Writing eight

I just attended a homeschool conference and heard a GREAT speaker who

is a therapist who deals with learning blocks specifically.  She trains the brain to work differently to bypass the blocks.  She has a free exercise to correct dysgraphia (and the like) by connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. Since most kids are one side of the brain dominant they need to form connections between the short and long term memory and also muscle memory.  It is called the "writing eight" and it is a sideways figure 8 with a line down the middle and they trace it 3 times to stimulate the right brain and then write a letter of the alphabet once to stimulate the left.  They do this through every letter, tracing the eight between letter.  You do this four times a week for at least 3 months but recommended 6 months and they should have created enough connections for the 2 hemispheres to work together properly and they stop flipping letters and starting from the bottom, it also helps with coordination with sports and what not.  Here is her website if you want to check it out, she has lots of great techniques for teaching your left or right brained child and struggling spellers or readers.  www.dianecraft.org and she also has info on www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner

Tyler flips his letters horizontally and Treyton starts at the bottom while writing.  I am going to start this with Tyler first and add in Treyton next week when Tyler has it down.  I will also try to make the 'eight' a little better as well, maybe I can figure out how to make a perfect circle lol!  He didn't hate this so I am hoping we can stick with it and see if it works!

 

Tyler also struggles severely with spelling.  She also talked about ways to 'velcro' words into a right brained child's brain with jazzing up their flash cards only on the letters they are getting wrong.  For example, if they spell comb like 'com' make a card with the c-o-m in black and make the E with a picture of a comb on the back of the B  so they CAN'T forget the B.  Right brainers love pictures so when they think about 'comb' they will think of the picture of the comb on the B and wont forget it the next time.  I actually did this with a couple words he spelled wrong today.  Found and Have, he spelled them fawnd and hav.  So we put the correct spelling of 'have' on an index card with 'hav' in black and the E in blue, then he drew a hat on the E.  For found he turned the O into a ''big ball" from Wipe Out and the U into the pool with a man bouncing off the big ball into the pool.  I asked him later in the day randomly to spell have and found and he did it correctly the first time!  I was AMAZED.  The picture really did get the word to stick!  I am very left brained so I just look at the word a few times and have it down but he always got so frustrated and I felt like I was getting nowhere.  This really was amazing and I thought...DUH!  Why didn't I think of that!?