How should a teacher behave if a child suffers from dysgraphia?

Yozhyg in the fog of lessons: Why do modern children write illiterately?

It can be difficult for children who are already accustomed to relying on their ears to relearn and write correctly.

Photo: Vladimir VELENGURIN

Children bring things in their notebooks that will make you cry or laugh—you can’t imagine it on purpose! Four letters - five mistakes, I’m generally silent about commas. This is no longer the Russian language - it doesn’t have the words “Yupka”, “Sabaka” and “Ashiplas”. It’s time for teachers to issue translator diplomas for checking essays, and valerian as a gift. What's going on, good people?

AS IT IS HEARD, SO IS IT WRITTEN

Experts cite frightening figures: every third schoolchild has dyslexia or dysgraphia. That is, he either writes disgustingly or doesn’t know how to read. Back in the 50s, there were only 6 percent of such children - and even then teachers complained.

- Primary school programs are ugly now! — confident Lyudmila Yasyukova, candidate of psychological sciences, ex-employee of the laboratory of social psychology at St. Petersburg State University. — Parents bring their children to me, we try to somehow retrain them. The fact is that children now develop their auditory dominant in Russian language lessons. Previously, in the 80s, schoolchildren were first introduced to letters and the rules for constructing words and sentences. And now children are learning sounds - and writing as they hear: “yozhyg” instead of hedgehog.

It can be difficult for children who are already accustomed to relying on their ears to relearn and write correctly. Of course, first they are required to write “va kno”, and after a couple of years they give a bad mark for it.

“Today’s children are developing a visually illiterate image of the word,” continues Lyudmila Apollonovna. “The more often they see the spelling “ladder,” the more they remember it as correct. Schoolchildren begin to write this way automatically.

But “bookish” children may not know a single rule and write without a single mistake. Because in books they more often see the correct spelling of words, and remember it that way.

WRONG CHILDREN, WRONG TEACHERS

Other experts are in no hurry to blame phonetics for everything:

“A program with such an abundance of phonetics is a developmental program by Elkonin-Davydov,” explains the author of textbooks on the Russian language, Olga Uzorova. “It’s really not easy; only a very strong teacher who is in love with phonetics can cope with it.” For example, I don’t contact her. But it happens that the program is handed down from above, and if the teacher is inexperienced, there will be a failure.

In addition to teachers, students must also be selected. The peculiarity of this program is that children need to reinvent the wheel every time and discover each rule anew. And not everyone wants to do this in class.

— This program is more designed for auditory learners - children who perceive everything better by ear. And now the majority of us are visual people, they need text and pictures,” says Roman Doschinsky, a teacher of Russian language and literature, chairman of the Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature of Moscow. “Therefore, it is necessary to pre-select children for classes in such programs. And you don’t have to wait for the result right away - it will appear, but in a few years.

INSTEAD OF RULES - CARTOONS

But those who study in other programs write little better! So the reason is not only in textbooks.

“In my opinion, now they are overly keen on project activities and meta-subject connections - this is when in a mathematics lesson they need to remember what they took in natural history,” says Olga Uzorova. - All this takes time. The program is designed to ensure that a child spends 45 minutes studying Russian during a lesson, rather than watching cartoons for 15-20 minutes. Yes, it looks beautiful - work in pairs, work in teams, watched the film. But the fact that the topic was presented colorfully does not mean that the child immediately learned everything. Until a student writes a word a certain number of times, both by itself and in a sentence, he will not remember it.

A snippet of one lesson, a show in the second - so it turns out that the child has to do all the tedious but important exercises at home. And so on for most subjects! Of course, parents can take on the role of teachers, but they are not ironclad. And you have to sit on notebooks until the night.

“The most direct path to literacy, in my opinion, is dictations,” advises Uzorova. — It is not necessary to write large texts, two or three sentences are enough, but every day. Be sure to highlight spellings - this helps you learn to see “mines.” Then any program will be beneficial.

CITY MOWGL

You can blame the school for everything - but often “urban Mowglis” come to the first grade. These are children who speak very poorly.

