Somebody please help

[meggie]

I have decided to focus on the 3 Rs. DS is so good at reading and the MUS Primer is still very easy for him. Months and months ago, we were working on handwriting and letters. I drew the lines on the white board and explicitly explained how to create each letter (ie, Start at the top, make a diagonal line to the bottom, go back to the top, make a diagonal line to the bottom, go straight across at the middle line). Then he'd have to use a pen to copy it on his writing paper.

 

Insert long break of dealing with 3rd trimester, maniac toddler, husband working 50+ hours a week. Schooling fell to the wayside especially writing because it was his least favorite and I figured, "Oh maybe he's just not ready. I don't want to 'crush his love of learning' so I won't make him do it. We can come back to it later, reading is most important anyway."

 

Now that baby's 6 weeks old I figure we should be doing the 3 R's every day. Math is still fine, reading is still fine. And after my thread about coloring, I realize how important it is to build those hand muscles. And after the threads about skills and content, I realized how important it is that he learns how to write. I got the Writing With Ease books, looked through it and realized he won't be ready for that for at least a year, so I put it aside. I got A Reason for Writing, but he can't even copy the letters very well and it's just awful when he does it on his own. So I got the little white board out and drew the lines and tried making him copy on those. But he's holding his hand up in the air, I guess so he doesn't smudge the marker. So I made him do it on paper and he's moving the pencil funny, holding it in more of a fist, still holding his hand in the air. And I tried to correct him, but it was just making him more confused and doing other weird things. I was getting frustrated so I said, "let's just stop, mommy doesn't know how to teach you this properly."

 

So then we moved on to coloring. It was the French flag out of Galloping the Globe. That's only two colors, I figured it should be easy! I said, "Try to make sure you stay inside the lines." So then he only did his scribble in the very center of each rectangle. So I said, "Make sure you color the whole thing." So when he inevitably went outside the lines and freaked out, I said, "It's ok. Look I accidentally did too." So then he purposefully started scribbling outside the line so I said, "Don't do it on purpose. Try to stay in the lines, but if you accidentally go out it's ok." I haven't ever really given him instructions on coloring before, but with the "scribble, turn page, scribble, turn page" that he usually does, I figured he might not really know what he's supposed to do.

 

:banghead: What am I doing wrong? Should I just give the coloring thing more time before I even attempt handwriting again? Should I do both simultaneously? I could go back to the white board and paper, but he hated it and I hate having to set it up every day. We have stamps that I could stamp onto his paper and just have him trace those, but we only have the capital letters, not lower case. And why the heck is this even so hard? :banghead: It's HANDWRITING for pity's sake! It's the easiest subject out there. Why can't I teach it right? Would HWOT be a better program for him? Is there another program that would work? I didn't think I'd really need an actual curriculum to teach him how to write his letters.

[boscopup]

That sounds sooooo much like my oldest! He did end up learning to write and color in K at school, but I had to remediate his handwriting since he developed bad habits (just because the teacher can't watch everything he writes and correct him as he goes - not possible in a classroom situation).

 

Have you done the writing in sand/shaving cream/rice/whatever type exercises with him? I'd start there. Sky writing too. I know they did all of that in my son's school and it was very helpful.

 

You need to fix the pencil grip, for sure. I like the HWT "pencil flip", where you lay the pencil on the table in front of the child, with the point pointing right (if the child is right handed) and the eraser pointing left. Then have the child pick the pencil up between thumb and index finger, just above the shaved part. Now have them flip the pencil into the space between the thumb and index finger. Their middle finger will probably join in the fun now, but it will naturally go where it probably should. :) This helped my son's grip a lot. If he was holding it wrong, I'd just say "Do a pencil flip!" and he'd do that. It is kind of fun to do, so make a game of it! HWT also has a game in the front where they have to pick their pencil up quickly (using the pencil flip) and draw some lines or squiggles or stars or something until you say to stop, then they drop the pencil. You repeat this as much as you want.

 

I think I would recommend HWT in this case, since you are needing some handholding (pardon the pun!), as I also did when I was remediating my son. It is an excellent program. Feel free to change any letters you don't like (for example, the '6' looks like a 'b', so I just told my son how I do it and he did it that way... thankfully, he'd already learned the normal '6' method). I think that '6' was the only one in the print book that I didn't like. It's the cursive that I can't bring myself to do, so we're switching to GDI for that (which is very similar in letter formation to HWT, so it should be an easy transition).

 

It's very normal for writing to lag behind reading and math, especially in a boy! Definitely don't start WWE yet. You want him comfortably able to do a short sentence of copywork first. Some people wait until age 7 to do WWE. That's fine! It's easy enough to catch up later if you need to. Just remember VERY short, frequent lessons. I would do handwriting every single day, but make it super short... even 5 minutes if you have to. Watch for what he's capable of, and then push him just a tiny bit.

 

Oh, and my son is just now starting to color in the lines more, though he still doesn't fill things in completely. I never taught him to color. I think my 4 year old will be better at coloring... and writing. :tongue_smilie:He already forms his letters better than my oldest did at age 5, and he's just learning to write the last few weeks.

