Kate came at the start of the summer holidays and worked with him about once a week for almost four months, combining play with work, first a game then some writing and so on. She also had some diagrams of letters he could follow to help him form the letters. His writing did improve,  what she did discover though was that his wrists were not as strong as a they could be. He had been doing exercises at school with a stress ball but I don't think he could  concentrate long enough to make this practice worth while. What did make an immense difference to the strength in his wrists was when he took up guitar lessons.

He has always shown a big interest in music, and it seemed only natural to encourage this side of him. He is proving to be an excellent student and another positive of the lessons is the fact that the playing of a guitar strengthens his wrists. The difference is obvious in his writing now compared with before he started learning guitar.

I can't help asking myself why I am so keen for him to write well.His typing skills are exceptional for a child his age. His teachers have not seemed overly concerned by the fact that most of his work is done on a computer and I understand we live in a time were from day to day in our working lives we hardly need to put pen or pencil to paper. It would not surprise me if most of us could go from one day to the next barely writing anything free hand at all. I still feel it is an important skill though,  it is a very personnel way of communicating,  to receive a hand written card or letter is far more heart warming than an e.mail or text. I read recently of a school in England were all the pupils have been given tablet computers, which to me, some one born in 1959 is astounding. Recently I took my son to join the local library and once they had all the details they needed, they asked my son to sign his name on his library card. He did this very slowly and methodically as was fitting this big moment in his life and although the letters he wrote were a little large and looked like they had been written by a child two years his junior, I could sense the obvious pride he had at being able to do this, all these writing lessons actually made some sense to him. The librarian watched him signing and only allowed herself a flicker of response, it accured to me it was not the first time she had witnessed a card signing of this nature.

In the future if his writing does not improve his educators will find a way around this. Does that encourage him to be lazy ? Possibly, what it does allow is for him to keep up with his peers and in some cases go ahead of them.