Does handwriting practice work?

[manicmum81]

I have real problems with both my sons (11 & 8) handwriting and am unsure if trying to change the way they write at this stage is going to work.

 

My eldest (ASD) writes in cursive which I can't stand. I kept telling the school that I didn't want them to teach him to join his letters until he could form them correctly first but they forged ahead and now he has messy, often illegible handwriting. He doesn't form all his letters correctly and has a tendency to rush which just makes it worse. He is slightly better when he doesn't write cursive but he's done it for so long he quickly reverts back to what he's used to.

 

His brother (dyslexic) has equally poor handwriting. He joins some letters but mostly doesn't. He holds his pencil wrong but any attempts to correct him have him complaining that his hand hurts so I don't bother. He has to really focus to keep his letters smallish and on the line. He starts letters at the bottom near the line rather than the top for example. My five year old has better writing in all honesty.

 

I have been trying them out with some handwriting sheets the past couple of days which they are happy to do but I am wondering if I will ever see any improvement or will they always have hard to read handwriting. I feel like they are too old to change now since they've both been in school since age 4 and picked up bad habits that no teacher ever seemed bothered to correct.

 

[EKS]

I was able to retrain my older son, who had learned to "draw" his letters in a b&m preschool/kindergarten when he was 9.  I used HWT's Printing Power and also (and this is key) watched him like a hawk every time he wrote anything for a few months.  Since he wasn't inclined to write outside of school time, this was possible.  He is now an adult and his handwriting isn't pretty but it is legible and orderly.

 

My younger son's handwriting started out beautiful.  I made sure that he learned to form his letters properly because of the problems the older one had.  But somewhere starting in 3rd or 4th grade, his handwriting devolved (as did his pencil grip) and now it looks horrific.  I tried a few times to retrain him, and he even went to OT for it, but nothing ever stuck.  I think part of the issue (or maybe all of it) was that he just didn't and doesn't care.  

 

I also had poor handwriting as a child.  But somewhere during my teen years, I decided that I wanted to improve how my handwriting looked.  So I did.  Now, when I want it to be and with very little effort, I can write/print beautifully.  

 

So I do think that you can retrain a kid to form letters properly, but they have to *want* to improve the look of their handwriting.

[manicmum81]

I was able to retrain my older son, who had learned to "draw" his letters in a b&m preschool/kindergarten when he was 9.  I used HWT's Printing Power and also (and this is key) watched him like a hawk every time he wrote anything for a few months.  Since he wasn't inclined to write outside of school time, this was possible.  He is now an adult and his handwriting isn't pretty but it is legible and orderly.

 

My younger son's handwriting started out beautiful.  I made sure that he learned to form his letters properly because of the problems the older one had.  But somewhere starting in 3rd or 4th grade, his handwriting devolved (as did his pencil grip) and now it looks horrific.  I tried a few times to retrain him, and he even went to OT for it, but nothing ever stuck.  I think part of the issue (or maybe all of it) was that he just didn't and doesn't care.  

 

I also had poor handwriting as a child.  But somewhere during my teen years, I decided that I wanted to improve how my handwriting looked.  So I did.  Now, when I want it to be and with very little effort, I can write/print beautifully.  

 

So I do think that you can retrain a kid to form letters properly, but they have to *want* to improve the look of their handwriting.

 

Unfortunately, neither boy cares what their handwriting looks like. They see written work as something that needs to get done and over with as quickly as possible. They will happily colour in or draw for extended periods of time but the focus and control needed to form letters correctly is too much for them right now.  

[wendyroo]

The beatings will continue until morale improves...or, rather, the arduous handwriting sheets will continue until effort improves.

 

My 2nd grader has been taught proper letter formation since he was 4 years old, but he just plain old never cared much.  His handwriting was always legible-ish, but time consuming, labor intensive (he was having to think about how to form every letter) and significantly worse than his peers'.

 

I don't really care much about his writing being pretty, but I do want to work on his writing stamina and muscle memory.  So I made him some long, boring handwriting practice sheets.  Each passage is several paragraphs long and he has to practice the same one for four days in a row: day 1 - copy on top of letters that have arrows showing proper formation, day 2 - copy on dotted letters with the arrow letters directly above as a model, day 3 - write on guided lines (with the dash in the middle) with the arrow letters directly above as a model, day 4 - write on guided lines with plain text directly above as a model.

 

I made four weeks' worth of practice sheets and told DS that at that point we would reassess whether he was correctly forming all the letters.  If necessary, I told him, I would continue making more sheets until he was always forming the letters correctly and could comfortably write a couple paragraphs without complaining that his hand hurt.

 

We are in the middle of week 3, and I have seen a significant improvement.  He is writing much more quickly and spending less time having to think about letter formation.  The biggest change I have seen is that suddenly he cares a lot more about his handwriting.  All along he has known how to write properly, but just never been motivated to do so.  Now that the (external) motivation is there, we are starting to reap the rewards of practice.  I think he will be able to stop after week 4, but, obviously, if his handwriting starts to slip in the future I will just reinstate the daily practices.

 

Wendy

 

 

[PeterPan]

If you don't have an explanation for why the writing is going so ill, you don't know whether the worksheets are worth doing. You could be solving the wrong problem. 

 

Personally, at that age, given how much you've done, I would focus on a legible signature, fluency with tech (dictation, typing with Dvorak if necessary, using an iphone and laptop to keep you organized, etc.) and review what your evals say about SLDs. If they haven't had OT evals to check for retained reflexes, you could check those. 

 

Lots of people have illegible handwriting. It's not the end of the world. Not being able to get out your thoughts with tech to accomplish your goals, THAT would be limiting. 

[City Mouse]

It can improve, but it takes a lot of work.

For my own DS, what helped was me taking the HWT workshop so I could explain to him why these things are important. Once he understood that there was a "real" reason besides just mom, he was more willing to put in the effort to improve his handwriting and grip.

[MistyMountain]

In the grades where we used theraputty to strengthen the hands, really worked on correct formation and they used 3 lined paper it made a difference in legibility but it was still slow. This year where they did not work on formation and the writing output went up it really deteriorated to it where it was barely legible or not legible and everything was poorly sized and squashed together. I will be trying writing 8 exercises and limiting writing to when we can focus on formation and using theraputty again. I also have callirobics and will work on formation on paper once we finish writing 8. Plus we are doing some vision therapy exercises. If all that does not work then at least I know I tried. I will add in typing soon.

Edited January 19, 2017 by MistyMountain

[manicmum81]

Thank you everyone.

 

I guess for now I will simply plug away with the handwriting, a litle each day and see what happens. All of the childen could do with improvement to some degree so I think I'll make it a thing for everyone so that the boys don't feel like I'm focusing only on them and resent doing it.