Using My Experiences With Dysgraphia to Develop Joyful Readers

• In Event: Disability Sustaining Pedagogy: Elementary School Literacy Teaching Based on the Insights of Teachers With Disabilities

Abstract

Describing myself as dysgraphic is a means to communicate that writing is challenging. However, I identify myself as dysgraphic not to qualify my product but to enable me to self-advocate. Leading with the label illuminates my process; it explains that it takes me a while to get words out. This knowledge of my identity and independence was fostered by educators who guided me through the writing process and taught me how to guide myself.

Based on my experiences, I am passionate about fostering the independence and identities of my disabled students. I believe that kids learn when an educator recognizes that each student’s conditions for success vary. As the special educator in a classroom that integrates general and special education students, I take an inquiry stance: oscillating between assessing and instructing.

I begin by assessing students' sub-skills in literacy. This helps me determine what my students are ready to learn. I also inquire about the books that they read with family members and enjoy repeatedly revisiting. This data makes learning to read meaningful.

Instruction takes place in small groups of students with overlapping needs. Cultivating my students’ reading identities is at the core of our work. At the beginning, many students claimed that they could not read. My instructional decisions alter this narrative by providing them with experiences of competence. I teach one learning objective at a time and assess for mastery before we progress. I emphasize and celebrate moments of growth, which helps students recognize that they are developing. My approach is a response to how my growth as a writer was rarely acknowledged. It was well into my twenties that I started feeling proud of my writing.

Small groups are sites where I can cultivate students’ sense of belonging in a community of readers. I offer students the chance to pick their own “alias.” In this way, students are not naming themselves as struggling readers; they are seeing themselves as favorite characters. This also centers joy rather than for remediation. I sustain this feeling through games, multimodal activities, and student choices. My students have shared that they treasure our group work because it is fun. I was motivated to create this learning environment by my enjoyment during the sessions where I received writing intervention.

Discussing my dysgraphia has illuminated the importance of teaching my students to advocate for what they need to be successful. I highlight everyone’s strengths and areas of growth as readers because self-knowledge is a prerequisite for self-advocacy. In the beginning of the year, my students with disabilities are prone to saying, “I’m tired” as a way of indicating “this is hard.” As they come to understand themselves as readers, they become deft at asking for support in utilizing new strategies. Their willingness to ask results from my insistence that asking for support is essential. Their needs—like those of many individuals with disabilities, myself included—are not readily apparent, so it is imperative that they demand that their needs are met.

Author

• Todd Lavine, New York City Department of Education