Tips for helping 9yo child improve handwriting

[Monvelo]

Has anyone got any tips on helping a 9 year old (just finishing yr4) improve his handwriting? I've tried to help him in the past, so feel I do know some stuff, like the relationship between gross and fine motor, letter families etc. I'm thinking to get him doing cutting and drawing etc. But he's not actually forming the letters correctly, so has some bad habits to unlearn, which he's resistant to. School tell me his writing is not bad enough for an intervention. But I can see evidence that his written work is holding him back.

Do you have an example of his handwriting?

Can you think of any authors or sports stars or such like that he’d be curious to write to?

A friend of mine got her kids to write to some authors, naturalists and so forth…and they replied!

When writing the letter he’d have to be super careful to get all those letters formed correctly to make it legible of course.. ;)

… No mention of “writing practice”!!

Maybe writing a few throughout the summer holidays and see what comes back.. could be fun!

More than anything, if he sees the power in writing and what it can do for him, over and above just school work, it could spark more interest.

Another one is to design his own birthday invites, posters for the local area… you get the gist

Rome wasn’t built in a day but the more he writes the better :)

I will find a sample. The end result might be passable, however when I watch how he's constructing the letters it's really inefficient. Eg his n he just draws a hoop from bottom left. His b and d are circles with sticks added after. That sort of thing.

Sample.

Sample

To be fair to him at least you can read it. Having had a child with similar handwriting issues with regard to floating letters not sat on the line and filling up the space so making his writing larger than it had to be, we went back to using the handwriting book just like your second example with the guidelines as advised by school.

What I did do was slow it all down, so writing the same letter several times until it was correct, then a small sweet/chocolate button reward. This slowness also helps them not to instantly do the letter the way they always did, muscle memory kicks in.

We started with c which then becomes an a, d and g, same formation, all start with the C. It was unlearning what he had done before. His downstroke on the tail of the g was crooked at a very weird angle. He practised the start of the g, paused then a straight line which he knows how to draw.

With his original handwriting he couldn't actually join up his letters which your son will not be able to do either if he draws a circle then a stick. Starting with the C would address the d formation. We still had the reception letter formation sheet as I had laminated it so they could practise when they first started writing.

We did a little bit every day in the morning then it was over and done with.

Have they not taught him how to write joined up yet? Or is he just struggling with it? DS's writing was bad too, turned out he was dyspraxic, tbh my advice would be to not worry too much about handwriting and teach him how to type.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z3c6tfr#zn9s3qt

His writing is passable, its not difficult to read. What I see is poorly formed letters and creating unnecessary joiners on the /g/ /y/. If he was my student I'd take him back to correct letter formation and then teach him how to join.

My concern is writing continuing to ramp up in years 5 and 6, I don't want it holding him back from getting his best ideas down on paper.

@sunnydayyzz yes they've been taught joined up writing. He's done some BBC dance mat with me at home.

@Giftspread I think that's what he needs, it's not on offer from school so I'd like to try at home.

I'd speak to an occupational therapist and ask them for fine motor exercises. They can also check his posture and position while he's writing and give some advice.

@MrSchubertWhiskers I contacted an OT and was quoted £500! So I can't do that.

It's not equal to a human with training, but write this into Chatgpt and see if anything is useful to you

"Act like a child's occupational therapist. Give me advice, excersises, product recommendations etc to help improve a 9 year old's handwriting. It's currently messy with incorrectly formed letters. I'm thinking about fine and gross motor skills, core strength etc"

What area do you live in OP? I may be able to recommend something.

Check posture, sit with feet flat firmly on the floor and back against chair, maybe a move n sit cushion if fidgetty.. Try a writing slope or a4 lever arch file on its side filled with paper, to provide a soft supportive surface. Do crafts, lego, puzzles, building, drawing, cooking, sand/water play to help fine motor skills. Activities involving climbing, stretching, pulling ropes, throwing and catching can help gross motor skills and coordination.

His writing is neater than mine!

Mine too and I was tortured with those bloody handwriting books as a child. If I really concentrate my writing is passable now. Not neat but legible. Its never going to be good any more than I'm going to be good at kicking a ball.
OP it's not what you asked but please try to focus on the content of his writing more than how to looks. I was in year 6 before I ever heard that I was good at English as all I ever saw was 'handwriting needs work'. I was a voracious reader who went on to get an A at A level - I should have known by 11 that it was a strength of mine.

Gloucestershire @Giftspread

@PinkArt good advice, I will be mindful of that. His content is great and he loves reading. I want to support him with writing so that he can get what he wants down on paper, it's more about efficiency than tidiness per se. I think there's lots I can do before even asking him to pick up a pen.

£1 a page over the summer holidays in1987. Back to basics with the letter formation workbooks. His writing did improve; it was never beautiful but at least correct and legible.

Dd is 9 and just finished year 4. Her writing is nowhere near as neat as that! It was mostly unreadable. We have improved it by encouraging her to stop trying to join up and concentrate on clear letters, like a PP has said. She has a really supportive teacher who understood our concerns and her writing has improved a little. She likes writing in a notebook about what she has done during the day and drawing and writing about pokemon so that has given her a reason to write at home as well which is more practice.

Speed Up! By Lois Addy is good for building on kinesthetic movements which underpin handwriting.
Lots of gross motor and balance work will improve core strength and improve fine motor control.
I suspect that if he's seeing letters as separate parts, the only way to change that is repetition of the formation, ensuring letters start in the right place, go clockwise or anti clockwise as necessary and finish in the right place.

It's worth checking his pen grip too. If he's holding it with a fist or wrapping his thumb across the fingers it will be much harder for him to manage the fine control required. You can get pencil grips on Amazon which encourage effective an effective tripod grip. https://www.amazon.co.uk/VIKSAUN-Crossover-Correction-Preschoolers-Multicolor/dp/B09NKW59HN/ref=asc_df_B09NKW59HN?mcid=80064f34e728366bb8e8d1107c594b7e&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697226574462&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14238689636529463514&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9236742&hvtargid=pla-1606317760238&psc=1&hvocijid=14238689636529463514-B09NKW59HN-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1

Good luck!

I was going to recommend a Handwriting 'doctor' but they are London based.

That's shocking. A lot of NHS teams will take self-referrals so look locally. lIZS has pretty much covered the assessment.
Your local authority may have an ed psych who can diagnose dysgraphia. If all motor skills are poor then definitely a referral to OT for a DCD assessment

Maths he will have to handwrite; it's difficult to type the correct layout of complicated calculations.

What is he like with mazes and dot to sit puzzles and colouring in? Is it pen control or is it just poor letter formation?