Helping my 6 year old with her handwriting...

[TheVeryAngryMumapillar]

She's in year 2...so 7 in late July. She struggles with cursive and the rest of her classmates (all 12 of them!) as far as I know are able to write in cursive.

She sometimes uses capitals to begin words which are in the middle of a sentence even though I reiterate that they don't belong there unless they're a name etc.

Is this bad? Is she very behind? I am planning to speak to her teacher...but hoped for opinions...

[IndigoBell]

Depends :)

Firstly, random cap letters is a different problem, to her handwriting. And not uncommon at this stage of Y2.

Secondly, what do you mean by 'struggles with cursive'. Can she do it, but is messy?

If her handwriting is just messy, and her fine motor skills are fine, then now is a good time to start doing daily handwriting practice with her.

However if you think it is a bigger problem than 'just being messy', then I would give you diff advice....

[TheVeryAngryMumapillar]

She can do it IndigoBell but at home at least, it seems to be Soooooo muuuuch effort! she is very laid back and not at all competative or keen on homework....so she wouldn't even do it if I let her.

She can do it but she is slow at it...her motor skills seem fine...she can catch, draw, sew etc.

[IndigoBell]

Then I think at this stage I would do daily practice.

If after 3 months of daily practice she hadn't improved then I'd be looking at doing other things with her as well.......

[Elk]

dd1 had terrible writing in year. Two years of her teachers telling her her writing was terrible had destroyed her confidence. She is now in year 3 and has a wonderful teacher, her handwriting has improved beyond recognition.
She practises her 10 spellings daily and was given a very specific target each week.

e.g. week 1 try to keep your letters the same size, then moving on to remembering the lead ins, then the tails, then getting the writing smaller. By Christmas in year 3 she said she loved writing. It had just clicked for her by lots of posotive reinforcement.

[LifeInTheSlowLane]

ds1 had real trouble with cursive in year 2. In the end I didn't put any pressure on him when it came to his homework, I just figured it was better for him to get something on paper un-joined up and we'd worry about the rest later. We've since moved, and he's at a new school where they didn't even start cursive till year 3. He's in year 4 and this year he seemed to finally "get" it and is writing beautifully. Don't worry, it will come in time.

[TheVeryAngryMumapillar]

Well we have homework every night so she does get practice...she's very artistic...good a drawing and cutting etc... so it makes me wonder why she isn't neater!

[IndigoBell]

But is the homework handwriting practice or just writing?

Because when she is writing she also has to think about spelling and content and punctuation.... So it's not the same thing at all.

[TheVeryAngryMumapillar]

Well its just writing...as in make up a story etc.

I might have to ask her teacher about this...if we shouldn't concentrate on getting her more fluent. She has such good ideas but getting them down is huge struggle.