School want to get in a occupational therapist for ... wait for it .... bad handwriting (ds is 8)

[Wordsonascreen]

His handwriting is not good (left handed finds the proper grip tiring and given the chance will put whole hand around the pen, it never has been good. Its been flagged up from yr 3 (hes now yr4) before that it was simply ignored/put down to ds being quite rightly a young child.

They suggested he go for private lessons which I said I'd look into but TBH hes bloody EIGHT YEARS OLD so we discounted it.. bought a few handwriting practice books and he does work at home on that (I thought it was getting better tbh)

Now I have a request for a OT to observe him in lessons.

His writing is just about legible but they're saying its holding him back .. from what I'm not quite sure .. possibly from keeping up their SATS grades.. (we're overseas in a fee paying International school) hes still learning stuff it just doesn't look pretty for the putting up on the the walls .

(sorry this is turning into a bit of a AIBU rant !

Is the school over the top or are they right and I deserve a slap for being a slack ungratefull parent.

words - honestly don't fret. my incredibly bad handwriting didn't stop me getting alevel english lit! good luck and be thankful he doesn't have worms (self obsessed)

Bonsoir - they may seem odd correlations but it seems to be the case with some children. My DS didn't crawl - did the side-ways bum shuffle. It was a fab teacher at DS's school who asked me that when i was panicking about DS. There is a theory that crawling opens up certain pathways in the brain. There is nothing you can do to change it at the time and it is not a life-long issue but there are some links between children who do not crawl and issues with fine-motor skills/co-ordination later. They all catch up but there are links.

I know there are links, but there really are no firm correlations ie you may have a child who never crawls but is a very (exceptionally, even) early talker/reader.

Take every bit of help offered I scrapped through my English ALevel because I simply couldn't write fast enough due to cramps in my hands and the examiner didn't mark what he couldn't read. Nearly ruined my chances tbh.

Blimey you need to grab that kind of intervention with both hands.
My ds2 is dyspraxic and had awful writing. The OT came into school and assessed him and he was given a sloping board, a funny bobbly cushion to sit on and a special pencil grip. It took 1 school year and now his writing is a million times better.
Go for it, it will definitely help.

yes I always find it odd about the crawling but
my ds never crawled at all,went straight to walking
his handwriting is very good for his age

wordsonascreen-enjoy the fruit and nut,am sure your ds will benefit from the extra help

There is a very definite link between crawling or rather lack of and dyspraxia. Ds2 didn't crawl at all.

But the fact that a child never crawls does not mean that a child will have dyspraxia; indeed, a child might never crawl and have no other discernible motor delay and be really quite advanced at hand writing.

There is a very definite link between crawling or rather lack of and dyspraxia. Ds2 didn't crawl at all.

There isn't actually, not a statistically relevant one. I've been worrying about this, there's a thread out there somewhere. Two well meaning people told me I should be very worried and do all I can to tempt my DS to crawl because of these proven links. But I can personally find no statistically relevant research on this, it appears to be a very current hypothesis that needs answering but to date hasn't. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about that now, your DS is 8!

Anyways, I do think you should give your DS the opportunity of improving with the aid of an OT if you can.

I've spoken to plenty of teachers, old and new who have said don't be in any hurry for that baby to walk the longer they crawl and make the left to right connections ??? the better.
Mine must be genius' because the buggers were 15 months before they reliably walked.

My 8 year old ds has very bad handwriting, I'd jump at the chance of any outside help.

Ah, more tenuous links based on nowt but speculation.

It's fascinating how peopel like to ascribe problems in one area to another. If you want to learn how to write faster and neater, then..write more.

Precision Teaching is the perfect solution. I've written on it extensively elsewhere on MN.

Yields incredible results.

If I have understood this rightly, some children do not crawl/walk late because they have issues which also affect speech and fine motor development: for such a child, there is a correlation.

Another child will be non-crawling/walking late for reasons that have nothing to do with speech or fine motor skills.

Before you draw any conclusions, you would need to know why that particular child is not crawling/walking late.

In the case of dd, her non-crawling, late walking etc was caused by hypermobile joints: this did also affect her pencil grip, but had absolutely no effect on her speech. But in another child it might be totally different.

I wished my own poor pencil grip had been assessed and corrected when I was young: I suffered a lot of pain and never really understood that this shouldn't be happening.

My child has no problems with sport - ie gross motor skills- but her writing was awful so that it affected her spelling and it could not always be read. A year's worth of OT turned it around (also overseas school) Turns out she has fine motor/visual integration skills.

OP, check your health insurance. OT was covered under it so we were able to claim the cost back.

Wordsonascreen - how old was your DS when he started learning to write?

At my DD's school start-of-primary parent-teacher meeting, her class teachers both said that they found it increasingly difficult to teach children to write as DCs these days are given pens and pencils far too young and get themselves into bad writing habits before starting to learn to write (aged 6).

I had purposefully not taught my DD to write as I never learned to write cursive in the French way and didn't want to teach her the wrong way. So she hadn't spent much time writing before this September (aged 5.10). I am stunned at the beautiful cursive writing she does, three months later - sentences and sentences of it!

You could tell the school that he's going to be a doctor so bad handwriting is part of the course

or

Let the OT observe your ds as there can be a physical problem for poor handwriting and there are exercises that can help if the problem is physical.

Are you in Australia by any chance Words as in my experience they seem to think the answer to world peace is to see an OT

My DS is now 9. An August born boy. Great verbal skills. Reasonable at sports but not brilliant. He sat at 8 months, sideways shuffled/sort of crawled at 11 months and walked at 15 months. He was really struggling with writing and it WAS a coordination/grip issue. No amount of practising was going to help if he didn't actually hold the pen properly. I tried lots of things recommended on here.

When I spoke to a teacher she mentioned that there was some thoughts that not crawling can lead to issues with SOME children. She did stress however that there is nothing you can do at the time to change it.

I think pooh-poohing that link is a bit off really. There is obv enough evidence to suggest that it can be an issue with SOME children. Not all. But SOME.

My son crawled as his main way of getting about until 2 and half years old. In fact he had child physio for 18 months to help with walking.

His writing was dreadful and he saw OT at school. At the end of reception my son had virtually no pen control. He saw an NHS OT and the OT gave the school advice on activites.

In year 4 he is on the top table for every subject. He finds handwriting hard, but people can read it.

My brother has terrible writing and can only get work as a buiding site labourer. It is sad that my brother had no help when he was little.

I can highly recommend these handwriting books to help you. They are available online. Look at this page They are new and totally different in their approach to anything else available in the shops, as they help with fine & gross motor skills, aswell as any tracking issues and problems with English. They have structured lessons from start to finish and we were very impressed with the content and style. We started with workbooks 2 and 3. The books offer lots of practice and support and we saw a huge difference within a week, especially in confidence. Our daughter's handwriting is beautiful now - I'm so glad the school and SEN teacher told us about them.

There is a link between no crawling and dyspraxia.
I have discussed it at length with Ds2's Paed Dyspraxia Consultant.. in person... at the hospital.
Sheesh..
And no, of course not ALL children who don't crawl will be dyspraxic or suffer from DCD
but a higher number will.

I'd take whatever offers are at hand :) My son has terrible handwriting and it does hold him back. His teachers can read it but he's very slow so he gets behind. Then because he doesn't enjoy writing he'd do anything else but put his thoughts down on paper. He has hand massage at school!