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Handwriting Workbook/Curriculum for 1st grader leftie


meganrussell
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Hi, all! I have a 6 and 1/2 year old boy, Silas, who is in 1st grade. He just started reading some three and four letter words a few weeks ago. (We are on chapter 5 in The Reading Lesson.)I'm looking for a handwriting program or workbook for him to use. Here's my dilemma:

His handwriting is about average (I think). He writes big but legible. However, he is left-handed and while his letters and numbers technically look right, he actually writes (forms?) them incorrectly. Example - he writes his o's from the bottom and goes around. His 6's, he starts from the middle and goes around and up. (I hope this makes sense...) Most letters he forms the opposite way my right-handed children do. I mean, they look basically the same - the letters aren't backwards or upside down - it's just how he writes them. I don't know if this is even a problem or not...

 

I was curious what handwriting workbooks or curriculum would be good for him to use? Right now, we are just using a blank handwriting tablet. I write words or phrases from his reading lesson for him to use as copywork. He can write short sentences and phrases from copywork, but he can't make up his own and write them as his spelling and reading skills aren't that advanced yet.

 

Also it's hard for him to copy words from the left side of page because his hand covers them. He has to constantly pick up his hand and look. I write above the lines, and he copies below it.

 

Any advice is appreciated!

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With my leftie I used handwriting without tears. I really had to stay on her to form the letters correctly. You might look into Peterson directed handwriting too. My dd has okay handwriting, but she refuses, even in 5th grade, to hold her pencil correctly or to place her hand so she can see. Part of it will depend on how teachable he is and how much patience you have :)

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I haven't used HWOT with my lefty yet (he's in K now), but I have used some of it with other children and have liked it. With my lefty, I simply printed off some alphabet sheets and spent time at his side, showing him how to form the letters.

 

A ProClick has been really nice for my lefty. It's handy anyway, but it means that for the lefty, I can make notebooks that can bind opposite so he isn't running over the spiral like in a traditional notebook. He's a big fan!

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I read a great book recently on helping lefties (DS4 is a lefty). It was called "Your left-handed child : making things easy for left-handers in a right-handed world", by Lauren Milsom. She talks a lot about how to position the hand for writing. I borrowed it from the library, but am thinking about buying it to have and refer back to.

 
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Hi, all! I have a 6 and 1/2 year old boy, Silas, who is in 1st grade. He just started reading some three and four letter words a few weeks ago. (We are on chapter 5 in The Reading Lesson.)I'm looking for a handwriting program or workbook for him to use. Here's my dilemma:

His handwriting is about average (I think). He writes big but legible. However, he is left-handed and while his letters and numbers technically look right, he actually writes (forms?) them incorrectly. Example - he writes his o's from the bottom and goes around. His 6's, he starts from the middle and goes around and up. (I hope this makes sense...) Most letters he forms the opposite way my right-handed children do. I mean, they look basically the same - the letters aren't backwards or upside down - it's just how he writes them. I don't know if this is even a problem or not...

 

I was curious what handwriting workbooks or curriculum would be good for him to use? Right now, we are just using a blank handwriting tablet. I write words or phrases from his reading lesson for him to use as copywork. He can write short sentences and phrases from copywork, but he can't make up his own and write them as his spelling and reading skills aren't that advanced yet.

 

Also it's hard for him to copy words from the left side of page because his hand covers them. He has to constantly pick up his hand and look. I write above the lines, and he copies below it.

 

Any advice is appreciated!

 

Spalding. Even if you use it only for the penmanship part and don't plan on using it to teach reading and spelling, it will be worth it. Spalding gives precise instructions on how to form each letter (which is the same whether the child is left-handed or right-handed). Yes, it is important for him to learn to write his letters properly.

 

Something that will help, no matter what you decide to use, is to teach him to hold his pencil properly, and to turn his paper in the proper direction so that his hand is below what he is writing and not hooked over the top. He should look like a mirror image of a right-handed person.

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Spalding. Even if you use it only for the penmanship part and don't plan on using it to teach reading and spelling, it will be worth it. Spalding gives precise instructions on how to form each letter (which is the same whether the child is left-handed or right-handed). Yes, it is important for him to learn to write his letters properly.

 

Something that will help, no matter what you decide to use, is to teach him to hold his pencil properly, and to turn his paper in the proper direction so that his hand is below what he is writing and not hooked over the top. He should look like a mirror image of a right-handed person.

He does hold his pencil and hand correctly. He doesn't curve it up as some lefties do. He just doesn't form them correctly.

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I read a great book recently on helping lefties (DS4 is a lefty). It was called "Your left-handed child : making things easy for left-handers in a right-handed world", by Lauren Milsom. She talks a lot about how to position the hand for writing. I borrowed it from the library, but am thinking about buying it to have and refer back to.

Great! I'll check that out today!

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I haven't used HWOT with my lefty yet (he's in K now), but I have used some of it with other children and have liked it. With my lefty, I simply printed off some alphabet sheets and spent time at his side, showing him how to form the letters.

