Dysgraphia - in The Classroom

In The Classroom

There is no special education category for students with dysgraphia; in the United States, The National Center for Learning Disabilities suggests that children with dysgraphia be handled in a case-by-case manner with an Individualized Education Program, or provided individual accommodation to provide alternative ways of submitting work and modify tasks to avoid the area of weakness. Students with dysgraphia often cannot complete written assignments that are legible, appropriate in length and content, or within given time. It is suggested that students with dysgraphia receive specialized instructions that are appropriate for them, this means that each set of instructions may be different for each child. Children will mostly benefit from explicit and comprehensive instructions, help translating across multiple levels of language, and review and revision of assignments or writing methods. Direct, explicit instruction on letter formation, and guided practice will help students achieve automatic handwriting performance before they use letters to write words, phrases, and sentences. Some older children may benefit from the use of a personal computer, or a laptop in class so that they do not have to deal with the frustration of falling behind their peers.

It is also suggested by Berninger that teachers with dysgraphic students decide if their focus will be on manuscript writing (printing), or keyboarding. In either case, it is beneficial that students are taught how to read cursive writing as it is used daily in classrooms by teachers. It may also be beneficial for the teacher to come up with other methods of assessing a child's knowledge other than written tests, an example would be oral testing. This causes less frustration for the child as they are able to get their knowledge across to the teacher without worrying how to write their thoughts.

The number of students with dysgraphia may increase from 4 percent of students in primary grades, due to the overall difficulty of handwriting, and up to 20 percent in middle school because written compositions become more complex. With this in mind, there are no exact numbers of how many individuals have dysgraphia due to its difficulty to diagnose. There are slight gender differences in association with written disabilities; overall it is found that males are more likely to be impaired with handwriting, composing, spelling, and orthographic abilities than females.