5yo refuses to hold a pencil

[cholderby]

Our HSing consists of phonics/reading and math worksheets (only because he likes them) this year. But he refuses to do any writing of any kind. He has never colored, never picked up a crayon to scribble, won't play tic-tac-toe, do a maze or dot-to-dot! I have tried fat pencils, pencil grips, crayons, pens and markers.

 

Most of the math worksheets involve circling the correct answer, which he will occasionally do. If the circle is anything less than perfect, he bursts into tears and and walks away from the table. I've tried to show him what the writing of other kids his age looks like, but that hasn't helped (and its kind of hard to do on my own).

 

I know in my heart that he's not going to be 22 and not know how to write his name, but I am worried that he is behind. My MIL is a school teacher and not happy with the idea of homeschooling...I'm afraid that this is going to be brought up as exhibit #1 against HSing (and proof I'm a bad mom :001_huh:).

 

We have purchased pre-k HWT, but I meet the same resistance with that as anything else. I'd appreciate any advice, even if it is just to talk me down from this ledge!

[Guest]

A couple of things come to mind.

 

First, he's five. There is absolutely no need in the world for him to be writing yet, if he's not interested or ready. There isn't any need for him to be coloring. Many, many countries do not begin formal learning until age 7; the kids learn to read and write with much less struggle, and fewer learning disabilities. So please do not feel you need to push him just because a program is marketed for kindergarten or five year olds. Not all kids are alike; and like late readers, late writers almost always make huge strides and "catch up" to grade level quite quickly.

 

If you feel the need to do something structured, make it active and make it fun. Peggy Kaye has the most wonderful books: Games For Learning, Games For Math, Games For Writing -- you can do pre-writing types of games through talk, making stories, acting out picture book scenes, building pretend towns or dinosaur nests or whatever your child loves, and telling each other stories about them. If he prefers non-fiction, set up a dinosaur "museum" with displays of different types of dinos and have him play tour guide and tell you all about them. (Substitute whatever he is passionate about for dinos.)

 

Another thing that occurred to me is whether he resists any and all kinds of fine motor activities. Does he play with small figures or Legos? Does he tie his shoes? Can he handle silverware? Does he like to play with tape, string, that kind of thing? Does he like to dig? If he can do these types of things, I'd put off the writing for another six months at least and go back to it then. If he has trouble with any of these, or resists all sorts of tactile or fine motor activities, I'd be a bit more concerned. My daughter was willing to write -- but it was illegible, and she had problems in all fine motor areas. When I finally took her to an OT at age eight, the OT said, "I wish I'd gotten hold of her four years ago."

[freerange]

Teach him to type, take dictation, discuss the topic, do the questions verbally... Do not make this a battle ground.

 

Teachers in schools require written work because its the most convenient way of getting 30 kids to all provide their answers so that they can be marked later. You have flexibilty to check your DS's understanding in many other ways.

 

Do you write, colour, draw, do puzzles, basically anything fun with a writing implement?

 

Write to him - little fun notes - Dear DS, Would you like eggs for breakfast? Love Mum x

 

 

If, in a couple of years, he's seeing people around him drawing/writing & still showing now inclination to pick up a pen, then I might start to investigate further. But a lot can happen in a couple of years, so in the meantime try to relax & have fun with pens & pencils yourself & maybe he'll want to join in!

[wapiti]

I'd get an OT evaluation. An OT will have lots of ideas.

 

Obviously he needs to learn to write by hand, but I hate to see fine motor issues get in the way of learning content. My ds's teacher got him number stamps so he could do math even though he struggled with writing numbers (they were dotted and he'd trace them afterward for practice). Is he interested in the computer at all? I don't know how young is too young for typing, but I'd give it a shot.

 

My ds7, who struggles with fine motor skills, never draws either. He can never make a drawing match the image that's in his brain. It's complicated by a tendency toward perfectionism. If it's any consolation, he started K not being able to write more than his name (and then only barely!!! with all capital letters), and between OT and his montessori teacher, he finished K writing in cursive. If only I could get him to do that now... now he only prints. His writing takes a long time and requires patience, but it's nicer than his twin brother's who never had OT. They are both about to learn typing.

 

Thinking some more, you need to figure out whether you're dealing with a fine motor problem, a perfectionism problem, or (more likely) both.

