Handwriting improvement ideas?

[Sausagepickle123]

Hi - my year 1 6 yr old has terrible handwriting. He can form letters nicely if he tries but generally reverts to his own messy style when left to his own devices. I think it is a motivation, practice and confidence problem (I have another child with motor delays and don't think it is the issue here). Does anyone have any good ideas of motivational schemes/practice ideas that have helped that we can try at home? TIA!

[HeynowHannah]

Buy Teodorescu fine motor skills practise book. Practice daily on whatever handwriting book format the school use. Do lots of colouring in books (colour right up to the line but don't go over). Practise daily. Dot to dot books. Ban iPads and computers, consoles etc. And did I say Practise daily. It worked for mine.

[mrz]

If he can produce good handwriting when he wants I wouldn't bother buying a handwriting programme. I'm afraid it requires consistent expectations from school and home (not accepting less than his best) reinforced at al times.

[Sausagepickle123]

Thank you for your thoughts,much appreciated. I am aware this basically needs some hard work!

[tartanterror]

Our DS sounds similar. We eventually found out that he has fine motor problems and hypermobile fingers. He struggles to hold on to the pencil and keep it under control. However he CAN do it if he concentrates enough..... he just hates doing it and will avoid it at all costs!

We got improvement using a Stabilo easy pencil like this and also pencils like this

Our DS really got into these dot-to-dot and there is a series so plenty of practice available. I think it has helped build up his strength and control.

We did the Tedorescu handwriting programme but he tended to rush at it and I'm not convinced it was much help.

My husband has been doing the Speed Up programme and that seems to be yielding better results. Our DS has quite a weak core/arms and the gross motor exercises do seem to be improving his performance on the swirl exercise. I can't say I've seen a lot of difference to the handwriting yet but then again he's not that keen to do it so it's difficult to tell :/

The class teacher put up visual aids in the classroom showing which children were regularly using cursive script and their pictures moved up the chart as they improved. It motivated him massively. You could try doing something similar at home?

Recently I've been recommended the following which I think would fit with our DS' interests and I will be trying shortly:

• Playing "pick up sticks" the traditional game to build up hand strength and control
  
• Printing mazes off the internet to have him trace between the lines
  
• Drawing spirals and having him trace between the lines
  
• Getting him to copy chinese characters or other unrecognisable symbols which haveb't been imbued with a sense of failure!
  

Our next issue is that although he has improved his script, he has to concentrate so hard on the action of writing that he can't actually compose a story....... if you come across any tips for that I would gladly accept them! Good luck

[DownstairsMixUp]

Has he tried pencil grips?

[KingLooieCatz]

This happened by accident, in the course of making cards to go with a board game we were making. DS decided all the "enemies" on the cards should be Lego characters. We pick a picture from a Lego magazine (we have a good supply) and trace it using tracing paper. Turn the paper over, place on top of plain paper and trace over the reverse outline. The tracing comes out faintly on the plain paper. You can draw over it again to make it bolder. The results are remarkably good (but will be in reverse, unless you want to do it again...). We can sit and do this quietly side by side for half an hour at a time. DS tends to be pleased with what he has done, which is a great confidence boost, practice at concentrating, persevering, pencil grip, fine motor skills and quite good fun. As with a previous poster's suggestion, it's not imbued with a sense of failure before you start, child gets to say "Hey! I can do this!".

If I read your post correctly your DS is 16, if so you can maybe find some images together that he would likely to copy out, depending what he is into.

On the days DH is in charge of after dinner arty crafty time DS is writing a "movie script". DS almost point blank refuses to write anything at school. When he took in work he did at home, teacher thought I had done it for him.