Penmanship for a 9th and 6th grader

[Garga]

I have nice handwriting. My dh has terrible handwriting that I can barely read.

 

My boys are heading down my husband's path.

 

Their handwriting used to be ok, but it's getting worse.  Even when I say, "Write this in your best handwriting," and they're trying, it's still pretty bad. 

 

We need some help here, but I can't devote a ton of time to penmanship.  My oldest is already doing 7-8 (sometimes 9 if we do labs) solid hours of work a day for high school.  I don't want to pile more on him. 

 

 

Any book suggestions on penmanship that are fast and not babyish for helping older kids?  I naively thought they'd be getting better as they got older, so I stopped worrying about penmanship about 2 years ago, but they've been progressively getting worse.  I had my head in the sand about it until this year and my oldest has to turn in work to other teachers who aren't going to want to decipher his handwriting.

 

The boys also aren't very good at art.  They're like my dh and just can't seem to make the pen do what they'd like it to do.  Even when they're trying, the lines come out deformed.  I tell my oldest, "Underline this," and the line is squiggling all around the page.  Highlighting is the same way--the highlights are bouncing all around. 

 

Not sure what to do at this point for a 11 yo and 14 yo.  I don't expect calligraphy, but a little more control over the writing utensil is necessary. 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Garga_

[Ethel Mertz]

The Start Write Now (I think that's what it's called - it was on my old computer) is really good. You can create your own copywork, allowing it to be traced if needed and then building up to writing it without tracing. Both cursive and print.

 

I'm currently having my 14 year old do copywork in Spanish and Latin, thus practicing his cursive while having exposure to his two languages. You could also do that with memory work or any passage that you have in other subjects.

[freelylearned]

The Start Write program is good for the reasons mentioned above. The solid yellow/highlighter line option in Start Write really helps my son a lot.

 

The Getty Dubay handwriting program can be used through adulthood.

 

Exercises that strengthen hands and fingers like pull ups, push ups, crab walks, and monkey bars could be helpful.

 

Your boys are in the age range where dysgraphia often emerges, so you may want to look into the various types of dysgraphia.

[Lori D.]

Both DSs and myself did Callirobics when DSs were in high school, and it did seem to help improve legibility of penmanship. :) It takes about 5 minutes a day, and we all did it, taking our time to get a good steady rhythm and flow.

 

Callirobics has you practice the loops, curves, lines and motions in handwriting in repetitive patterns while listening to a short segment of music. To give you a feel for how long it takes: we used spiral-bound (wide-rule, not college-rule) notebooks, skipped every other line, and usually were not able to quite fill one side of one page. You would likely start with the age 7-14 level (geared for cursive writing), and then after a semester (or year) move on to the Advanced level. See samples here.

 

My guess is that it might also improve artwork as well, as the point of each exercise is to accurately recreated the pattern for the day, which includes not only the type of curves and angles, but also placement -- hitting the top and bottom lines on the paper without slopping above or below or coming up short. 

 

Dianne Craft's Writing 8s exercises (written explanation here, video tutorial here) also helped. I had DS#2 with the mild LDs in handwriting / writing / spelling / math do about 5 minutes a day of this (so, about 6-8 letters of the alphabet a day, as you do each letter AND also repeat the "lazy 8" multiple times in a row). That exercise seemed to help give DS#2 more precision with the pencil, as well as helping him make those brain hemisphere connections to improve thinking with spelling and math.

 

Another helpful thing for the art is the very simple exercises of copying patterns and lines, in Mona Brooke's Drawing With Children -- see p. 42, and p. 60-70, of the sample pages at Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. (Click on "surprise me" a number of times if p. 42 isn't part of the initial set of sample pages, as that often brings up additional new sample pages.) You can also download more (50 practice worksheets for $5) from the Art Projects for Kids website.

 

On the other hand, most written communication these days is typed, so even if you try a variety of things and nothing works, there's a good chance it may not be as crucial as it was years ago... ;)

 

BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

Edited September 18, 2016 by Lori D.

[Tiramisu]

We have issues like that with two kids and it's been as much a visual problem as anything else.

[Garga]

While I was waiting for your responses, I found a few things online.  They're free and I'll implement them right away (since they're free and I'm pretty much out of money for school stuff this year.)

 

I'm posting them so that if someone searches for this topic in the future, the information is here for them to peruse.  I cannot attest to whether or not what I've found is any good, but here it is:

 

First, I found an article on a website called the Art of Manliness about improving your handwriting.  Since I don't want my boys to feel like babies with me having them work on their penmanship, I'll have them read through this article.  (At least my high schooler, anyway.)