[Dmmetler]

On HWT-do you have the teacher's guide or just the workbook? The workbook is the smallest part of HWT pre-K-most of the program is manipulating objects and developing fine motor skills away from paper first. One of the best hints I've heard for little boys is to let them build roads with the letter pieces, then push the little micro-machine sized cars along them. After they've done that awhile, start moving towards making letter shaped roads. This helps the child learn the strokes for writing, but without the pressure of making marks on paper. Playdough, air writing, and all of that kind of stuff helps, too.

[RedHouse]

My almost 5 yr old is not at all into crayon and pencil type work. But I got him these really cool crayon rocks and they are special just for him. He has started asking to sit down with us and do mazes and other activity book things. The crayon rocks force him to use a tripod grip. I got them from Stubby Pencil Studio. For some reason they just really float his boat.

[Unicorn.]

Good advice here. I just wanted to add a couple of things. On the math, instead of having him circle the correct answer, just have him draw a line through the correct one, eventually you can have work up to drawing an X on it. Circles are very hard at that age!

 

For pre-writing skills, take him outside and draw pictures in the dirt w/ a stick, start w/ just squiggly lines and x's and simple things. Work up to letter's like S, T, X, etc and eventually his name. In a few months move on to sidewalk chalk, and again start w/ squiggles and meaningless patterns.

 

Also, to build fine motor skills, have him pick up grains of rice off the table and put them in a bowl. My dd's pre-k teacher told me to do this w/ her. I wish I had listened!

 

Good luck and don't worry to much yet. Oh, and ignore the mil!

[abbeyej]

Well, I *would* require the HWT work of him. But I would focus especially on the non-writing fine motor work: the roll-a-dough letters, the chalkboard, the magnadoodle screen...

 

I would also begin giving him *lots* of fine motor skills work. Make yourself a list of fine motor activities and make sure he spends 15 minutes twice a day on any of them. Some ideas to get you started:

 

Legos

LightBright

playdough (in addition to rolling things out, making things, etc, you can bury "treasures" like marbles or tiny plastic dinos, etc, in small amounts of play dough for him to dig out with his fingers)

Tricky Fingers

chopsticks -- use a child's tong-like chopsticks and craft pompoms and have him move them from one bowl to another (There's also a way to make these with disposable chopsticks and a rubber band...)

stringing beads (for variety, have him string plastic pony beads on a drinking straw)

jigsaw puzzles

sidewalk chalk

sorting buttons or dry beans (sort a bag of mixed bean soup into a muffin tin or ice cube tray)

finger painting

drawing letters in a cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan with a thin layer of cornmeal

play with cornstarch and water

practice slicing bananas in the kitchen

learn to peel carrots

do finger plays (Marc Brown has some lovely books with finger plays and finger rhymes)

set out an array of cups and bowls, creams, small pouring things, etc, and a couple of medicine droppers (different sizes if you have them or can collect them) and put water with a couple of drops of food coloring into some of the vessels -- then have him work carefully to mix and transfer the water without spilling

put large sheets of butcher paper on the wall and have him color up there -- if he needs encouragement, you draw a tree and have him draw apples on it, or something else -- make it silly and fun, if you can

paper mache

even hot wheels cars

 

Anything you can do to encourage his fine motor skills will be a big help. Also, if his gross motor skills are also lagging, he may need encouragement to develop those *first*, before you'll be able to see significant strides in his fine motor skills. Encourage any play that gets him running, climbing, pulling, balancing, etc.

 

But, personally, I would *not* just let this slide. I don't think it will help him in the long run, and I think five is plenty old enough to spend a few minutes a day on something one doesn't enjoy. That said, I don't think that "writing with a pencil" is the only way to learn to write and to develop the basic physical skills necessary to write.

[FairProspects]

:iagree:about the OT eval. What you described is exactly how my ds was, and it turned out he had fine motor problems that I never realized because he was so good at avoiding anything fine motor. Now, at about 6 months into OT, he draws all the time, and writes for fun because it was caught so early and OT was able to help him build those muscles/stamina. I would definitely have him evaluated. If nothing is wrong, there is no loss, and if he does need help, it is much easier to fix at this age than later on down the road.

[cholderby]

Thank you all so much! That gives me some new things to try and some much needed reassurance.

 

He does type, so maybe we'll continue on with that. He is very into Transformers and Legos, so I guess that is some fine motor practice.

 

I do think it is at least in part a perfectionism problem. And he's stubborn. He spent 45 minutes last night trying to convince me to brush his teeth for him. The last thing I want to do is turn writing into a power struggle.

