Left handers and pens

[basildonbond]

Dd (9) is very strongly left-handed and has beautiful cursive handwriting - with a pencil ... Now she's in Y4 at some point they will start using pens. Dd has a perfect tripod pencil grip which is exactly the same as a right-hander would use but just swapped overe to the other side. I am very keen for her to avoid developing that awkward curved wrist position you see lots of left-handers use, but of course when she uses a pen her hand smudges everything she's just weritten. Dd is a bit of a perfectionist and gets v distressed by this as she wants her work to look beautiful. How do left-handed children manage pens? Presumably fountain pens are out, but do schools accept biros and are they any better?

thanks everyone ...

good to know that smudges aren't inevitable

I just want to point out that I haven't ever suggested to her that she might have a problem .. she's the one who gets upset when she smudges - and obviously whatever she's doing now is causing smudges. I'll suggest she tries turning the page but she's very resistant to adult suggestions - always likes doing things her own way!

May someone enlighten a right handed mum of two left handed kids. At school my kids are being taught number and letter formation but are being asked to write their T's F's and J's starting top left to right like other right handed kids but my kid writes the horizontals starting from right to left and is being told off. same applies with letter p and number 9 where instaed of starting the circle anticlockwise my kid is drawing the circle clockwise.

Is my kid wrong or are the they teaching my child incorrectly?

At basildbond, arrange the way she holds her paper refer to left writing skills guides and use pens adequate for left handed, they exist on the market. I bought my child a sopecial left handed pencil to stop smudges

sue I think that there is one standard way for teaching handwriting but I do my horizontals right to left, do ps clockwise and 9s anticlockwise!

There does seem to be an issue with consistency and left-handedness. It seems to be that there is a standard right handed way if doing things but 5 lefties may do the task in 5 different ways!

sue
I am left handed with two right handed children
I do what your kids are doing.
Speak to the teacher and request that if the end result is indistinguishable and the speed of writing is correct they back off

and to the person who asked if its genetic - yes and no.

Handedness is linked to how the baby lies in the womb and which arm it can wiggle and look at the most.
But how it lies in the womb will be affected by how the mother dominantly sits and moves.
Both my parents are left handed, as am I. DH is left handed but both his parents were right. DD was dominantly right handed from 6 weeks - we marked it in her baby book a the health visitors assured us it would not show that early. DS did not decide which hand to write with till half way through year R - his poor teacher had to put up with him outlining with one hand and shading with the other!