Help learning punctuation/grammer for 11yo w/ dysgraphia

[Anonymous]

My 11yo has dysgraphia and is completely undone by basic punctuation. School is basically useless and claims she's just not working hard enough. Does anyone have any apps, strategies, curricula, etc that might help? (Not grammarly or grammar correction apps - we need grammar TEACHING.)

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Are you in MCPS? Our son had the same struggles. I don’t think MCPS does a great job with this to begin with but our son received no specialized instruction even with the special educator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you in MCPS? Our son had the same struggles. I don’t think MCPS does a great job with this to begin with but our son received no specialized instruction even with the special educator.

I know the above didn’t answer your question but I wanted to say I share your frustration.

[Anonymous]

These are supplements I had considered but never implemented due to lack of time. I loved the idea of teaching grammar as a tool for better/easier writing I know DC's progressive school will never teach it explicitly.

Easy Grammar by Wanda Phillips

Editor in Chief or Language Smarts by Critical Thinking Company

For gifted kids (mine isn't!), a series by Michael Clay Thompson
https://www.rfwp.com/pages/michael-clay-thompson

Story Grammar or Sentence Composing workbooks by Killgallon
https://www.heinemann.com/products/e01246.aspx

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are supplements I had considered but never implemented due to lack of time. I loved the idea of teaching grammar as a tool for better/easier writing I know DC's progressive school will never teach it explicitly.

Easy Grammar by Wanda Phillips

Editor in Chief or Language Smarts by Critical Thinking Company

For gifted kids (mine isn't!), a series by Michael Clay Thompson
https://www.rfwp.com/pages/michael-clay-thompson

Story Grammar or Sentence Composing workbooks by Killgallon
https://www.heinemann.com/products/e01246.aspx

I’m the PP who was frustrated with MCPS. I’m surprised your progressive doesn’t teach this. We pulled our son out and sent him to a progressive school for middle. We had no expectation that they could improve his writing since they don’t provide intervention for LD. We did it more because MCPS had been such a soul crushing experience for our once inquisitive kid. The progressive DID teach grammar and punctuation explicitly. I couldn’t believe the difference in his writing after the first year and by the end of 8th the progress was undeniable. He’s in MCPS HS now and doing so much better. While he will always struggle to write without any grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, he makes significantly fewer of them and actually enjoys writing.

[Anonymous]

Isn't this a red flag for something else, such as ADHD or dyslexia? I thought dysgraphia was a motor disability that makes writing laborious and slow, not an attention or visual recognition issue.

My son has dysgraphia, extremely slow processing speed and severe ADHD. He has always been an excellent speller (no punctuation problems either). However despite years of handwriting and typing training, his writing is atrocious, his typing slow, and it's all quite fatiguing.

I'm wondering whether there are different types of dysgraphia? Or whether your child also has concurrent dyslexia? Or...?

Note that MCPS, for some scandalous reason, does not recognize or test for dyslexia (the most common learning disability in children!), so if your child was tested by the school, they could have passed over that.

[Anonymous]

08:27 again. At 11, I agree that this needs intensive remedial work, otherwise she won't hack it in middle school. I would just cut to the chase and get her a good tutor. We pay $90/hr for a really good writing tutor for my son, whose ADHD makes it really challenging to organize his essays (he's in 8th grade). If this is not in your budget, when he was younger, I bought excellent workbooks from the Critical Thinking Company website - we bought reading comprehension ones, but I think I saw ones about grammar and punctuation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Isn't this a red flag for something else, such as ADHD or dyslexia? I thought dysgraphia was a motor disability that makes writing laborious and slow, not an attention or visual recognition issue.

My son has dysgraphia, extremely slow processing speed and severe ADHD. He has always been an excellent speller (no punctuation problems either). However despite years of handwriting and typing training, his writing is atrocious, his typing slow, and it's all quite fatiguing.

I'm wondering whether there are different types of dysgraphia? Or whether your child also has concurrent dyslexia? Or...?

Note that MCPS, for some scandalous reason, does not recognize or test for dyslexia (the most common learning disability in children!), so if your child was tested by the school, they could have passed over that.

