to feel upset that primary school has failed to teach my son ( age 11) to write properly?

[SensingSolo]

Had a difficult weekend, but I'll spare the sob story, and this feels like another straw on the camel's back ...

I decided to help my son improve his handwriting, for the second time in his primary school career. It was so bad around Y4 that I had to go to the school and ask for some advice as to how I could help him at home , which I did as best I could.

Recently, I have noticed his handwriting is still poorly formed and have decided to have another go before he starts secondary school.

However, what I have now realised is that a lot of it is to do with the WAY he holds his pencil - like a claw! This is going to be hard to correct after such a long time, and my son was very upset at having to change it. Assuming we can of course, after 6 years of doing the wrong thing? Anyone help here btw?

I feel soooooooo hacked off that the school have not taught him the correct "tripod" way to write (which makes it so much easier and clearer). There seem to be so many things that primary schools do now in a huge curriculum (with a lot of political correctness thrown in). But really all I want my child to do is learn to basically read and write and some simple maths. I can do the rest.

Feeling both angry and upset at having to now do this, when I think its a teacher's job. Now, I feel like I have to teach my child to write all over again. Neither of us are relishing the thought ...

(p.s. we've left that school, so no point in going back and complaining).

What do I do now? Can I help him?

[Thenapoleonofcrime]

My DS writes with the weirdest claw hand ever, he's left handed as well and his writing is something akin to a spider walking through an ink spill. He's 21 and midway through his degree. It's hardly affected him.

The one thing I would say about this is that when his tutors/lecturers have to mark his exams, it does make a difference if it is unreadable/semi-readable. I have been known to take pity on a student with terrible writing and allow them to read it out loud to me but many lecturers are not so tolerant. They can, if diagnosed with a LD, use a computer, but my experience is that many students can't touch-type either, so they are slow typing out in exam conditions and generally don't do as well as students writing.

It really is worth trying to have good comprehensible writing, especially as we are moving back towards exams and not cutandpaste coursework. I did once help a student get diagnosed with dysgraphia as along with the spider writing, he used to write half sentences/but was clearly extremely bright, so it might be worth reading up about this if the writing/expression hasn't come together when they are older.

[grocklebox]

*If, not it.

[AWombWithoutARoof]

What is the correct grip? My 3 YO holds the pencil with her thumb and two first fingers, so it's resting on her ring finger. I hold it with thumb and first finger so it rests on the middle.

We were at our first meeting at the primary school the other day, where they said "do not worry about teaching your child to hold a pencil, we will do that". I was surprised.

[Retropear]

Many children struggle with writing.It isn't their fault or the fault of their parents.

[HumphreyCobbler]

you just keep on justifying yourself grocklebox. It is making you look just brilliant.

[Wellwellwell3holesintheground]

Op - my dd has got a terrible pencil grip and we've been trying to correct it since reception. Her hand does resemble the claw you describe. BUT her handwriting is lovely. I would suggest trying a writing slope which helps get an even pressure. There is also something called the Teodorescu Perceptuo Motor Programme which is extremely effective in improving find motor skills.

[IrianofWay]

They may well have tried and failed to improve it. My youngest has appalling writing and has pretty poor maths skills. However I know that that is the case inspite of all the extra work the school (and I ) have done with him.

[Retropear]

I've gone through and reported the nastier posts.I doubt they'll get deleted as they were snide and nasty as opposed to direct attacks but I think MN want things that members feel to be nasty reported more.

They seem to like reported posts.

[5madthings]

My three year old has a good pencil hold, my nine year old has needed practise as did my 11 year old.

It really depends on the child, their fine motor skills etc but bad habits can be learned early on and are then hard to break. The school should have helped more or spoken to the op about it more.

I know we don't write ad much nowadays but for exams etc kids do need legible writing!

My dp and I are both left handed and hold the pen and write with different techniques to each other, let alone the madthings and 4 out of 5 kids are right handed which had made it trickier for us to teach them some stuff actually. Prob more because Dp and I do things a weird left handed way!

Anyway I have found those morrells workbooks and info really good wwith the madthings. I bought one set if the workbooks and then scanned and printed out copies of the pages for practising.

[FunnyFoot]

I didn't think the first 5 post attacked the OP. Yes they were a little harsh but I read them as more incredulous than attacking tbh.

Anyway OP you have had some great advice on this thread and you just need to ignore the posts you disagree with and take the good.

MN is a mixed bag of people and opinions, some are very forth right but you shouldn't tar a whole site with the same brush.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

I agree funny.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

I would have expected the issue to be flagged up by school OP and I say this having two with handwriting difficulties.

