Dysgraphia Toys to Bolster Handwriting Skills and Expressive Language

This article includes information about how dysgraphia toys and tools can help kids struggling with handwriting development. Affiliate links are included for your convenience. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Some people may not be familiar with dysgraphia or how toys can help. However, there are many kids (who may not even know it) that struggle with dysgraphia. The good news, is there are a few tools and dysgraphia toys that may be helpful.

Dysgraphia is when a child has trouble with handwriting and expressing what they are learning on paper. In this case, there is a disconnection in the brain that prevents kids from organizing their thoughts and written skills on paper.

If you have a child or student who has dysgraphia, there are activities and tools that can help improve these areas of development. Many of these tools and activities are meant to be fun and playful or will support their efforts in the classroom. Encouraging kids to use certain writing supports can help kids feel more successful and less stressed or frustrated when it comes to handwriting and expressive writing.

Dysgraphia Signs

There are many who confuse the signs of dysgraphia with dyslexia. However, kids who have difficulties with dyslexia have trouble reading while dysgraphia is solely connected to a child’s writing ability. Children with dysgraphia are most likely to have problems in areas such as:

• Visual-spatial
• Fine motor
• Language processing
• Spelling and handwriting
• Grammar
• Organizing thoughts on paper
• Copying notes from the chalkboard to their paper

Because dysgraphia is often confused with dyslexia, it’s important to have the child evaluated so they are not misdiagnosed. The child could work on interventions that may not target dysgraphia if they do not receive the right evaluation.

In addition, you may find a child who has dysgraphia also struggles with the following:

• Can’t get their thoughts down on paper
• Has messy handwriting
• Shows difficulty with shape discrimination and letter spacing
• Can’t organize words from left to right
• Doesn’t stay within the margins when writing
• Has tight or awkward pencil grip
• Is unable to use scissors or displays weak fine motor skills

Using Toys to Improve Dysgraphia

There are many dysgraphia toys and tools that may help kids develop better writing skills and can support them while in school. Some of these toys can help with pencil grip and positioning the child’s hands, wrists and fingers in the right place. You can also use many of these to strengthen the hands and fine motor skills.

If the child struggles with letter directionality, you can provide them with letter tracer mats and also encourage them to do activities on vertical spaces to strengthen stability in the arms, wrists and hands for handwriting.

Dysgraphia Toys

To get started, here are a few of our favorites and recommendations to use when helping kids who have dysgraphia. Adjust activities and toys as needed based on the child’s level and hand strength.

Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs