Handwriting dilemma - help!

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Just1-2go
Posts: 523
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:43 pm
Location: Twells

Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by Just1-2go »

DS has just started year 7, he has always struggled with handwriting but in primary school they tended to look at content rather than the presentation. Now he is at secondary school he is finding that he is consistently being marked down for his handwriting, he was told by his history teacher yesterday "what you've written is great but I have to mark you down for your handwriting" he was given a 3/4 (1 is top mark, 4 bottom mark). DS cried when he got home telling me that he will never be good at anything because he is not neat enough and what's the point of trying with the content when he is going to be marked down anyway. I can sort of see his point.

Does anyone have any bright ideas of anything I can do to help him improve his handwriting, I have downloaded some exercises from the TES website which we will start doing this evening but is there anything else I could do. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Y
Posts: 463
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:49 pm

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by Y »

Can't answer your specific question, but it may be worth getting him assessed by the specialist teacher, or whoever does special needs assessments in your school. If the handwriting problem proves to have some 'special needs' origin, then he may get permission to type. This can be very helpful to some students for exams.
Manana
Posts: 710
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:22 pm

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by Manana »

What exactly is untidy about it? Are the letters themselves formed correctly? Are they of uniform shape/size? Is he left handed? Is it when it's joined up it becomes untidy? Is it too small/big? Is he just rushing?

I'm a Y2 teacher and we do a LOT of handwriting!!
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by Amber »

I have the same issue with my Year 7 DS; but the school doesn't seem to mind. His writing is really very bad indeed, and he is blissfully unconcerned about it. He is my only right handed child too so can't play the leftie card. I am waiting for the school to contact me and moan but so far nothing. On the plus side, his medical father writes illegibly and the rest of us aren't much better. I don't have any suggestions - just to let you know I share your pain!
mike1880
Posts: 2563
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by mike1880 »

Another one here.

In primary our son was having such difficulty with the mechanical process of writing that it was obviously having a major impact on his confidence. I took him to see a rather eccentric person who specialises in getting intractable cases (GPs etc :lol: ) to write to a tolerable standard and she got him writing quite an elegant (if very old fashioned) script at a good speed, which eliminated the psychological hang-ups he'd developed. In Y4 his writing was by far the nicest in his class imho! Since then it's deteriorated gradually and is very messy and not very legible. It gets commented on in reports sometimes but the SENCO (or whatever it's called this week) has tested him and found nothing that merits action. But that needs to be your first step: if the school has a problem with his writing it's up to them to have the first shot at dealing with it.

I got a slight improvement from ours by changing his pen to something differently shaped that I thought might suit his grip better, you could try watching him write and see whether you think a different pen would help.

I would guess that your son needs to write more slowly if he's to write more neatly. You could try encouraging him to PLAN what he's going to write (if only it was that easy! :roll: ), rather than making it up as he goes along and trying to write at the speed he's thinking. If that makes sense. There's a rather good book on mind mapping (tony Buzan, Mind Mapping for Kids) which might help with that. I'm not a fan of mind mapping and can't be bothered to plough through a whole book on the subject, but this one was about at the level of my attention span and was imho probably the least annoying of all his books.

Typing is always thrown in as though it was some sort of panacea for writing problems but few people can type at anything remotely like the speed they can write, or with anything like the accuracy. Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near typing as an alternative without doing a reputable touch typing course and being really serious about it.

Mike
hermanmunster
Posts: 12816
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by hermanmunster »

doc with abysmal writing here :oops: :oops: Admission letters written in ball point pen in the middle of the night often have to be re written and my receptionist loves trying to "interpret" my hieroglyphics - I have now found it is much better if I slow down and use a fountain pen.....
Just1-2go
Posts: 523
Joined: Wed Apr 01, 2009 4:43 pm
Location: Twells

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by Just1-2go »

Thank you for your replies, he does rush although when he slows down there isn't much improvement. His letters are varying sizes but mostly properly formed, some are on the line some not. It's marginally better when joined up but I think he finds this too slow. He is right handed but his coordination in general isn't great, in fact one tennis instructor said to me that I must have run out of coordination by the time I'd got to number 3!

I am now feeling awful because I may have missed something. I have emailed his school for advice.

Just seen your post Mike, thank you, I will have a look at the book, his thought do tend to overtake him when he is writing, and will be looking at different pens with him this evening.

Perhaps he is destined to be a medic, I think his bedside manner would be great!
hermanmunster
Posts: 12816
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by hermanmunster »

he possibly needs to work on the joining up - not joining up really slows things down to much (for me anyway) - though had a friend (deputy head now) who never joined up much.

Thoughts overtaking the writing is a big problem. :lol:
TIDDLYMUM
Posts: 881
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:19 pm

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by TIDDLYMUM »

http://www.tmcsea.org/districtservices/ ... riting.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your post made me sad......

See above.

Will also PM you with a similar thread I saw on another chat site, as it might be terribly bad form to add a link on here.
Sallyltb
Posts: 133
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2012 2:40 pm

Re: Handwriting dilemma - help!

Post by Sallyltb »

It may be worth checking that he doesn't have a medical problem. My daughter has hyper mobility and as a result cannot hold a pen tightly enough to control it or indeed to write in any comfort for more than ten minutes.

She saw a physio and OT whilst in Year 2 and was told that she should use a laptop then, but the primary school wouldn't play ball, even though we said we would buy the laptop.

After trying to write for the first year at secondary school they moved her onto a laptop and she has never looked back. She used throughout her recent GCSEs without any problems.
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