 

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/12/16/improve-your-cursive-handwriting/

 

 

 

From that article, I found youtube cursive lessons.  They are not directed at children.  The person doing them is teaching to adults, or at least you get that sense.  We will start following along with those lessons.  There are a boatload of these lessons, but they're only a few minutes each.  I have no idea how they're sorted, but we'll just start at the first one and follow along.  I used this search in youtube:  "Evan der Millner cursive" and found groupings of his lessons, 49 in one group, 54 in another, etc.  Not sure if they are overlapping or what.  I like how the teacher sounds quiet and is a man. I don't want my boys feeling ashamed that they don't write well, and I think they'll respond well to the lessons being taught to adults.  They won't feel like they're preschoolers with a voice sing-songing at them.  They'll see that men can have nice handwriting, too.  (Since Dh is somewhat proud of his sloppy handwriting.)

 

Lastly, I found these free handwriting practice generator papers: http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/  I had to use chrome rather than explorer to be able to print them.  I have a book called "The Vicar of Nibbleswicke" by Roald Dahl which is probably one of the tiniest books I've ever seen.  I'm using that book to type in to the handwriting generator papers because the book is so tiny that the story is fast moving.  About a paragraph of the book fits on each practice sheet, so every day they'll be able to read a little more of this tiny story.  Within a month, they'll have written the whole book and have been entertained while they were writing.  Once they've finished this book, I'll look for another. Or maybe something like Aesop's fables for them to write each day.  One fable would probably fill up about 3 sheets.

 

 

This is my plan for now until about March.  If things haven't improved by March (6 months), then I'll start looking for other resources.  I'm keeping a copy of this thread so I can refer back to it later if I have to.

 

ETA:  my links are acting funny.  If the worksheet generator doesn't work, just type in the website:  www. handwriting worksheets . com, but with no spaces. 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by Garga

[PeterPan]

With what you're describing, I'd get their eyes checked (preferably by a developmental optometrist) and get OT evals if there is anything further like hand pain, left/right confusion, etc.  You could even do a psych eval and see if there's dysgraphia going on. 

 

I wouldn't bother with handwriting pages with a 9th grader.  I would get the dc's signature legible or at least preferred, so he has a signature he's happy with.  I would make sure he's a functional typist.  I would make sure he doesn't have any vision issues or OT issues.  There's something called finger excursion that they can work on that actually can help.  

 

Both of my kids have had handwriting issues.  For my dd, it wasn't automatic for a long, long time and she got OT.  We finally decided a satisfactory signature, proficient typing, and vision therapy was enough.  For my ds, he does finger excursion exercises with his tutor, has a diagnosed SLD writing (meaning we don't honestly expect it to get awesome ever), and just had his eyes checked again.  

 

Given the age of your older, I would do evals now, rather than later.  That way you don't lose 6 months frustrating them with things that aren't going to work.  An OT eval can be had for under $100 around here and a basic eye exam with a developmental optometrist (COVD.org) is under $100 around here.  So in a month you could have both things eval'd for less than $200 and have some answers.  If those things don't explain it, you could go through the ps and get evals.  Fwiw, your ps could go ahead and do the OT and psych evals for you.  

Edited September 18, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Hunter]

Photocopy the handwriting pages from a copy of Writing Road to Reading borrowed from the library. Don't bother to teach the cursive uppercase and just have the student use the manuscript uppercase even when using cursive lowercase.

 

Or use Don Potter Manuscript followed by the bits and bobs of Spalding cursive that can be found for free online. With Spalding the mauscript is the first step in cursive. The cursive is just joined manuscript.

http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/shortcut-to-manuscript.pdf

 

http://www.mychandlerschools.org/Page/10268

 

http://athlosfifth.weebly.com/spalding-cursive.html

 

Video on Spalding manuscript showing the clock method. For students that do not know how to make their handwriting better, they need intensive instruction in WHY their letters are wrong. 

 

 

There are slanted stroke-based methods that look more grown up than the vertical clock-face methods, but when you need to get an older student legible as fast as possible, vertical clock-face is the way to go.

 

A student sample from years ago. Adult dyslexic leftie after just a couple lessons copying from Alpha-Phonics.

 

 

Free Alpha-phonics to use as copywork.

http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Tutor.htm

 

I'm all done playing with other methods. Done. Done. This is what I teach. I know ALL the pros and cons of other methods. I do.  I don't have time for the equivalent of wearing high heels for handwriting. I'm a hiking-boot wearing gal teaching people that have already failed. This doesn't fail. It is good enough. Yup, it is hiking boots not high heels and that closes doors and boo hoo at this point. It is legible. Very legible. That is the point right? To be read? Before showing off or trying to broadcast a certain type of education and background?

