Handwriting and my 5yo

[blondeviolin]

My 5yo has all sorts of roadblocks with handwriting: she naturally grips and directs her pencil with her thumb and pinky. She instinctually does circle clockwise and lines from the bottom up. We are sleekly and gently working through HWT.

 

I'm noticing she can mimic the letters fine if she has a model. With no model, the verbal prompts HWT gives are not enough.

 

Today I asked her if she could see what the letter looks like when she closes her eyes. She insisted she couldn't. Even the "magic c" prompt confused her as she has no distinction between a correct c and backwards one.

 

We've waited a lot longer with her than my other kids, but at this point she is trying to form letters on her own in play. She reads well for new 5, at a late first grade level.

 

Any ideas?

[sunnyday]

For what it's worth, my son was still reversing letters and numbers until late first grade, when the teacher cracked down and he learned to look for a cue before writing (looks for a number 6 in the classroom on the page, then determines which way to make his 5 off of that, etc.) He's starting to wean off of these crutches in mid-second grade.

 

Also, I have been working with the kindergarten classroom on their letter formation. What you describe are issues that a lot of the kids have. What I'm trying to do with them is more gross motor work. Getting the muscle memory corrected by making big counter-clockwise circles with a finger or with a white board marker. Doing several big top-to-bottom lines in the air before moving to make a letter 't'. That sort of stuff.

 

Rhythm of Handwriting has some good gross-motor activity ideas, and I think it suggests not even bothering with pencil-and-paper work until these larger motions are more natural.

[Ellie]

My 5yo has all sorts of roadblocks with handwriting: she naturally grips and directs her pencil with her thumb and pinky. She instinctually does circle clockwise and lines from the bottom up. We are sleekly and gently working through HWT.

 

I'm noticing she can mimic the letters fine if she has a model. With no model, the verbal prompts HWT gives are not enough.

 

Today I asked her if she could see what the letter looks like when she closes her eyes. She insisted she couldn't. Even the "magic c" prompt confused her as she has no distinction between a correct c and backwards one.

 

We've waited a lot longer with her than my other kids, but at this point she is trying to form letters on her own in play. She reads well for new 5, at a late first grade level.

 

Any ideas?

 

Spalding does an excellent job of teaching handwriting, with the added benefit of teaching reading, spelling, capitalization and punctuation, and simple writing.

 

It's going to be very important for you to help her learn to hold her pencil/pen properly (does she also hold her spoon/fork awkwardly? Children tend to do both, as the handshape for both eating and writing is pretty much the same). She *will* struggle with handwriting otherwise. Maybe there's something in this article that will help.

 

Also, it might help for her to use a pencil grip like one of these. 

[blondeviolin]

Spalding does an excellent job of teaching handwriting, with the added benefit of teaching reading, spelling, capitalization and punctuation, and simple writing.

 

It's going to be very important for you to help her learn to hold her pencil/pen properly (does she also hold her spoon/fork awkwardly? Children tend to do both, as the handshape for both eating and writing is pretty much the same). She *will* struggle with handwriting otherwise. Maybe there's something in this article that will help.

 

Also, it might help for her to use a pencil grip like one of these.

Weirdly, she holds her eating utensils properly and can even do chopsticks. :001_huh:

 

I'll look at that article.

 

She doesn't understand clockwise or counterclockwise and it's almost like she cannot force her hand to betray the impulse of drawing a circle clockwise vs counter clockwise.

[SporkUK]

I just wanted to chime in with sympathy as my 5 year old is similar. She can write fine with a model, she actually has quite nice handwriting after using Joy of Handwriting -- as long as she can copy. Without a copy she sometimes can't even remember which letter I'm talking about which is not something I ran across with her older siblings. I remember my eldest knowing the letters but lacked confidence if he did not have a copy for some time until he had overlearned them all, if that makes sense. I run a heavy copy-based Year 1 plan for writing because of this: Joy of Handwriting's lower case section, Blend Phonics, Joy of Handwriting capitals (which has a clock card which was useful for my eldest), daily copying bit by bit until he wanted to write more on his own. 

[Ellie]

She doesn't understand clockwise or counterclockwise and it's almost like she cannot force her hand to betray the impulse of drawing a circle clockwise vs counter clockwise.

