Remedial handwriting please help!

[Emma]

My son is almost a 6th grader. Somehow I have been in denial over his absolutely terrible handwriting, both cursive and print. It was apparent to me today when he signed his dad's Father's Day card that it is worse than a kindergartner. Any suggestions? Should I start with print or just go directly to cursive?

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

IMHO I would just do cursive since it is easier per Occupational Therapists and it is more functional for school as in the ability to write quicker when proficient. I would use traditional cursive or HWT cursive. My kid does traditional cursive with capital letters that are print (similar to HWT cursive) for increased legibility. Practice everyday for half hour and have him do all papers in cursive. My kid had lots of issues with handwriting and pencil grip. It took about 6 months of solid practice before he became proficient at cursive and now he prefers cursive. We still practice occasionally when his writing gets a sloppy again.

 

If he has poor pencil grip, get good pencil grip to use that forces proper pencil grip.

[Emma]

Thank you so much for answering! I've known this was an issue, I guess I really have been in denial.

[freelylearned]

You may want to look into if he has dysgraphia too. It usually becomes more evident during the middle years. There is a whole set of strategies for dealing with dysgraphia if that happens to be the case.

[Miss Tick]

Is there a preliminary dysgraphia checklist or something that I can use to get a feel for if that might be an issue before I start jumping through official hoops?

[HollyDay]

I used Cursive First.  It was very straightforward and helped a great deal.  Youngest dd, who will be in 12th next year, has beautiful handwriting both cursive and print.  She does prefer print.  Oldest dd, who is now is college, still prefers print to cursive. 

 

Italics would be another option.  It is somewhere between cursive and print.

[Emma]

Thanks again to everyone who responded. I don't think he's dysgraphic, but it never hurts to check. Any ideas how I could do this? I'm pretty sure he's just a lazy 12 yr old boy who's momma has let him be the baby for far too long.

[BlsdMama]

I'd definitely look into dysgraphia, just so you can have solid, but reasonable, expectations.

 

I'd let him use a pen rather than a pencil.

I'd also switch to cursive rather than print.

 

 

[freelylearned]

You can tell a lot by watching him write. When he is writing, if he has a tendency to crack his knuckles, stretch out his hands, shake out his hands, or roll his shoulders often while he is writing, he could have a dysgraphia related to uneven muscle development. This is very common among preteens and teen boys because their hands get more muscular during growth spurts while girl hands tend to stay "delicate." Working on hand muscle strength + handwriting practice is helpful.

 

If you ask him to write neatly and he has a hard time staying on the line, keeping his letters consistent sizes, or if he is constantly going back and erasing letters because he did something like write an "a" but it ended up looking like a "u" or he accidentally inserted a capital letter in the wrong spot, it could be spatial dysgraphia. Also, if his writing has been messy, but acceptable, and then in a short amount of time it regresses to being really, really bad, it could also be spatial dysgraphia.

 

If you suspect his handwriting is because he hasn't had much focused practice in handwriting, add handwriting to the beginning of the day and tell him it will be a regular part of the curriculum until his writing improves across the board. His writing should straighten up pretty quickly.

[Emma]

Shellsand,

These are great tips! Thank you! Do you have any handwriting programs you prefer for either dysgraphia or not? My daughter had naturally good handwriting. So I think that's why I just never really focused on it with him. Now I'm regretting that.

[freelylearned]

Shellsand,

These are great tips! Thank you! Do you have any handwriting programs you prefer for either dysgraphia or not? My daughter had naturally good handwriting. So I think that's why I just never really focused on it with him. Now I'm regretting that.

 

I'm glad I could be helpful. I'm not a handwriting expert, but I was a high school teacher once. After having one diagnosed spatial dysgraphic student in one of my classes and researching it, I realized that I had a whole lot of undiagnosed dysgraphics in my classes, too. (You should have heard the knuckle cracking every time my students had to write!) If cursive is the way you want to go, I think any cursive program is appropriate for a 6th grade student. Cursive is a challenge to learn at any age. A good challenge, but still a challenge. That being said, the Getty Dubay Italic program is the only program I know of that is appropriate for middle school students that also teaches print. Instead of teaching print or cursive, it teaches print at the beginning of each book, and then it teaches Italic-Cursive, which reminds me of cursive without the extra loops. Getty Dubay also teaches self-checking and planning ahead within the program. My son also thought the workbooks were interesting because the writing exercises center around things like the history of writing, palindromes, and tongue twisters .

 

Getty Dubay also has an adult program called Write Now to teach adults with poor handwriting to write efficiently and clearly (They even market it at doctor conventions! Ha!) My son has both spatial dysgraphia and fine motor dysgraphia. He works through a book or two a year and I work in hand strengthening with gifts of Crazy Aron's Thinking Putty and specific exercises during PE (monkey bars, crab walks, bear walks, and push ups). We saw some progress at the end of fourth grade and the beginning of fifth grade, so I know it works, but then he had a huge growth spurt and his handwriting deteriorated again. I've read that's not unusual for dysgraphics to lose all of their progress during growth spurts, but is is frustrating nonetheless. 