“More and more children are coming to school with undeveloped speech,” continues Olga Uzorova. “And this is the first thing teachers look at.” We will teach a child to count and write - we can teach a hare to ride a bicycle. But if the child has not developed speech, that’s all, a pipe. Because in the first grade we develop written language and translate it into oral language. And if children come unprepared, they need to quickly develop both. And they just have a mess in their heads and quiet horror in their eyes.

Why this happens is understandable. Parents don’t even talk to each other, let alone to their children! Dad on the computer, mom on the tablet, child on the phone. To develop speech, you need to communicate.

Photo: Ekaterina MARTINOVICH

BY THE WAY

Gadgets have nothing to do with it

Don’t blame modern technology, computers and gadgets for children’s mistakes. This is confirmed by data from the international literacy study PIRLS: the use of computers has almost no effect on children’s reading and literacy.

The fact is that typing on a computer or telephone keyboard is a difficult task for a first-grader. Therefore, children prefer to call rather than chat. And auto-correction programs can’t get them off track.

Teenagers and high school students are already into correspondence. But they have already laid the foundation, so whether they use gadgets or not, this does not in any way affect the number of errors.

EXPERT OPINION

They teach and teach, but they forgot to ask physiologists...

Maryana Bezrukikh, Director of the Institute of Developmental Physiology of the Russian Academy of Education, Doctor of Biological Sciences:

— Everyone talks about the crisis of childhood, that children are different. But to have grounds to say so, population studies are needed, and they have not been conducted in Russia for the last 50 years. Narrow studies provide no reason to believe that today's children are different.

But whether children are functionally ready for modern programs is another question. There may be inappropriate requirements in schools, and even in kindergartens, where they send out copybooks for seven-year-olds! Very early learning to read and write inhibits the development of these skills.

For example, we have been fighting for 20 years to remove reading and writing speed standards from the standards. The child must do this at his own pace! But the methods and forms of the educational process in schools do not always correspond to the age and characteristics of the child.

Children are required to be able to read and write by the first grade - but the functions that allow them to begin to learn this mature in children only by the age of 6-7. Previously, only 20 percent of children could learn this. It turns out that we are demanding the impossible from others. A child who doesn't read well gets fixated on every letter, but we want them to understand complex texts in physics and chemistry! This is the result of the rush when the child was taught to read at four years old.

And the method of teaching continuous writing (when a child writes letters without lifting the pen from the paper - author's note)! It artificially creates additional stress in a child who is just learning to write. But writing is the most difficult cognitive skill; a person can’t master anything more difficult in his life. And all this is compressed into three months, with each lesson giving a new letter. And then we give the child an essay and wonder why he makes so many mistakes?

TEST FOR ADULTS

We asked first graders to write a few words using sounds. Guess what these words are?

[YIGN'ONAG]

[DOSH']

[T'IL'ATA]

[TSAR']

[YUMAR]

[YAPLAN'A]

The child writes tests poorly. Why and how to help him?

Today, the Unified State Exam is not just a test that you can easily get good at, but it still includes a test part. Without the ability to do such tasks, it is difficult to complete 9th grade or even school successfully. The creator of LUDI courses that prepare for the Unified State Exam and Unified State Exam, Ilya Sozontov, talks about what to do if a child cannot cope with the tests.

First grade. Newsletter

Valuable advice and invaluable support for parents of first-graders

Question.

The child knows the subject quite well, but does not write exams very well. I mean tests. At the exam you can get the simplest question wrong, but at home you can do it with a bang. We work with him and know his strengths and weaknesses. Do you think poor test results are still due to ignorance of the subject or are there other possible reasons?

Answer.

There are three reasons why a child may write tests poorly.

1. He doesn't really know the subject. Parents are often in a certain misconception: they think that if he gets straight A's, then he is doing well. But in reality he may be cheating or be the teacher's pet. To check the child’s real level, you can offer to write him a comprehensive diagnostic that is close to the exam conditions. For example, take the official version of FIPI, which is designed for the Unified State Exam or the Unified State Exam. Or manually collect various tasks from a school textbook. During this diagnostic, we will understand which topics the child has worked through and which have not. If a child knows the topic, then most likely he will not make a mistake.

