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Seeking advice re how rigid to be with HWT


kiwi3129
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A little background: My dd (age 7) has ADHD and fine motor delays. She was in public school kindergarten last year with disastrous results. We began homeschooling this year, and basically started from square one with her. Although we encounter difficulties at times, things have been going much better.

 

I've been using HWT with her, and she is doing fairly well. She has had difficulty with letters containing diagonal lines and sometimes with letters containing curves. We have worked through all the capital letters and recently started lower case letters. We've recently hit a brick wall with lower case a. She is just not able to form it in one stroke like HWT instructs. She is wanting to do more of a ball-stick method, making a circle then adding the short line.

 

I'm to the point where I'm leaning toward letting her form it how she can form it. I'm trying to remind myself that our overall goal is legible handwriting, not perfectly formed HWT handwriting.

 

Just wondering if anyone else has ever had to modify HWT for their children?

 

I welcome any feedback.

 

Thanks,

Kim

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I wouldn't allow the ball and stick thing. There are several letters that are formed in a similar manner--d, g, q, u. It is *very* difficult for a child to unlearn bad habits once they are ingrained and they *are* bad habits, not just preferences, in that if a child goes to a ball and stick approach or crosses their t's the wrong way or starts at the bottom rather than the top, it really does slow them down in the end. It is far more important that she forms the letters correctly than that they look good right away. While it seems like the product (how the writing looks) is more important, it is really the process (forming letters efficiently and easily) that is the key.

 

ETA: I should add that I have one child diagnosed with dysgraphia and another with suspected dysgraphia.

Edited by EKS
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I wouldn't allow the ball and stick thing. There are several letters that are formed in a similar manner--d, g, q, u. It is *very* difficult for a child to unlearn bad habits once they are ingrained and they *are* bad habits, not just preferences, in that if a child goes to a ball and stick approach or crosses their t's the wrong way or starts at the bottom rather than the top, it really does slow them down in the end. It is far more important that she forms the letters correctly than that they look good right away. While it seems like the product (how the writing looks) is more important, it is really the process (forming letters efficiently and easily) that is the key.

 

ETA: I should add that I have one child diagnosed with dysgraphia and another with suspected dysgraphia.

 

:iagree: We literally spent a month, if not more, at OT (which J goes to twice/week) working on formation of this very letter. It is SO important.

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The letter 'a' (et al) is still hard for my DS. He still does ball and stick, too, and also usually puts a HUGE tail on the a so that it looks somewhat like a v attached to the end of the letter. It drives me batty. He claims to want to learn cursive writing next year, but I've told him that he'll have to be able to make these letters in one stroke before we can really get anywhere. He's so stubborn... but one day it's definitely going to bite him in the backside.

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We have been using HWOT. That program drives me batty. :glare:

 

One thing that has helped us is to take on one infinitesimally small element of handwriting at a time. If your dd is having trouble with letter formation, I would ditch the lined paper (heck, I'd even ditch the paper), and just work on getting the motor movements down. Get in the sandbox, use shaving cream on a cookie sheet, write huge letters on the whiteboard, put up a large sheet of butcher paper and use paint, write on the driveway with sidewalk chalk... Just get the motor movement down, using the whole arm, preferably. Talk endlessly about how the letter "a" is made. I don't like the HWOT script for letter formation. Ds prefers to say, "Make a c, close it, and back down. Bump (indicating that he stops on the bottom line)." Over and over.

 

When these humungous letters are looking good, then we practice with paper, no lines. This time all the focus is on letter formation and grip, hand placement, paper angle, etc.

 

When the letters are looking good on paper, we shrink the size for a while. Only after all this, can I even start talking about the lines.

 

This reminds me that I need to get out the sidewalk chalk. Ds's letters are finally (!!) looking pretty good, but we have to do some work on his numbers. :tongue_smilie:

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Thanks for all the good advice, everyone. I think I need to just realize that it is going to be slow-going and stick with the HWT method. I think part of the problem is dd was allowed to write her letter however she wanted to last year in public school. So there is a "bad habits" element. But most of it is the delays.

 

yllek, you gave some excellent recommendations. She loves writing on the white board and with outdoor chalk. I'll definitely be trying all of your suggestions with her.

 

The bottom line is I think I'm as frustrated as she is, so I'm going to have to work on that. I'm not frustrated with her -- just frustrated that everything is so hard for her. IYKWIM

 

Thanks again for all the great advice.

 

Kim

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Have you had her vision checked? My son struggled with HWT for 2 long years with an occupational therapist and still couldn't write most letters from memory. Someone here told me to look at the signs and symptoms page at www.covd.org and turns out vision was what was holding him back fine motor skill wise.

 

My dd though is havving fine motor problems and hers is caused by low muscle tone. You might also ask about a referral to occupational therapy as well. My dd has a great OT and has been making lots of progress towards writing.

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Ditto-ing the others, I suggest that you focus on gross motor skills (since out sounds like those are stronger) and get some evaluations to work on the root problems. Has she been evaluated by an OT? Were the fine motor skill problems diagnosed by someone? I'd definitely look for causes you can work on and not just wait for things to happen. Waiting helps some kids, but other kids need help to get over the hump. And yes, we've done the OT/VT thing too.

 

Besides fine motor issues, there can also be some dyspraxia and motor control causing this. Callirobics works on that. They have a primary level she could do. But first I'd get diagnosed what the problems are, so you're not shooting in the dark.

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