What I learned in homeschool today

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See this child? I learned that she can write in cursive today. It may not seem like a big deal to you. But let me tell you the story.

When Kalen was 5 and started to pre K her fine motor skills and her vision hindered her from being able to draw a circle or make a cross and the alphabet was not legible what so ever. Kalen spent a year in vision therapy with a wonderful optometrist here. She went through several sets of lenses in her glasses dealing with different prisms to jiggle her visual spacial issues. By the time she went to kindergarten she could draw a circle, make a cross and her letters were better, but not very good. Toward the end of kindergarten, once more she had a change on her glasses with a different prism and overnight her alphabet was legible, not great but legible.

It has been a long road getting her penmanship visible. She went to occupational therapy twice a week at school. Her printing is very legible now. Last fall we did one last try with the prisms in her glasses and that brought on some drastic changes once again for the good.

I don't remember if Kalen was suppose to learn to write cursive in third or fourth grade, but I was told she couldn't do it. The OT worked with her and said she got her as far as being able to do her name. I never questioned it, I was happy that you could read her printing the way it was. Last fall when she was going into fifth grade it was brought up at her IEP meeting that at some point during the year the kids were going to be made to write everything in cursive. I was told once again that Kalen couldn't do it. I never questioned it. It was written in her IEP that she didn't have to write in cursive.

At her IEP meeting again this fall I was told Kalen can't write in cursive. It is starting to be an issue because she has so much writing to do that it is very cumbersome for her to print everything. I asked about her keyboarding skills and the OT told me that she had worked with her, but it was very difficult for her.

Yesterday afternoon Kalen was doodling and she wrote someones name in cursive. I was pretty impressed. I asked her if she knew how to write cursive. She said 'yes'. We talked about it and I told her that I was going to have her write a paragraph for me to see what she knew. She told me that when her 5th grade class was told that they had to write everything in cursive, she was told she could print so she never wrote in cursive. This is where the asperger comes in, she thought she was told not to write in cursive and that they wanted her to print. Oh, boy.

This morning I ask Kalen to write a paragraph about herself. I didn't care what it said, I just wanted to see her handwriting in cursive. I was absolutely shocked. Not only did this kid write in cursive, it was good. I asked her if it was easier for her to write in cursive and faster and she said it was. I told her to do it then. This is such a huge leap from where she started.

So, I'm going to load a keyboarding program on the computer and find out what she can do!