 

Right now, because my son is very dysgraphic, we are resigned to handwriting through 12th grade and we are OK with it. Part of homeschooling is making sure he gets what he needs when he needs it. I also tell him that it is part of being a life long learner--we learn as we go. Oddly, one thing I did recently was to hand my son a piece of graph paper for a writing assignment. I was getting tired of highlighting the lower half of each line of notebook paper to assist him with the spatial side of his dysgaraphia. I told him to write in all caps and to make sure each letter fit in a square. It turned out amazingly legible! Since he keeps talking about a STEM career and all of the engineer and architecture students I knew in college wrote in all caps anyway...I might encourage him to switch over to all caps and buy him a lifetime supply of graph paper notebooks with our charter school stipend money. Joking aside, you may need to experiment with writing programs. He may not take to cursive, but love italics. He may be inspired by modern calligraphy or just prefer to write in all caps...who knows? Or, you may just need to find a park with monkey bars. 

[Tiramisu]

I'd give it about six months max of working systematically on handwriting and then I'd go to an occupational therapist for an eval, if you are against going right away.

 

An OT will very quickly be able to identify areas of difficulty and suggest remediations, like correcting an improper grip or hand strengthening exercises. Or she could tell you if there are lax joints or a neurological reason. This route would limit unnecessary frustration and wasted time.

 

The usual recommendation for someone with this problem at age 12 is to start working on typing.

 

My biggest worry is that you are blaming yourself and him which can create all kinds of problems in your relationship and his attitude about school, when you don't really know what is in your or his control.

 

There was a post by Quill on the Learning Challenges board about this recently. It might help you to read.

 

My DD was not evaluated until she was a senior in high school and I was shocked to learn there was a neurological basis for her sloppy writing. At twenty, we learned she also has a heritable collagen disorder which makes her hand joints very loose. All along I just thought that her bad handwriting was from spending her early years in ps, where they don't emphasize proper handwriting, and because she was s lefty. She is in college where the disability office gives her a pen to record lectures. In the past they had someone in the class take notes for her. She also in entitled to extra time, but she has rarely needed to use it.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

I also recommend therapeutic clay for exercising fingers and hands. You can find it on amazon. They also have squeeze balls for hand strengthening. 

[Emma]

These are amazing responses. Thank you to everyone who took their time to write such lengthy and nonjudgmental answers. I have a lot to look into and to consider! I adore this board!

[OneStepAtATime]

Agree with the very helpful posts up thread.  I just wanted to add that bad handwriting, while annoying and sometimes inconvenient, does not mean that a child is in dire straights for functionality as an adult, especially in today's day and age.  Should you seek to improve his handwriting and possibly seek out a dysgraphia diagnosis?  Yes, of course, keep working at it.  Don't despair, though, if your child has dysgraphia.  A diagnosis is not to get an inhibiting label.  It is to find the best course of action for helping with remediation where remediation is possible and seeking support systems and accommodations where remediation is not enough.  A diagnosis is to give you answers for how to best help your child not only survive but thrive.

 

FWIW, there is a lot of dysgraphia in my family.  DH has dysgraphia and is a successful engineer.  My eldest nephew has profound dysgraphia, has utterly illegible handwriting (the worst I have ever seen), and is making a 4.0 in college.  My DS has dysgraphia and actually has legible handwriting.  He just has to write veeeeeerrrrrrryyyyy slooooooooooowwwwllllyyy.  The older two use a LOT of tech and are excellent at it.  The tech allows them to reach their full potential instead of being held back by challenges with handwriting.  DS is learning to type and use other tech to help out when he needs to write faster than a snails pace.

 

Don't beat yourself (or him) up regarding bad handwriting.  There are a lot of people with bad handwriting.  Just go from here.  While you work on helping your child with his handwriting, keep in mind that if he does have dysgraphia (which basically means that despite normal, consistent, handwriting instruction handwriting is very challenging) there could be many areas where the disconnect is occurring.  If he seems "lazy" or unfocused or defiant or very resistant, keep in mind that these things probably developed BECAUSE handwriting is hard, not the other way around.  A lot of dysgraphics are blamed for their handwriting issues.  There are many underlying processes that go into handwriting.  If any one of those processes breaks down or is not in sync with the others, handwriting can be exceedingly challenging.  Be patient, keep a positive outlook, be supportive, and help him find ways to be successful.  

 

I recommend you get him typing and using mind mapping software, if you haven't already.  He will do a lot better if he can type fluently by High School, even if he never gets a dysgraphia diagnosis.  Even with those supports (and they aren't cheating, they are helping him to communicate effectively in a manner that actually is highly acceptable in the world at large), do not expect things to be automatic.  Just as with handwriting, typing may take much longer for him to learn before he can rely on it for output.  Typing can be a huge help, though.  If he isn't already learning to type, start now.  Get software that does not penalize for time and that allows you to adjust accuracy settings and w.p.m. requirements.