What happened to her printing?

[jmc1970]

My 7 year old used to have pretty decent printing where I thought that with time and more practice, she would get speedier and neater. But it seems to have gotten worse and worse over time, even with simple tasks. Any ideas on whether I should start from the beginning again or refine her existing skills?

[myfunnybunch]

My children all had transition period as their writing became more automatic and they're more able to juggle thinking and writing at the same time as opposed to thinking about content separately from thinking about letter formation and the physical act of writing. During that time, the writing was less neat, but faster. I asked them to re-write if it was very sloppy; otherwise, I just let it go. I did continue with handwriting practice as a separate subject and I insisted on neatness.

 

My children with no fine motor challenges have beautiful neat writing now, even the one who tends to be a little hasty.

 

Cat

[Seasons]

My 7 year old dd went through the same stage this winter. As his writing got better he started picking up speed and with the speed came careless writing. 2 weeks ago I simply told him that I would no longer except "sloppy" writing and I needed his best work or he would have to re-write it on a separate sheet of paper. His penmanship miraculously improved.

 

If we need to move quickly through a lesson for convenience or time constaints I will have him do it orally and I will write in the answers as he spells them out to me.

[jenbrdsly]

I've been making a Pinterest board called Creative Handwriting Solutions. Finding fun ways to work on finger strength really helped my DS7.

[weddell]

This is happening to my DD7 too! I never thought that it might be part of the writing becoming more automatic, but that makes a lot of sense.

 

Part of our problem was that I had taught her handwriting at home and corrected as needed. She is in a private school this year and they never try and correct her sloppy writing or do any kind of handwriting practice. After I realized her spelling was also getting worse, we restarted doing AAS where we left off from last year. If she writes sloppily during AAS I make her rewrite the sentence as neatly as possible, that way it is like copywork, she already has the sentence right before her and she can just concentrate of making it neat. If there is just one letter or two that is messy or not properly written, I'll show her the proper way and have her write a few of them. Her handwriting has improved greatly just by being reminded during spelling. Part of her problem was that her school doesn't seem to care about handwriting or spelling so she wasn't getting called on being sloppy in either.

[Amy in NH]

She is sacrificing neatness for speed.

[Hedgehogs4]

My dd went through a similar phase, so I taught her cursive. She now has lovely handwriting, and takes a lot of pride in the fact that she can write cursive well, and she is getting faster at it than she ever was at printing.

[ShellChelle]

With my son, once the demands of writing increased, his writing got worse, and he would complain that his hand was getting tired. I did a few things to help him. First, I took out the coloring sheets and crayons and had him color daily. This helped strengthen the muscles in his hand. He is now 10 and still colors a few times a week! I keep his writing lessons short-- no more than 10-15 minutes at a time. And, when he was about 8 or 9 he began cursive. His cursive is much neater than his print, and it is faster.