 

I haven't looked at HWT in depth. :-) How specific is it when teaching the letters? Spalding and its spin-offs tell the children to start at 2 on the clock, go up to 12, around to 9, down to 6, and back up to 2; many of use use a rubber stamp of a clock face and stamp each paper, with arrows pointing to each number.

 

Do you have her practice drawing circles in the air with her finger? in sand? in chocolate pudding? :-)

[blondeviolin]

I haven't looked at HWT in depth. :-) How specific is it when teaching the letters? Spalding and its spin-offs tell the children to start at 2 on the clock, go up to 12, around to 9, down to 6, and back up to 2; many of use use a rubber stamp of a clock face and stamp each paper, with arrows pointing to each number.

 

Do you have her practice drawing circles in the air with her finger? in sand? in chocolate pudding? :-)

HWT was developed by a occupational therapist, I think. The prompts are pretty specific: "magic c, up like a helicopter, up even further, back down, bump the line." She does just fine with a model. No model and she starts drawing random shapes??? I don't mind having models for her all of the way through first grade. It's definitely age appropriate.

 

What's concerning is she can't visualize the letter without seeing it first.

[Ellie]

HWT was developed by a occupational therapist, I think. The prompts are pretty specific: "magic c, up like a helicopter, up even further, back down, bump the line." She does just fine with a model. No model and she starts drawing random shapes??? I don't mind having models for her all of the way through first grade. It's definitely age appropriate.

 

What's concerning is she can't visualize the letter without seeing it first.

 

:huh:

 

I like Spalding's method better. :-)

 

But yes, that she cannot visualize the letter is concerning. Does she seem to have any other...I hate to say "problems," lol. Quirks?

[blondeviolin]

:huh:

 

I like Spalding's method better. :-)

 

But yes, that she cannot visualize the letter is concerning. Does she seem to have any other...I hate to say "problems," lol. Quirks?

Nothing that stands out. She identifies shapes and lines and colors with ease. (Though, at 2 or 3 she thought red was green and vice versa. It took a bit to remediate that.). She is highly visual. She's very concerned with things being pretty and decorated appropriately.

 

She's also not logical in a linear fashion. She often sees whole picture vs step-by-step.

 

She picked up reading MUCH quicker than I anticipated she would.

 

She's my child that insisted that the Elf on the Shelf was Not Real and no amount of magic talk would convince her. We actually had to put it away because she was determined to prove he wasn't real and we didn't want to have to delve into other things being real.

[wendyroo]

Have you tried any handwriting apps?  Maybe it would help to separate letter formation from correct pencil grip.  HWT offers the Wet Dry Try app which teachers uppercase letters, but our favorite is LetterSchool which offers uppercase, lowercase and numbers...plus it is much more fun than HWT.

 

I also second the recommendation of the Grotto Grip.  On a regular pencil, my 3 year old has an atrocious grip, but with the Grotto Grip he holds the pencil perfectly.  My five year old also like using one (even though his grip is fine without) because he says it makes writing hurt his hand less.

 

Wendy

[Stellalarella]

I would suggest using a sand tray and tracing the letters in the sand with her index finger.  She will feel a lot more sensory input--a shallow tray covered with something like bumpy duct tape dusted with a few tablespoons of sand.  I made one with a plastic tray from a restaurant supply place, some sparkly duct tape, and some decorative blue sand.   It would be handy to write the letter on a HWT slate and put it in front of her while she forms the letter in the sand.  

 

Another option to give her more sensory input is drawing in shaving cream.

 

I've also found using the HWT wooden blocks effective.  I would have my kids build the letters on the corresponding letter cards first.

 

The Wet-Dry-Try HWT method with tiny pieces of chalk, the tiny sponge and slate are also very good.

 

For trouble with b and d, a wonderful poster on this forum suggested showing kiddos how when one makes the "b" sound, the lips start pressed together, hence, the formation of the letter b begins with a line; to make the "d" sound, one starts with an open mouth and in forming the letter "d" the first stroke you make is the little curve or "magic c."  

 

Have you thought about air drawing the letters?  I wonder what would happen if you stood in front of her so she could mimic the motions.