2. After you have carried out an independent diagnosis, you need to try to understand the psychological cause. Such anxiety is often due to the fact that the child is afraid of competition, of any tests and checks. An attentive conversation will help here - it may well turn out that the child has problems with attentiveness or is in a hurry. We need to work through these situations, find the triggers - at what moment and why he begins to panic. Usually these are some very specific moments and episodes for which you can come up with countermeasures.

Most of the techniques are pure coaching and psychological support. For example, if a child cannot structure information, you can create such a space in his head with him. Come up with his personal “cabinet” on this subject, describe it and put all the difficult parts on the shelves. So that he remembers that, conditionally, Ancient Rus' is at the top left of him, and the princes are in the far corner of the box. If a child manages to visualize this, he will never forget it.

You can teach him to work with breathing if he is in a hurry and becomes inattentive during stress. Give him breathing exercises. As soon as he starts to panic, he must do such gymnastics.

3. But it may be that a talented child simply does not have the motivation to study this particular subject. In general, studying is easy, but he simply does not need to write assignments well. Because a child wants to be, for example, a biologist, but he is forced to learn history. Or the family decided that the daughter will be a lawyer, and she is going to become a singer. Therefore, when such a child starts writing a test, he simply does not understand why he should try.

To be honest, good grades are not important and no one can really explain why a child should study this or that subject. If he can read, write and count, the rest, it seems to me, is not so important. You need to learn what you like.

Ask your question to “Mel”, and the editors will find someone who can answer it. Write to our social networks - we read all messages on pages on Facebook, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. You can also write to us on Instagram. By the way, we do not reveal names, so questions can be anything (feel free!).

What is dysgraphia

Dysgraphia is a partial impairment of the ability to write, due to which a person constantly makes the same mistakes and experiences various difficulties when writing. Although humanity has made significant progress in recent decades in understanding what factors can contribute to the development of dysgraphia, there is no single answer to this question. Largely because there are different types of dysgraphia. Here are the main ones:

optical. A child with this type of dysgraphia has difficulty writing letters; he may add extra elements to them (sticks, dashes, tails, circles) or, conversely, not complete parts of letters. Children with optical dysgraphia often write letters in mirror images.
acoustic If a child has acoustic dysgraphia, he confuses sounds with similar sounds, which is reflected in writing. Most often, children confuse paired letters: instead of “b” they write “p”, instead of “d” they write “t”. For example, an acoustic dysgraphic person might write the word “notebook” as “dedret.” Some speech pathologists distinguish a subtype of this dysgraphia - articular-acoustic dysgraphia. It is due to the fact that the child pronounces sounds incorrectly, and as a result writes words incorrectly. In this case, you need the help of a speech therapist, who will first correct the pronunciation of sounds.
ungrammatical. In this case, the child cannot correctly inflect words and coordinate different parts of speech. Cute childhood phrases like “Your dress is so beautiful” may be signs of agrammatic dysgraphia. It is often observed in bilingual children and in children raised in bilingual families.
Underdevelopment of language analysis and synthesis may manifest itself in the fact that the child misses words when writing or repeats the same word several times or writes several words together. The reader of such a text may get the impression that the child does not understand the meaning of what he is writing.

Each subspecies can manifest itself in a more or less pronounced form. Among the causes of dysgraphia, the most common is a violation of higher mental functions (HMF) involved in writing. In turn, the causes of HMF disorders can be either congenital, genetic, or acquired due to injury or illness.

It is important to understand that although dysgraphia can often go hand in hand with dyslexia, dyslalia (sound pronunciation disorder) or other disorders, it can also occur independently. A child may have difficulty writing, but can easily cope with reading; he may pronounce all sounds correctly, but cannot cope with the task of translating sounds into letters. Therefore, it is wrong to confuse dysgraphia with dyslexia: these are completely different disorders that require different approaches.

