7 year old with handwriting issues

sabretoothtigger

I agree, theres no practical benefit anyway. Even if he was an author, its all done electronically now. Answers must be legible on an exam paper, do the best but really the brain behind the pen and being well read is more important then the script

dawyldthing

Mojisola wrote: »

As well as doing what you can at home - get on to the school. They are failing your son if they are not implementing remedial measures with him. That's what they've trained for and are paid for!

They often aren't. When I trained we were trained on how to look out for dyslexia and dyspraxia and the like and things to help (such as a coloured film over writing for people with dyslexia as it helps in some cases to stop the writing moving over the page). But not so much everything and often teachers are to get experience of it from placements and to ask there peers and occupational therapists for advice as specialists in their fields.

I'd suggest trying out big writing techniques as well as small writing and work on hand to eye co-ordination as it is what is taught a lot in early years as it is part of the eyfs but if you help with his gross motor skills it will later help with his fine motor skills. Something like this might help give you some tips http://www.brookshealth.org/motor-skills.pdf

laurel7172

Children who struggle to move from print to cursive generally do so because they haven't learned the correct letter formation in the first place. You can "get away" with "bad habits" when you take the pen off the page after every letter. When you need to finish every letter in the correct place to start the next one, you realise why your teacher was such a boring nag about where letters start and end.

Noticed a child today who has been used to starting 'd' at the top of the ascender. You can imagine how weird that looks when they join up letters to it...

Bennifred

Just to let you know that illegible writing, although making life difficult, is not the end of the world: my youngest child has hypermobile joints, is dyslexic and dyspraxic and struggled terribly with reading and particularly writing. His fine motor skills are still very poor at 21.
One of the best things we did for him was getting him taught to touch type (private lessons). Once he was in secondary school he was able to use a word processor in his lessons and did most of his written work on the computer. He used a word processor for all of his exams.
His writing difficulties didn't stop him doing 'A' levels in essay based subjects (English Literature, History and RS) and he is now in the final year of a History degree. Where there's a will (and a certain level of ability) there's a way! I'm very proud of his determination and hard work :j

couponqueen123

mustbemad wrote: »

Thank you, I will have a look for one of those! I have tried to get my little boy to forget about joining for now but he gets so upset and refuses because the school expect it.

MBM x

them pens are amazing , but also pencil is easier than pen to write with untill recently (parents evening just gone untill i was told by teacher my dd is only child who uses a pen she would prefure pencil )i was getting my dd to do home work with a pen and her writing was awfull i got the pens in the link and omg the transformation was unreal also they do a pencils which i got to

mine were 9p in morrisons on a reduced shelf we got pink and blue ones my dd is left handed so we got the ones with the" L" on the pack .is your son left handed this makes writing harder to i think

i was left handed when young but school changed me to right handed by time i got to year 2/3 , i would never try changing my dd to right handed thou ,

leather5

Sorry to hear your little one is having trouble with his writing, my son was the same, got to the stage where even he couldn't read his own writing. It turned out that he has colour spectrum disorder so print will wriggle about on the page for him. Of course he couldn't form his letters properly when parts of them were moving about as he tried to finish forming them! It was the same for him trying to do maths on squared paper and write on lines, all jiggled about and must of been like trying to hit a moving target! We took him to an optician who specialises in this and he was given first of all a coloured overlay to use for reading and then coloured specs to wear when writing also. It is not an understatement to say they have changed his life. He never mentioned that print moved as I suppose he had always seen it like that and didn't realise it wasn't the same for everyone. Does your boy struggle to look at text for any length of time, will he blink and screw his eyes up while trying to read and write? Getting him tested for colour spectrum dissorder was the best thing we could have done. He is also dyslexic and dyspraxic so his fine motor skills and organisational skills aren't great either but now that he can read and write more easily he is doing really well. Good luck x

iwannanicerlife

Haven't got time to read all the replies at the moment so this may have already been covered, but my daughter has severe hypermobility. Hopefully finger strengthening exercises will help (we've made huge progress over the years with these), pencil grips can also help. My daughter also uses a writing ramp - we had to buy our own for use at home but our OT supplied the one at school. Good luck! (We were also advised to practice writing using a mouse mat underneath - this helps the child learn how much pressure to apply)

onlyroz

My son struggles with his writing, and his teachers have found that it is much more legible when he writes joined up - mainly because it forces him to separate one word from the next. Without it, his writing just looks like a mass of disjointed letters. He has also been given a notebook with lines ruled to assist with joined up writing - so he writes over three lines with a segment for each part of the letter. His writing is significantly improved since the start of the school year.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Ugh. Handwriting practice. I have hypermobility - and it was the bane of my school existence for many years. It was physical and mental torture, IMO.

I started playing musical instruments and, by 11, it got better by itself; it also helped that I finally encountered teachers who simply didn't care what style was used, as long as it was legible - just as it is in the adult world.

jellyhead

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

I agree, theres no practical benefit anyway. Even if he was an author, its all done electronically now. Answers must be legible on an exam paper, do the best but really the brain behind the pen and being well read is more important then the script

Both of mine have problems with handwriting. Both are dyspraxic, but youngest has some hypermobility too. Eldest wouldn't have passed GCSE Literacy if he hadn't been allowed to type instead of writing, and then he wouldn't have gone on to level 3 education.

After a couple of years at high school a specialist from the council came in (I think it was called Physical Support Services) to assess what types of pens or other aids would help him. He ended up using a sort of laptop (called an alphasmart), and also tried different pens, devices for recording his homework, etc. He has shaky hands and is worse when he panics, so that last couple of minutes of class where he was struggling to find his homework diary and write down the homework in addition to packing his books away in time to rush to the next lesson where he would get marked down for being late were quite stressful for him.

The person we saw also went in to assess kids with dyslexia and other issues, and had a wide range of equipment. I wish he could have seen her in primary school!