NP here. I'm slowly learning that these LD diagnoses are helpful but are super fuzzy around the edges and/or are co-morbid with some universal non-NT (or only occasionally NT) traits. My dyslexic kid has all the traits of dysgraphia. Does he have dysgraphia? Or is it dyslexia? Or does it really matter? He also can't spell to save his life.

Sorry, I have no point here. Just to say that it's all confusing.

[Anonymous]

22:19 here (I listed some grammar resources above) @8:15:

Could you share how your progressive school integrated grammar instruction into the writing or humanities curriculum?

During lower school of our PK-8 private, teachers pays lip service to addressing grammar in the context of the kids' writing during Lucy Calkin's Writers Workshop. None of the teachers explicitly taught grammar as there was no "language arts" text or curriculum that they used. It's as if grammar is a dirty word, similar to math drills. The limitation of "teaching" grammar in the context of one's own writing is that there isn't a lot of grammar to edit if one has a reluctant or struggling writer. My DC used to write very little, and exclusively in simple sentences without any variation in sentence structure. A kid is not going to think, oh, I can make my sentences more complex by using prepositional phrase or inserting an appositive! The kid needs to be shown these tools. That is why I'm intrigued by the Killgallon workbooks.

My DC is now in middle school and I am hoping there will be more specific grammar, at least in foreign language classes. If not, I will plan on outsourcing grammar and writing support to an outside tutor. Or hopefully, DC will take Latin in high school!

[Anonymous]

For visual learners, diagramming can be a really helpful way to learn grammar. Unfortunately, this approach is often shunned because it seems too old school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Isn't this a red flag for something else, such as ADHD or dyslexia? I thought dysgraphia was a motor disability that makes writing laborious and slow, not an attention or visual recognition issue.

My son has dysgraphia, extremely slow processing speed and severe ADHD. He has always been an excellent speller (no punctuation problems either). However despite years of handwriting and typing training, his writing is atrocious, his typing slow, and it's all quite fatiguing.

I'm wondering whether there are different types of dysgraphia? Or whether your child also has concurrent dyslexia? Or...?

Note that MCPS, for some scandalous reason, does not recognize or test for dyslexia (the most common learning disability in children!), so if your child was tested by the school, they could have passed over that.

NP here. I'm slowly learning that these LD diagnoses are helpful but are super fuzzy around the edges and/or are co-morbid with some universal non-NT (or only occasionally NT) traits. My dyslexic kid has all the traits of dysgraphia. Does he have dysgraphia? Or is it dyslexia? Or does it really matter? He also can't spell to save his life.

Sorry, I have no point here. Just to say that it's all confusing.

Anonymous wrote:


There are different types of dysgraphia and different levels of severity. In any case, it seems that the trend among the "experts these days" is to move away from the words dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and go right to the heart of the matter: a language-based learning difference that affects X,Y,Z. Of course, most of us use the words that get the message across quickly... but just emphasizing that they are all related and intricately linked.

For what it's worth, with my son, who has very severe dysgraphia, there is a visual processing issue at the core. Like he can't even trace a straight line, much less reproduce a shape from memory, and he is 14. He has every red flag for dyslexia but has no trouble reading, has always loved it. His spelling was horrible, typical, dyslexic-looking spelling, despite all his reading.

OP, I homeschooled him for a couple of years and did kind of a multi-pronged approach: classical homeschooling grammar/spelling texts that are very gradual, model a rule, state the rule, require it, and use a lot of repetition AND a more multi-sensory approach to spelling/grammar. Especially with spelling I just searched any program directed at dyslexics--again my child isn't dyslexic but he really benefited from these.

Some of our resources:

*listened to the book Grammar-Land several times

*IEW Fix-It Grammar

*Grammar for Well-Trained Mind

*Giggly Guide to Grammar

Some of these books were kind of dull and some were cutesy. The key was short lessons and a lot of repetition. My son did learn and he is an excellent writer now.

[Anonymous]

NP. Any suggestions for older kid? My DS is in high school and will need to improve for the SAT/ACT as well as to improve his writing in general.