[Sherry in OH]

At his 4 yr. well check, my son's pediatrician asked my son to copy some simple figures he had drawn - a cross, a circle, and a few others. He also asked him to write his name. My son can spell his name, but cannot write any letter. He also was unable to reproduce the figures. I was surprised that he was willing to try. The pediatrician is referring him to an OT for an evaluation.

[cholderby]

I think I might see an OT. As someone said, there's nothing to lose.

 

And I just ordered Tricky Fingers!

[Mom-ninja.]

I do think it is at least in part a perfectionism problem. And he's stubborn. He spent 45 minutes last night trying to convince me to brush his teeth for him. The last thing I want to do is turn writing into a power struggle.

 

I'm reading Raising Your Spirited Child right now and the above statement made me think of the book. Perhaps you want to read it. I really like it. If you want to avoid power struggles it's a good book to read.

 

My ds at ages 4 and 5 hated the fat pencils, triangular pencils, and regular pencils. Then one day at the library he picked up one of those mini pencils and loved it. So I bought a box of them, and he used those. You could give those a try. You never know, right?

 

Oh, he also loved writing his letters with paint brushes of all sizes. Also finger paints.

[Cindyg]

My ds never colored or held a pencil (or crayon) at age 5. He's almost 13, and he still doesn't write anything voluntarily, but he's OK. He types really well. Really well. We do much of our schoolwork orally or via keyboard. He is required to do a very short handwriting lesson each day, which he still complains about. But he can actually write enough to get by.

 

He is very fortunate to live in an age where he can take class notes (and do everything else) with a keyboard.

 

We did do OT, and I do recommend it. It helped, but did not cure. I do recommend it. (Especially since you don't know yet whether your son will take to typing when the time comes.)

 

I don't think putting your son in public school would address this in any way at all.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Not wanting to write is not a big deal to me but the total lack of writing/drawing/coloring of any kind would concern me a bit and the perfectionism is an issue.

 

My oldest child was a lot like this. He's a month from finishing PS 1st grade and just the other day I noticed that his writing has become very clear and tidy. This after 2 years of preschool in addition to kindergarten and first grade. But he just doesn't *like* to draw. He's fairly able to now--he can draw some fairly recognizable things and he's moved beyond stick figures. But it just isn't his cup of tea to sit down and draw a picture. He'd rather do other things. And he's always been that way. He's a perfectionist too. During his second year of pre-K, the teacher really took some time to figure out how he ticked, and he discovered that some mild positive reinforcement (mainly high-fives with a few stickers thrown in) did wonders for motivating my son to really try the writing and move beyond his perfectionism issue.

 

OTOH, my 4 going on 5 yo loves to draw and can spend hours at the dining room table surrounded by paper, markers, crayons, scissors, glue stick, stapler. Her latest thing is to draw pictures, dictate a story to me and make books :D She still doesn't like to write much--again with the perfectionism--but she'll attempt letters and numbers every now and again. For some reason the combo of writing on paper towel with markers got her going with it and she did quite a bit of practice a couple of weeks ago. We just take it as it comes.

[nansk]

You have got many great suggestions in the posts above. I second Peggy Kaye's books.

 

At age 5, you could choose to do all lessons orally.

 

i. For LA, after you finish your phonics course, you could do read-alouds and oral narration, ask comprehension questions, oral questions related to basic grammar (identify names of people/places/things, action verbs etc) and capitalization ("If I were to write the name Lisa, which 'L' would I use? Capital or small? Which 'i'? etc.)

 

ii. For spelling, you could make letter tiles (5 each for the vowels and 2 each for the consonants) and ask him to choose the right letters for any word and properly arrange them. The ones I made have lowercase on one side and uppercase on the other.

 

iii. For Math, you may do the worksheets orally (tell him to point out the correct answer choice) or buy him some ink stamps, so that he can stamp a circle/star/tick mark on the correct answer.

 

iv. You may also play Phonics and Math games (card games or board games) that you can print off the net onto cardstock and laminate.

 

HTH

~ Nandini

[Spy Car]

You can do a lot of math with Cuisenaire Rods and no writing.

 

Bill

[Pippen]

I do think it is at least in part a perfectionism problem. And he's stubborn. He spent 45 minutes last night trying to convince me to brush his teeth for him. The last thing I want to do is turn writing into a power struggle.

 

If he's asking you to brush for him, it also could be a sign of a motor skill problem.

 

If a child has undiagnosed issues in the areas of motor skill or sensory integration, it's VERY natural for the parent to see them as compliance issues instead.