The way I teach is to start at the child's developmental level, irrespective of his age, and teach just a little above that level so the child is challenged, but able to succeed with effort. This way, he has more success experiences than with the age-appropriate method, but fewer than with the predigested method. The success experiences are more valuable, too, because the child knows he's succeeded at something he really had to work hard at. It teaches him that he can succeed at tasks that may seem daunting at first and he practices skills he can use later in life to make tasks less overwhelming.
Where I'm having trouble in regard to writing is that I don't know if my son's disorganization is developmentally appropriate (i.e. Do typically developing 9-year-olds have trouble with writing a coherent paragraph?). If this is the case, he'll outgrow it without any intervention on my part. If not, I should start some kind of intervention and I'll need help knowing how to intervene. How can I break up the writing process into parts small enough for him to grasp?
I'm thinking of a child with Down Syndrome whom I worked with many years ago. He was blowing raspberries and his occupational therapist told me to put my hand on his mouth every time he did that. I said, "But all babies blow raspberries. It's actually beneficial for language development." She explained that typically developing babies outgrow blowing raspberries when they no longer need to do it, but babies with Down Syndrome keep doing it. This baby was two and raspberries were getting in the way of his learning to speak. I'm wondering if my son's disorganization has passed that point of usefulness and is now interfering with his learning to write properly.