How to distinguish a child's absent-mindedness from dysgraphia?

Often adults cannot understand that a child has serious problems with speech reproduction on paper. Even experienced teachers may mistakenly think that he is simply lazy. In fact, defining dysgraphia is not that difficult. You just need to take a closer look at the little student’s notes. Typically, errors with this deviation have their own distinctive features. You should contact a speech therapist if your child makes the following mistakes:

Skips the same letters in words.
In stressed syllables he makes mistakes with the spelling of vowels.
Changes syllables in words.
Doesn't complete words or comes up with extra endings.
He writes some letters several times.
He writes not letters, but their mirror image.
Passes soft and hard signs.
He writes without paying attention to the line.
Regularly goes out into the fields.
Forgets about capital letters and does not understand where to put periods.
Doesn't understand how to pronounce words.

Are there risk groups? Everyone wants to know how to teach a child to write correctly without mistakes. But you should think about how to avoid the problem from a very young age. Parents should pay attention if:

left-handed child;
if the child was left-handed, but was retrained;
in a family, parents speak different languages;
if the baby has speech problems;
with absent-minded attention;
with difficulty remembering;
if school starts earlier than expected;
When writing, the child misses letters, confuses unvoiced consonants, and pronounces words incorrectly.

Articulatory-acoustic problem. The student confuses sounds, does not perceive them and cannot pronounce them correctly. Because of this, he cannot write correctly.
Phonetic perception. The child distorts what he hears.
Violation of language analysis and synthesis. Omission of letters and syllables, parts of words.
Agrammatic. Arises due to ignorance of the rules.
Optical. The child confuses words with similar spellings.

You should think about how to teach your child to write without errors as early as possible. Such a child needs a lot of attention both at school and at home. Only with a systematic approach can a positive result be achieved. Psychologists and speech therapists give several useful recommendations for parents:

Carefully monitor what mistakes were made during the day. When doing homework, you can unobtrusively pronounce words correctly, thus repeating spellings.
Try to instill in your child a love of reading. Well-read people make far fewer mistakes thanks to automatic memory. In the future, the child may not know the rules, but he must write properly.
Pay attention to the words that your child encounters in everyday life. Signs, advertising, TV - emphasize the correct spelling of difficult words.

The most important rule is not to scold or criticize your child. It’s not his fault that he has such a problem, and if you lower your self-esteem, you can only achieve even greater regression. Parents are simply obliged, first of all, to work themselves, spare no time, and study the issue. There is a wide selection of specialized literature. For example, a series of books by Tatyana Vasilyevna Shklyarova can be very useful. Shklyarova tells how to teach a child to write without mistakes, she explains it easily and clearly.

Treatment of dysgraphia and disorphorgraphia should first of all be based on eliminating the causes of the disorders, and also include correct and timely correction of writing. It is imperative to consult a neurologist and speech therapist. If concomitant diseases are identified, it is necessary to undergo a rehabilitation course, which may consist of physical therapy and physiotherapy. All violations in the letter are corrected by a speech therapist. The developed methods allow:

develop skills of visual discrimination of letters and symbols;
teach the skills of analysis and synthesis of information, in other words, compare, contrast, identify patterns;
develop visual and auditory memory;
teach basic morphological principles;
help the child pronounce sounds and understand phonetic processes;
enrich your vocabulary;
form coherent speech in a child.

As a rule, problems with spelling are discovered in the first grade. If you are thinking about how to teach your child to write dictations without errors in a short time, 2nd grade is the right time to start working. Second grade is the period when children are faced with dictations. In higher grades, if a student does not master spelling, he will have problems on tests and therefore poor grades. Preparation for this important method of spell checking should begin gradually, in several stages:

repeat already familiar spelling rules;
constantly practice writing unfamiliar words;
apply the rules in practice;
take dictation at least a few short sentences a day;
repeat the spelling of words in which mistakes were made;
during dictation, pay attention to pauses;
start writing only after the sentence has been read to the end.