 

A ProClick has been really nice for my lefty. It's handy anyway, but it means that for the lefty, I can make notebooks that can bind opposite so he isn't running over the spiral like in a traditional notebook. He's a big fan!

A proclick is a GREAT idea.

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I haven't used HWOT with my lefty yet (he's in K now), but I have used some of it with other children and have liked it. With my lefty, I simply printed off some alphabet sheets and spent time at his side, showing him how to form the letters.

 

A ProClick has been really nice for my lefty. It's handy anyway, but it means that for the lefty, I can make notebooks that can bind opposite so he isn't running over the spiral like in a traditional notebook. He's a big fan!

I'm left-handed. When I was in school, I wrote in my spirals from back to front to avoid the binding. My notes always confused everyone.

 

Sent from my HTCD160LVW using Tapatalk

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My daughter is left handed and used Handwriting W/out Tears from 1st grade on. I think it worked really well and also use it with my right handed son. Right now she is 10 and in school would be using the 4th grade book but she finished it last year so now she just practices handwriting in her copywork and writing. She has really nice handwriting (both print and cursive) and the only problem she has is the bindings on books sometimes get in her way and she always has a smudge on her hand from dragging it across her words as she writes :)

Edited by mountains27
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I am a lefty, and trying to write with my arm and paper positioned as a mirror-image to a right-hander never worked well for me, because the strokes are all pushed instead of pulled, in that position, and it was awkward. Using tripod grip, my writing would always seem to be trying to lean backwards. If right-handers could experience writing backwards (from right to left) while holding their pencil and paper in the exact same position they normally use to write forwards, they would know how it feels for lefties to do the same.

 

However, the grip I developed as a way to use the pencil or pen to pivot in my hand, so as to form cursive and handwriting that looked like normal, was this elaborate grip whereby the point of the pencil came out at the bottom of my hand, and instead of using my arm, I used the muscles of my hand to pivot the pencil in the proper direction (forward and to the right, or down/back and to the left) like this: /

 

But in my forties, I find this grip makes writing by hand painful. I wish I had been taught the "downstroke" mentioned in Peterson Directed Handwriting as the optimal way to teach a lefty, so that ink never gets smeared, the cursive is pretty, and the hand doesn't wear out...but it involves writing vertically, downward toward one's body, with the paper turned a full 90 degrees, such that the long edge of the paper is parallel with the desk, and the top of the paper is nearest the right hand.

 

I'm hoping to teach that to my lefty son, who is now 6, but maybe HWT is better for lefties? I don't like the look of HWT, but looks are secondary to efficacy and ergonomics, and it that makes more sense than the complicated "downstroke" method, I'm open to it.

 

As for stroke order, I learned just how important that is, when learning Japanese. Trying to "draw" representations of characters any old way, makes them look bizarre to anyone else, and the same tends to be true in English once the writer goes more quickly.

Edited by myfantasticfour
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I tutored some dyslexic lefties and settled into what I do. The answers for lefties are not as easy as what I usually read. Gifted lefties have more options.

 

Don Potter has some free instructions that are almost identical to the Spalding manuscript. His cursive is good for righties, but I use Spalding cursive.

 

Free Don Potter Handwriting

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/shortcut-to-manuscript.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwj2stbVzPHRAhUFRiYKHQkHAMAQFggkMAA&usg=AFQjCNHzGO77BDAGJ70HikP76xYw6m9S5A

 

I did't use worksheets. I hovered and offered direct I instruction while the student copied from Alpha-Phonics REVISED. Free here.

http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net

Edited by Hunter
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.... If right-handers could experience writing backwards (from right to left) while holding their pencil and paper in the exact same position they normally use to write forwards, they would know how it feels for lefties to do the same.

 

 

This reminded me that I taught myself to write my name backwards (and in cursive!) with my right hand when I was bored in high school. I'll have to see if I can still do it and see if it helps me to better understand what my lefty is trying to do... Thanks for the idea.

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This reminded me that I taught myself to write my name backwards (and in cursive!) with my right hand when I was bored in high school. I'll have to see if I can still do it and see if it helps me to better understand what my lefty is trying to do... Thanks for the idea.

 

You and I have that in common. I learned to write cursive backwards, mirror-script, in high school as well, and for me it was partly boredom, and partly being tired of always having my hand resting on the spiral, or the rings of a notebook, and feeling irritated, wishing I could just write the way others do, in the same position and direction.

 

I quit after a while because no one else could read it, and because reading my own mirror writing started messing with my head once I did it enough to get comfortable with it. I started forgetting which way was left and which was right, and even my gait started to be affected, like if I started thinking about left vs. right while walking, I could stumble. Really bizarre, isn't it? ;)

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I'm left-handed. When I was in school, I wrote in my spirals from back to front to avoid the binding. My notes always confused everyone.

 

Sent from my HTCD160LVW using Tapatalk

I love this tip for my leftie. Mine is only 2, but she will be my first leftie. So I am new to this. For me, who always has a ton of cheapie spirals around that the kids use for their nature journals and carrying around to draw and such, this will help me right now. Thanks! 

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