About two or three weeks ago, I worked with a student in the Writing Center of a local community college where I tutor. I began our appointment as I always do by asking what brought her there. When she began talking, I could not discern if her speech impediment were indicative of a lisp or a learning disability. I kept listening as she told me she wanted to make her essay "better."
She explained that her assignment was to define a concept. She chose disrespect. Her sister's relationship with her boyfriend was her primary example. She took a balled up, wrinkled piece of paper from her bookbag. She wrote two largely disjointed paragraphs. "How much time did you take to write your ideas?" I asked.
"I knowed it's very messy, but I didn't have time."
"Okay, do you want me to read your essay to you or do you want to read it to me?"
"I'll read it to you."
As she read her essay, I noticed she had a difficult time pronouncing words or she added words that she did not write on the page. "May I see it?" She let me read it. When I looked at her essay, her handwriting was at a third or fourth grade level. I simply made a mental note. I also noticed how confusing her sentences were. I could not understand what she wanted to say. There was at least one spelling error in each sentence.
Since her draft was largely undeveloped, I asked probing questions to get her to develop more. She couldn't. Then I asked her to list all the ways her sister's boyfriend was disrespectful. She did. We used each different example as the main idea for each new paragraph leaving about four or five spaces between each word.
Then I asked her to write down this phrase: Another example of disrespect is.... She could not. She left out vowel sounds and had a hard time distinguishing between the "s" and "x" sound. I thought maybe she had an auditory processing problem. However after reading McAlexander's definition of dysgraphia, I am inclined to believe she may have this learning disability. She describes dysgraphia as a person with severe writing limitations. My student has unusual handwriting, confusing syntax, and frequent misspellings. I've arranged a meeting with her teacher to develop a game plan to help this student improve her spelling.
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