[meggie]

That sounds sooooo much like my oldest! He did end up learning to write and color in K at school, but I had to remediate his handwriting since he developed bad habits (just because the teacher can't watch everything he writes and correct him as he goes - not possible in a classroom situation).

 

Have you done the writing in sand/shaving cream/rice/whatever type exercises with him? I'd start there. Sky writing too. I know they did all of that in my son's school and it was very helpful. No, I haven't but those sound like good ideas and will definitely give them a try. I'm sure he'd get a kick out of the shaving cream one.

 

You need to fix the pencil grip, for sure. It was so frustrating, because when he colors or does his MUS he holds it just fine, but during writing lessons, they just went all wonky. I like the HWT "pencil flip", where you lay the pencil on the table in front of the child, with the point pointing right (if the child is right handed) and the eraser pointing left. Then have the child pick the pencil up between thumb and index finger, just above the shaved part. Now have them flip the pencil into the space between the thumb and index finger. Their middle finger will probably join in the fun now, but it will naturally go where it probably should. :) This helped my son's grip a lot. If he was holding it wrong, I'd just say "Do a pencil flip!" and he'd do that. It is kind of fun to do, so make a game of it! HWT also has a game in the front where they have to pick their pencil up quickly (using the pencil flip) and draw some lines or squiggles or stars or something until you say to stop, then they drop the pencil. You repeat this as much as you want.

 

I think I would recommend HWT in this case, since you are needing some handholding (pardon the pun!), as I also did when I was remediating my son. It is an excellent program. Feel free to change any letters you don't like (for example, the '6' looks like a 'b', so I just told my son how I do it and he did it that way... thankfully, he'd already learned the normal '6' method). I think that '6' was the only one in the print book that I didn't like. It's the cursive that I can't bring myself to do, so we're switching to GDI for that (which is very similar in letter formation to HWT, so it should be an easy transition). I think I will go ahead and get this. I've been considering it for a year, but I guess a little hand holding never hurt anyone.

 

It's very normal for writing to lag behind reading and math, especially in a boy! Definitely don't start WWE yet. You want him comfortably able to do a short sentence of copywork first. Some people wait until age 7 to do WWE. That's fine! It's easy enough to catch up later if you need to. Just remember VERY short, frequent lessons. I would do handwriting every single day, but make it super short... even 5 minutes if you have to. Watch for what he's capable of, and then push him just a tiny bit.

 

Oh, and my son is just now starting to color in the lines more, though he still doesn't fill things in completely. I never taught him to color. I think my 4 year old will be better at coloring... and writing. :tongue_smilie:He already forms his letters better than my oldest did at age 5, and he's just learning to write the last few weeks.

 

 

Thanks for the help, I feel better. Everyone says it's normal for boys to lag behind in writing, I just didn't know until recently that I should be working on fine motor skills in the meantime. And don't worry, WWE is way down on the list right now. It said in the front not to do it until he can write without having to concentrate on it. I figure we're probably a year or two away from that, which is totally fine with me. I want to make sure he gets handwriting down first.

[Kirch]

I'd definitely suggest HWT. You could also do other fun fine-motor skills activities--

 

 

• cutting (don't worry about cutting on a line yet if he's not ready)
  
• manipulating pipe cleaners to make shapes or sculptures
  
• wikki stix/bendaroos
  
• play-doh
  
• fingerpainting
  
• sorting small objects (i.e. beads, buttons, paper clips) with fingers or tweezers
  
• stringing pony beads or buttons on shoelaces or pipe cleaners
  
• lacing cards
  
• legos
  
• put small stickers on an outline shape (make sure they're stickers that come off the sticker sheet easily)
  

 

[Critterfixer]

Both my boys enjoyed tracing their letters. One thing I did was to draw the letters and have them use crayons to trace them while I observed as much as possible to make sure they traced them from the top down. At age five they even liked to trace cursive. I did make sure they used a crayon, because markers are way too easy. They didn't get the proper hand strength. I also made a sort of a game out of telling them that tracing their letters would make their hands strong.:001_smile: Being boys, anything, including handwriting and spinach, that makes you strong is good!

 

You don't have to stamp. There are all sorts of handwriting guides online, or you could make a master copy using capitals and smalls and then have him trace copies of that.

 

On the coloring I would show him how to first go around the edges, then fill in the center.

And I also agree that putting things together helps with fine motor skills, as does watercolor painting. A bit messy, but anytime the paints were out I found that the boys wanted to use them.

[virtual_twins_mom]

Been there, done that. Our O.T. started the kids out in HWT when they were developmentally at about 4 years (chronologically 6 years old). Worked out great! When they were in PS, they had the best handwriting in their respective classes. Once printing was looking great, we were ready for cursive. So, thinking that they should learn "fancy" cursive, we started A Beka. Oh, my. We had handwriting WITH tears....literally! Stupid me. So we started over with HWT 3rd grade cursive. No problems.