 

Do I sound tired? I am. :lol:

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by Hunter

[happypamama]

Would they enjoy calligraphy?  It might appeal to the artist side while still improving their attention to detail and carefulness in writing.

 

I'd also tell them that if the teacher can't recognize their letters/numbers, they'll lose points.  One of my older two has very nice writing and always has, and the other tends to be slightly sloppier and occasionally gives me something I can't quite decipher (more with math than anything).  So sometimes that child loses a point or two if I really can't tell.  If that happens a lot, I think your kids will start naturally paying more attention to their writing.

 

But I would also say that it's probably not a huge deal in the long run.  My DH is so brilliant, and he's a very gifted writer, but his penmanship is horrible.  (As is his father's and his sister's -- they actually look a lot like his, so I suspect some genetic component.)  I have many very long letters (5 pages, front and back, was not uncommon) that he wrote me when he was in college, beautiful words, lovely descriptions of campus and class and everything, but tiny, terrible writing, crammed into narrow-ruled paper, and spelling is not his forte either.  And yet, somehow I managed to figure them out and married him anyway. ;)  Now, he writes a lot, every day, as part of his job, but it's almost entirely on the computer.  The only person who regularly has to read his penmanship is him, when he makes handwritten lists.  Sometimes I have to decipher his lists, but he's pretty likely just to text me a list anyway, and I usually know what he's trying to say enough to figure out his writing.  So, I would vote for encouraging some care with the writing, but I wouldn't stress too much about it if there are other things that are more important.

[Garga]

I'm going consider evals, but I think I'll give it a tiny bit of time and if there's no improvement, then I'll look into them. Like 2 months or so of focusing on better formation of letters and if we're not seeing any improvements, then we'll look at evals.

 

I don't mind if the handwriting is sloppy, but there are parts that are absolutely illegible. He has to turn in work to a Spanish teacher where spelling will count. The thing is, I couldn't tell what he'd spelled because the letters were formed so badly I couldn't distinguish between an O and an S, which makes a difference on the ends of words in particular. He also has to turn in work to a Geometry teacher. When I checked his work last year, it was annoying trying to follow his numbers all over the page, but mostly as long as the answer was right I didn't care if the numbers were sloppy. But it's not fair to foist that on another person, so I'd like those numbers to be easier for her to read. You can't type math homework, so this matters.

 

My oldest is ok with typing and the youngest is still learning. And I'm ok with mostly sloppy handwriting, since our world is computer drive, but I do need to be able to read it somewhat.

 

I haven't had any real standards for penmanship in about 2 years. I was naively thinking they'd just naturally write neater the more they wrote as the years passed. They've either developed bad habits that I never broke, or there are visual things going on. I'm going to work on the habits first because (frankly) they're free. There's still plenty of time to get evals if it turns out it's not just bad habits.

[Hunter]

Good luck Garga!

 

I had a struggling writer. Back then, all anyone said to do was buy Italic. That was a big mistake for us and actually made things worse for reasons I now understand.

 

I really think Spalding handwriting would have helped him. Not the spelling even though his spelling might have been worse than his handwriting. My little guy's Greek handwriting was so much better than his English and that is because the handwriting instruction was more specific. I could read his Greek math better than his English math. Maybe you need to have him do Euclid in Greek for geometry. :lol:

 

Good luck!

[happypamama]

Good luck Garga!

 

I had a struggling writer. Back then, all anyone said to do was buy Italic. That was a big mistake for us and actually made things worse for reasons I now understand.

 

I really think Spalding handwriting would have helped him. Not the spelling even though his spelling might have been worse than his handwriting. My little guy's Greek handwriting was so much better than his English and that is because the handwriting instruction was more specific. I could read his Greek math better than his English math. Maybe you need to have him do Euclid in Greek for geometry. :lol:

 

Good luck!

Maybe they're really demigods in disguise!  (Percy Jackson reference -- the demigods often speak and write Greek and Latin better than English.)

 

Fwiw, my husband's writing is terrible in English but got remarks on how beautiful it was when he took Russian!  I thought that was hilarious.

[Storygirl]

Can he use graph paper for the math assignments? I think there is someone on the Learning Challenges board who figured out how to type out math problems. You could post over there and ask for advice about this.