The OP has been undoubtedly rude but clearly was upset her post and th first few comments were not at all helpful. Sometimes as a parent you don't realise something is wrong because you at just so used to seeing it. It is now blindingly obvious my DD has hyper mobile joints but I didn't notice until the Paed pointed it out.

OP, to give you hope my DD's writing was nothing short of appalling in Year 5 and I would cringe when she asked me to read something she had written. Fast forward to Year 10 and finally her writing is legible, though will win no prizes . She was offered the use of a lap top but reluctant to use it so went down the route of using writing blocks, pen grips etc plus exercises to strengthen her fingers. she had help from the TA at one point who acted as a scribe when she was writing stories, so as not to stifle her creativity and not to demoralise her in creative writing.

DS also struggles and the issue of a laptop has again been raised (he is year 5) but he doesn't want to stand out. The compromise is he does some homework on the laptop and keeps on with writing at school. I think frm memory thinking about it that DD got on well with the triangular handwriting pen which really helped correcting her grip plus didn't stand out as being obviously different.

[PoirotsMoustache]

LifeTakesGrit Where in the OP did SensingSolo say she'd never watched her DS write or draw? In her second paragraph, she said I decided to help my son improve his handwriting, for the second time in his primary school career. It was so bad around Y4 that I had to go to the school and ask for some advice as to how I could help him at home [hmm[, which I did as best I could.

FWIW, my son's handwriting is awful and he hold the pen/pencil correctly. My handwriting is better if I use the 'claw' hold. It may not be down to the way he's holding the pencil, OP. Could it be that he has problems with fine motor skills? That's why my DS's writing is so abysmal.

[SistersOfPercy]

Thenapoleonofcrime he's doing an IT degree, everything he does is computerised. Even at work all his notes are done via computer. He very rarely has to actually write. Consequently he can touch type incredibly quickly.

We did try and correct his hands, we bought him pencil grips etc, all to no avail.

[littlemslazybones]

If a child uses a pencil grip do they then always need to have a pencil grip or does the grip just work as a tool to transition to a better pencil grip without help?

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Little-works as a transitional tool

[littlemslazybones]

Thank you

[gorionine]

OP, I found this helpful. It appearsthatif the tripod grip is still very much a favourite, other grips are also acceptable.

[gorionine]

oops forgot where my space bar was!

[Groovee]

A friend who is a primary teacher spoke to an OT about a child who had a claw like grip and the OT said the best way is not to force the child into a grip which they are not comfortable with . It's about moving the paper and putting other things in place.

I have an 11 year old with poor handwriting. One person did say to me "Remember quite a lot of highly intelligent people have terrible handwriting!" It's improved but not how I would like it to be, but others can read it now, so that is what is important.

[noblegiraffe]

The website linked to above says

"How important is pen grip?
Many children with difficulties hold their pen or pencil in unconventional ways. However, so do many competent writers and there is no evidence to date to link poor pen or pencil grasp with poor handwriting. The dynamic tripod grasp (with the pen pinched between the ball of the thumb and the fore-finger, supported by the middle finger with the other fingers tucked into the hand) is recommended once the child is old enough to hold a writing implement. This minimizes the risk of strain and offers the greatest control. However, for those with handwriting difficulties, changing the grasp will, of itself, not solve the problems. It may be that the poor grasp and the poor handwriting are both visible symptoms of the same underlying factors."

So the claw may not be the key.

That said, I'm a secondary teacher and boys have noticeably worse handwriting than girls in my school. I've also observed a variety of weird grips so I'm not sure what primary school focus on.

[Retropear]

They've deleted some of the other unpleasant posts.

Hope op does come back and read some of these stories and advice,there are some good suggestions.

Best of luck.

[mayqueen31]

I'm absolutely stunned. I'm new on here and this is the first thread I've looked at as my son has the same issue with poor handwriting. I wanted to tell the OP that by the time he starts year 7 they use computers for most lessons and can print out homework rather than writing it. I've not had any comments from teachers about his writing since he left primary school.

But I am stunned by the responses made by many people on here. Horrendous. This is worse than twitter and I'm not going to look at anything else. I think I'll stick to the tried and tested "talk to friends" method of getting advice.

[littlemrssleepy]

I luff Virgin. I flew back from NYC last year and had treated myself to premium economy. They had too many people in PE and were asking people to pay $1600! to upgrade. I declined but very cheekily offered to help them out with their issue free of charge. The check in guy laughed and went 'oh, go on then'. I didn't know whether to try and get some sleep on the flat bed or tuck into the bar. Was lovely. Although definitely not worth the extra! PE can be quite reasonable and you don't have to do it both ways. I originally had paid an extra £100 to fly back PE.

Anyway.... Back to the thread.