters that coincide with them. They will then take this and apply it to the technique of Dictation and Copy which essentially address each area of difficulty for a student with Dysgraphia. Here, students will work on both aspects of written language; first, having to take what they hear and form these thoughts into words and write them down on paper. Letter formation and correctly written words from practicing Rhythmic writing is applied as students have no other source other than movements from memory to form letters and words. This is significant for many functions in the classroom such as listening and taking notes, being able to record information heard, and following instructions. Second, students will improve copying skills. Often times, students with Dysgraphia are unable to take words they see on the chalkboard, on the wall, or in a book and translate these words onto paper. Dictation and Copy addresses both of these matters and most importantly, allows for self-correction.  At the end of this technique, students go back and make corrections on their own. Revising mistakes themselves improves self-confidence and independence.

Academic Remediation through Dysgraphia Therapy:

Through Dysgraphia tutoring, our tutors can improve motor memory by having students practice forming letters and numbers in the air with big arm movements. Then, having them form letters and numbers with smaller hand or finger motions. This helps make the transition onto paper. Another tip that aids in strengthening hand muscles and improving motor control is playing with clay. A couple of strategies that will help with alignment in writing and letter formation are allowing students to practice doing mazes and keeping within lines, and connecting dots or dashes to create complete letters.

Classroom Accommodations with our Dysgraphia Tutors:

• Occasionally allowing a student to use a word processor for typing instead of writing by hand.
• Providing additional time for note-taking, copying, and tests.
• Using a spell checker or having another student proofread his work.
• Allowing the student to print or write in cursive, whichever is most legible.
• Allowing the student to use graph paper for math to help with lining up columns of numbers.