 

DS12 has dysgraphia due to a visual spatial disability and fine motor planning, and DD11 has SLD writing, due to dyslexia. (They are both enrolled in school now and have IEPs.) They have accommodations in their IEPs, such as using graph paper, using speech to text, and getting copies of class notes (DS in particular has trouble copying from the board or taking notes while people are speaking). They also are doing more of their work on the computer, and so are typing rather than handwriting things.

 

The special ed coordinator said that at their ages, the school will not have them work with an OT for remediation of handwriting, as long as it is mostly legible. The reason they gave is that usually handwriting skills are set by that age and too hard to change. Now, I don't know if that is true -- a private OT may give a different response and offer help. But our school won't remediate handwriting for a middle or high schooler.

 

Homeschoolers have freedom to work on areas of need that the schools overlook, which is great! But I think it's also helpful to know what kind of accommodations our kids would get if they were in school, because we can provide some of those at home and know what expectations to have. I also think that if accommodations might be needed in college, it's good to get a paper trail started with some official diagnoses.

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

Pentime goes up to a grade 8 level, and it's inexpensive at Rainbow Resource. Also, Zeezok Publishing has Presidential Penmanship in several cursive styles.

[Ausmumof3]

I wonder if those with better handwriting in different languages are doing better because they are slower. I can write neatly when I focus but my brain works faster than my fingers so often the handwriting is messy. I'd also say that my kid with the worst writing has the highest output. She will also produce a lot of pictures quickly but they look rushed whereas my reluctant writer has very neat writing and his pictures are very careful and neat.

 

Anyway to slow them down just a little? Also how are the fine motor skills?

[Twigs]

Learning italics worked wonders for my handwriting. I used Getty-Dubay's Write Now. The writing samples are about the history of handwriting. It was fun and low stress for me.

 

I also learned lots from 12 Rules for Good Cursive Handwriting. Also here, with animation.

 

Best wishes.

[Hunter]

For my son, I believe that his Greek handwriting instruction was more explicit than the Italic we used. My handwriting was better than his, but not as nice as it is now. I improved with explicit instruction.

 

One of the reasons I am so OCD about a lot of curricula is because with the right curricula *I* also improve as I  self-educate to prepare to teach. Because I am so aware of my own improvement, even if it is very minor, It makes me more aware to watch certain things with students. Also I have tutored students that came to me from failure, sometimes decades of failure. If after 20 years of failure, a student screams with tears running down her face, jumps up and down, hugs me and keeps saying something like, "I did it, I did it. Oh my god  I did it. I had given up. LOOK!!!! I did it!!!!" she has my full attention. I go into full OCD overdrive and try to identify what changed. I try and compare to other students. I start skimming books to see what other OCD type author teachers have to say on the topic.

 

Most, not some, handwriting curricula just do not have explicit enough instruction.

[Hunter]

Learning italics worked wonders for my handwriting. I used Getty-Dubay's Write Now. The writing samples are about the history of handwriting. It was fun and low stress for me.

 

I also learned lots from 12 Rules for Good Cursive Handwriting. Also here, with animation.

 

Best wishes.

 

 

Those extra instructions would have helped our Italic. It is still missing a few little things, but that would have really helped some of the exact problems I know we had.

[nansk]

Learning italics worked wonders for my handwriting. I used Getty-Dubay's Write Now. The writing samples are about the history of handwriting. It was fun and low stress for me.

 

I also learned lots from 12 Rules for Good Cursive Handwriting. 

 

Write Now is my favourite handwriting book. It includes very explicit instruction on making strokes, forming each letter, and variations in shape, slope, size, spacing and speed to suit your personal comfort. It also shows modifications and alternative ways of writing some of the letters.

 

The authors - Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay - conduct handwriting improvement workshops for doctors. The book includes several before/after handwriting samples of MDs and other adults, which might be helpful to older students who are remediating their handwriting.

[Ausmumof3]

Learning italics worked wonders for my handwriting. I used Getty-Dubay's Write Now. The writing samples are about the history of handwriting. It was fun and low stress for me.

 

I also learned lots from 12 Rules for Good Cursive Handwriting. Also here, with animation.

 

Best wishes.

That link was so good

[Hunter]

The 12 rules applies better to Italic than some other hands I have studies, but it shows what explicit teaching is. There are curricula with years of copywork that never once state rules like that.

[birchbark]

I like Lori's suggestions but also wanted to mention Smithhand. I used it successfully for remediation with my oldest when his handwriting took a nosedive in 5th grade. I like it because it is a stroke-based method. It is not babyish for older students or adults.