DD age 6 hates writing

[newfashionedmum]

Hi - DD has great fine motor skills and able to concentrate on things she enjoys but has TERRIBLE handwriting. She tries hard - maybe too hard - and what appears on the page is the same as it was a year ago or longer.
She seems to grip the pen really hard (and often wrongly tho we keep trying to correct this - I'm a bit annoyed that school don't really pick up on this despite noticing she was struggling with writing they were surprised when i pointed it out after a few months) and her letters are different sizes and all over the place. She hates writing and finds it boring and frustrating so doesn't want to practise, I think partly its frustration as she has a great imagination and is a prolific reader but just can't get her ideas down quickly enough when she writes.

I have seen similar threads but no solutions! Why is it so hard to find advice on this? It is starting to get her down and affecting how she feels about school.

Hi

I'd try her with different styles of pens. I know it's simple but it can help. It also sounds as though she needs a writing guide so she can keep the size of her letters even. You can do this yourself by drawing lines on the lines with a pencil. It can also help if you get her to write down your shopping list etc. The more practice she has the easier it gets. Tell her that Bach had to practice the piano all day, every day to be good at it, as do sports women and writers. It takes a lot of hard work to be good.

I'm a writer, I have to make notes in pen before I use the computer. My stories will fade out of my head otherwise.

Snap!!What is annoying with my DD is she can write nicely if she REALLY tries and I'm sitting next to her , at the beginning of term I was concerned as teacher told me not to do any reading with her? just practice writing, stories, comic strips, book reviews, but she kept complaining of her arms hurting, however I think she may have turned a corner with joined up writing(collins handwriting 7-9) She does a page every night and she said last week she was enjoying them, parents eve next week so the real test will be if there has been an improvement with her school work. Looking back I never bothered doing any handwriting practice when she was little just thought it became neater with age, but mine likes to feel the page with as little writing as poss, which is surprising as she loves storytelling and she too has a great little imagination.

At her age I'd start with write from the start

abcdoes.typepad.com/abc-does-a-blog/2010/11/jedi-writing-and-mark-making-laboritory.html

If she is genuinely experiencing pain with writing, then she may benefit from being seen by a paediatric Occupational Therapist. There may be an underlying instability of hand or arm or shoulder that is causing her to grip the pen too tightly and thus cause pain. An OT would be able to assess for these types of problems and recommend remedial exercises that can help tremendously.

The school or your GP should be able to refer to an appropriate OT on the NHS or you could get advice privately. I know of an OT working as a handwriting tutor who has been able to get one child out of pain within 4 weeks or so with various exercises etc (obviously some children take longer than this!) Do PM me if you want more info on this.

thanks sarahfreck i don't think she has any pain but will be watchful for this - it's been suggested i have her looked at for flat feet so it may be that she's extra bendy and that's not helping. I've noticed that when she uses tiny letters her writing is a lot better. some good ideas here to try...

Indigo she has really good fine motor skills (sewing with real needle, using scissors etc) do you think this pack would still help? It looks really good but its quite a bit to pay out without seeing what's in it!)

mrz that looks fun!! might try that too cos she is a bit confused about letter formation but don't want to damage her already fragile confidence.....

thanks all..

I occasionally work with children who hate writing. We get huge sheets of paper and they're asked to draw things which are actually letter formations, though they don't know it, e.g. scales on a fish, lace on the bottom of a princess's dress, rows of tunnels, waves at sea, icicles in caves. These are all building block shapes for letters. Then I show them how to use those same flowing movement to create letters or whole words of cursive script. It helps a bit.
Agree about the different shaped pens. There are ergonomic pens which help prevent cramp and discomfort if they grip too tightly. Also - does her school use lined paper with finely traced mid way lines? These can really help. My sons both struggled when asked to write neatly on unlined paper, but once the lined was introduced, the balance and relationship of letter sizes made sense to them.

maybe chalk/writing in shaving foam and stuff. also download/print the special paper with faint lines in the middle to help size letters has helped my dd (7) xx