Speeding up writing in a left hander (yr 6)

[Sonnet]

My DD2 is 11 and in year 6. She is left handed with an odd pen grip. Whilst her writing is legible (it could be smaller) she is very slow to write and this is now causing her problems at school.

I was wondering what I could do to help. I have found this book
www.amazon.co.uk/Speed-Up-Kinaesthetic-Programme-Handwriting/dp/1855033860/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332334357&sr=8-1-spell

has anyone used this or have any other tips please?

do you have left handed friends (with a good grip) who could sit with her and find a better grip?
Year 6 is a tad late to be dealing with this - it should have been picked up in KS1
lots of info at anything left handed
but whatever you do you have to make her feel PART of a huge group of happily writing left handers

I would first try to improve her grip and how she sits as that will help her write faster. (There are some hints here: handedness.org/action/leftwrite.html and here www.iched.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=iched&item_id=lefthanded_handwriting)

My DD's writing was far too slow for the transition to secondary school. We were home educating for the last part of year six so that was something I tackled by:

Timing her for one minute and getting her to write one word repeatedly as far as she could (maintaining legibility but not looking for perfection!). We kept a record of her increase in speed. As she improved we chose longer words to write.

Getting her to copy out favourite poems or paragraphs from her favourite books as fast as she could (again maintaining legibility). This allowed her to practice writing faster without worrying what to write.

I would also get your DD2 touch typing - a lot of projects etc. in secondary school have to be typed - or can be typed if they wish (www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/) - this would reduce the pressure on her.

I'm sure with practice her writing speed will increase.

Thank you both of you for your responses.
TalkinPeace2 the annoying thing is that I did pick it up in reception and was told that they had checked her and as she was writing well and fluently they had decided to leave it as it was!! If I could turn the clock back.....
flamingtoaster thank you for the practical tips. I will certainly do those.

Sonnet,
fair enough.
The main thing then will be to do the exercise and make a real point of letting her sit with successful adults who are left handed so that she can be inspired to alter the grip.
Silly thing - what angle does she hold her paper?
I went through a phase of holding it sideways - so wrote vertically towards myself - and then grdually unhooked both the paper and my grip

I have the other situation - both my parents and DH and I are left handed. Both our kids are right handed! Teaching them to use scissors was a mare ...

My DS is Left handed (now Y11) and I found this website

www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk/

really useful. From memory there is a video you can buy which gives tutorials on how to things which may be useful.

Thanks all
She actually has her paper directly square in front of her, not tilted at all. I will try tilting the paper and have started the exercises suggested above.

Thanks for the site luckylavender - I have bought things from there but not looked at the advice/videos