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How to help 8 yr old's handwriting?


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Aged 5-7 we did Waldorf homeschool, we never covered letter formation. Then he went to school aged 7 and had to catch up. He has been out of school for 3 weeks, this time for good. We are now homeschooling. This time we are doing Classical. He is 8 1/2. He can't form letters properly and printed they look ok but he does them in odd ways. He doesn't sit letters on the line properly eg the p and g do not sit on the line and hang down. He writes BIG and scrawly. Where on earth do I start with him? Can he re-learn? Is it too late? I bought Penny Gardners Italics program to try with him as Italics looks easier for him but wondered is there any other program worth trying? What do I do?

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One of my children (not the same age, though) had lots of bad habits and I really liked Handwriting without Tears. I think they would probably suggest beginning cursive at that age though, so you wouldn't have to teach manuscript, relearning with good habits, and then cursive. Cursive begins in the third book. Get the teacher's manual as well if you're going to start there. Hope someone else will give you even more suggestions since I've never remediated.

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I think it would be easier to teach cursive than to remediate his manuscript. If you choose to remediate, he might feel bad about it and may think it is babyish. But if you teach cursive, you can start from the beginning, while also honing in on anything that may be causing a problem with his manuscript (such as pencil grip, paper orientation, posture, letter positioning, etc.).

 

In either case, I would make sure to take it very gradually and slowly so that you don't miss anything. I like to start with finger tracing and then finger writing so as not to worry about pencil grip. Then you can move to large writing with a writing utensil, such as on a whiteboard. Then you can add lines to the white board and start teaching about letter position. Only then do you want to move to pencil/paper.

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I'd stick w/ what you have. I am using Penny Gardner's Italics w/ my 7.5 year old for remediation. He did K at private school, homeschooled last year but I didn't follow a handwriting curriculum and followed bad advice so his handwriting didn't improve. I started using Penny Gardner's Italics late last summer, we only do 7 minutes every day but he buckles down and does his hardest work. His writing has improved 1000%! It's been slow but steady.

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When you did Waldorf, did you do Form Drawing? Form drawing is what equals to handwriting practice.

 

I've heard many people rave about the Handwriting section of One-to-One by Gareth Lewis, and it is probably much cheaper than handwriting programs. There was one person specifically saying that her daughters penpal had such nice writing and the little girl asked where she learned to write like that, the response was lewis' book.

 

Just a thought anyway :)

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