How to help child improve writing

[Prym]

My 7 year old DS is quite behind with writing. If he's getting on with a piece of writing independently, i.e. nobody standing over him and reminding him of things, he will:

• form a lot of letters incorrectly (he starts his pencil in the wrong place)
• write a lot of letters and numbers backwards
• use a random mix of capitals and lower case
• forget to leave gaps between words
• miss out letters
• use no punctuation
• make a lot of spelling mistakes
• write his letters all different sizes

We try to practise as much as we can at home but I don't think we are doing this in a very effective way - unfortunately we are not natural teachers. We mainly encourage him to write little stories or practise writing certain letters and praise the bits he does well or if we see that he is really making an effort. But are there any good resources that would help us support him more systematically? We are not seeing much improvement and it is starting to worry me.

His reading is a little below average but much better than his writing.

His teacher doesn't seem overly concerned but I am. I realise that he may well have dyslexia or something but the school think it's too early to think about that other than keeping an eye on him - are there any specific techniques that would help him if he did have dyslexia? I assume it couldn't hurt to try treating him as though he were dyslexic, even if it later turned out he wasn't?

My son has dyspraxia, and awful handwriting - he's never even got to cursive and he's 14 (it's fine, he types, and his maths teacher - you can't type maths - is a saint)

He went to OT for a long time and one of the things they worked on was his writing (they did wonders to even get him to where he is)

Things they recommended:
Using a pencil - the feedback from the roughness of the paper helps
Forming letters from other things - like playdough - this helps with hand mobility as well as actually learning the letters
Finger spaces - he just wrote in one long line with no word breaks - they taught him to put his finger on the page after a word, and only write after that finger space - this made a HUGE difference
The special double line books - the ones that show where the risers and err.. fallers? Should go to - otherwise he'd just crowd everything in between the two lines

We also tried offset pens, but they didn't really help, slanted desks, and weighted pens/bracelets which also didn't help him, but I know both help other people

Some people's handwriting never improves but there is nothing wrong with that. I am an artist and have always had terrible handwriting though I can do calligraphy. So I wouldn't worry too much. Just encourage him to keep writing and drawing.

It's not just his handwriting, though, it's also spelling and punctuation and capitalisation and really basic stuff like leaving gaps between words and not leaving gaps in the middle of words...

I do think it's important that he can write as surely a lot of schoolwork will be a huge struggle before long if he doesn't crack the basics. Needless to say he's also a very slow writer - he has such a hard time with it. I wouldn't be concerned if it was just messy.

Would something like tennis, swimming help to strengthen his arms?

@UpsideDownChairs ascenders and descenders were the words you were wanting 😀

Ds was the same. He turned out to be dyspraxic. School were very relaxed about it, until suddenly they weren’t, when seemingly overnight they changed tone and called me in to tell me that something had to be done before he reached secondary school. They then made him do lots of practising at lunchtimes, which upset him. It did make him try a bit harder though.

Piano lessons helped a lot, weirdly.

Lego, play dough, theraputty, plasticine. Finger strength

Practise letters in groups..practise one at a time in several ways over a week. Make it fun.

Coadgq all start the same way.

rnmhbp

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Use different methods to write letters.
Eg coloured crayons, chalk, scented pens, stubby chalk and crayons are good for pincer grip.

Use large arm movements to write the letters correctly in the air or on a fence with water and paintbrush or on the path or fingers/hand on textured carpet.

Cut out textured paper/fabric to trace over with a finger.

Write with a finger on their back.

Build up core strength.
Sit on a wobble cushion.
Ask for occupational therapy or Google exercises.

Consider private dyslexia test because schools are sometimes rubbish at helping.

7 is still a bit young to expect good printing and punctuation, but it does sound like you are working iwth him, so keep it up. It will come eventually.

My grandkids like to draw, so I always make them write a little explanation at the bottom, where we can practice short sentences. We also make little books with folded blank paper.

I hope so. He doesn't use any punctuation but I suppose maybe that's not so unusual for 7.

When we've discussed it with his teacher he just says that he was a very bad writer himself at DS' age.

He's excellent at Lego, pretty good at drawing, fair at swimming and he's on a sports team where although he's nowhere near one of the most skilled players, he's not the worst either. He's asking to start guitar lessons so perhaps that will help him too.

Thank you very much to everyone who gave tips, I have a better idea of what to try now!

Hey,
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