Penmanship from 10+ age kids

[Night Elf]

The copywork thread led me to post a question. Yesterday, I made a remark about my dd10's handwriting that made her cry. I didn't intend to hurt her feelings and just wanted to know if she was writing in her best handwriting. I distinctly remember her having neat penmanship when she was younger so I just wondered what happened. She seems to write with great haste and her letters and numbers are more often larger than I think a 10 year old should be writing. I took out a blank sheet of paper, wrote her name a couple of times and asked her to write her name in her best handwriting. Sure enough, it's the same style she uses whenever she writes. Her dad has terrible handwriting and always has. My kids comment on how neat my handwriting is, but they don't want to practice to get as neat as I am. And I don't remember what my handwriting was like when I was a kid. I just figure it's neat now because I've been doing it for so many years. :)

 

My dd10 doesn't need copywork for grammar, spelling or sentence structure. She's a great writer and those things come naturally to her. But her penmanship sure looks like it could use some work. If you have a child like this, what did you do?

[Suzannah]

DS (10) has been struggling with handwriting. Well, ok, I've been struggling with getting him to write neatly. At the end of 4th grade I told him we would drop handwriting as it's own subject since he had done such a good job of developing a neat hand. The condition, however, was that I wanted to consistently neat cursive in all of his written work this year. Well, he didn't uphold his end of the bargain so I decided we would buy the next level of handwriting (we use Getty-Dubay Italics and really like it). Just as I made that decision, Julie here on the boards posted that she had just completed her Middle Ages copybook and that it was available for download from lulu.com. I got it for next year and the Ancient Copybook to finish out this year. We're seeing some improvement.

 

http://stores.lulu.com/julieshields

 

FWIW, DS is also experiencing some moodiness, smelliness and other indications of getting older. I remember reading several years ago that as kids enter the preteen years they become clumsy. I have wondered if that might partially be at issue here because last year DS really did have lovely handwriting. Of course, it could also be that he doesn't really care what his handwriting looks like, either because he doesn't think anyone else will see it or because he's more interested in the content of the story (creative writing/history) or just getting the assignment finished (spelling/grammar).

 

HTH

[In The Great White North]

Just like my dd(11).

 

We started (last year) the Handwriting Practice Book by ELP, just the last one Mastering Cursive. No color, no pictures, nothing but letters to trace first and then do on your own.

 

She had to do a letter a day. At first, she didn't want to but got used to it by 'k' and made a comment about wanting better handwiting by the time she got to capitals.

 

The other thing we did was calligraphy. It really helped with getting the letters all the same size and on a line (even an imaginary line). It went nicely with the Beowulf block. I picked up some nibs at a garage sale a few years ago, so all I had to buy was a few jars of ink. I even got gold, which wasn't that much more expensive than the others but felt much more "special." Suddenly, handwriting became fun.

 

I'd like to say it was night and day, but, sadly, it's still a work in progress. The difference is that now she cares.

[Night Elf]

Thanks for the responses. I think I'm going to just take every opportunity to have the kids doing handwriting in an effort to improve their penmanship. With my dd10, she has lots of opportunity to write in Calvert, especially since she's using ATS. I'm sure her ATS teacher is going to comment on her sloppy writing and that will probably inspire her to do better. My ds11, OTOH, is a bit more challenging because of his special needs. I've got him writing a couple of sentences a day until he feels like he can do it easily. I'll slowly increase it from there. I was thinking about using a handwriting book but I think at their age it would be best to just stick to their regular work.

[Dee in MI]

Zaner Bloser has a book called something like "Self Instruction in Handwriting". I think you can only get it from their web-site. I used it myself over a summer. It improved my handwriting considerably.

[fshinkevich]

Hello,

 

Taken from a wonderful book on child development, "Yardsticks"-

 

Ten Year Old Growth Patterns:

 

"often write more sloppily than at nine (years old)"

 

"Can pay attention to spelling, dictation, and penmanship all at once, but work may be somewhat sloppy as they learn to integrate these skills"

 

I hope that helps you a little, every time I feel frustrated with my kids I pull this book out and breath a sigh of relief - they are not just doing it to upset me :)

 

If I were in your shoes, I would let it go for now, esp. if she is crying about it. Focus on the things she is good at, I think her writing will fall into place with time. Honestly, I don't think I cared about my penmanship until I was an early adult :) The fact that they are interested in YOUR good writing says a lot.

 

Good Luck!

-Fawn

[fshinkevich]

One more thing, I just thought of!

 

My oldest son (12) has a really hard time w/ handwriting (he is in public school - I homeschool my youngest) and I arranged it with his teacher to do his longer assignments, like essays and book reports, on the computer to print out. This has helped tremendously.

 

If you have a computer available to you, you may want to try that approach, it might take some of the pressure off so that she has neater handwriting for the shorter assignments.

[Night Elf]

Thanks Fawn for the information. That's good to know! She does use the computer a bit but she actually prefers to do longhand. She's never been a big computer person. She is learning to type on a regular typewriter which she is really enjoying but isn't interested in using it for school.

[jejily]

This has been an interesting thread to read. I have a similar problem, except that it's my DS10's manuscript writing which is nearly illegible; his cursive writing is much neater.

 

However, because it takes him so much longer to write in cursive, we save that for copywork, special notebooking pages, etc. I allow him to use print when doing other things, but half the time he can't even read his own writing later! Not to mention the fact that it looks like a beginning writer wrote it. He's going into 5th grade... but if you saw his written work you'd think he was a second grader, just by his handwriting. It's puzzling.

[Peela]

I have used Startwrite for my ds12 for a couple of years now. Its great because I can take jokes, or sayings, or snippets from books he is reading, and make them into handwriting practice.

But he has fine motor issues and his handwriting has never been neat, so I keep him at it- and it helps- but I don't expect perfection. He takes care and does his best, and its legible nowadays. He however uses the computer for writing assignments- I have been told he would get permission to do that in public exams with a medical certificate, due to his dyslexia/dysgraphia- so I am not going to spend years trying to get him to handwrite well, other than daily practice of a small amount.