Don't Overlook the Little Things

A few years ago, I worked with a fourth grade student who struggled with reading and writing. He also exhibited behavior issues and would have frequent "meltdowns" when he had to complete a school assignment in cursive. It was his teacher's expectation to complete certain assignments using cursive writing. At home, he would do anything he could to avoid his written homework.

One day, I was observing in his classroom and witnessed the emotional breakdown. He had to write his spelling words in cursive and one word included the "os" cursive combination as in "most." That one was particularly troublesome and really set him off. He just couldn't get it to look right. (Try it. It's a difficult combination, especially if you struggle with cursive).

Later that day, we worked together using a computer. I had a chance to show him some of the fonts built into Microsoft Word and asked him to choose a font that looked good to him. As we tried all the various font choices, he zeroed in on a cursive font and said,"That's the one!" We also customized the size of the font and talked about how he could set it as the default font on his home computer.

A month later, I got a call from his mother. She told me that her son now came home from school, went to the computer and willingly completed his homework on his own, using the cursive font. She was ecstatic; the battles over writing assignments were over.

Sometimes, it's the solution that's right in front of our faces. And this one didn't cost anything.