Yr2 DD absolutely hates writing

[HauntedLittleLunatic]

She is a really good reader.
She is a really good speller
She is really good at number work.

She just hates writing with a passion. We are sat trying to do homework. She knows what sentence she wants to write (I go swimming lessons on Sunday but I wear a green hat) she is just having a meltdown. Getting down from the table as often as she can as a distraction.

She seems to have had an exponential increase in homework this year - particularly written - on a weekly basis she has spellings to learn, handwriting patterns to do, a book "report" to do along with a weekly "homework" task and 3-4 reading books.

She is having a meltdown. I am goin to have a meltdonw.

Help me please :(

Can you work out what it is about the writing she doesn't like? Does she have more fine motor/gross motor skills?

Does she find it boring?

What is her handwriting like? What does she think of her handwriting? Could you be a perfectionist and unhappy with how it looks (when it is actually fine) or does she have a reason to be unhappy with it?

Sorry- lots of questions!

Questions are fine. I just want/need to get to the bottom of it to preserve my sanity.

She doesn't use a pincer grip so I have wondered if this is part of the problem (in that it slows her down/is uncomfortable). I wonder if she is getting criticised for this grip at school and therefore instilling negativity towards written work. I have spoken to her teacher in the past - asking for help to adjust her grip and they said it wasn't a problem as long as she was writing.

I have just asked her a completely open ended question - why don't you like writing and she says her handwriting is too messy.

I then asked it if it hurts and said yes - showing me where it hurts (which is quite possible).

I have in the past tried a triangular grip pencil, maybe I need to find it again.

you can buy little rubber grips that will go on a normal pencil which will help with grip and make it more comfortable

Because of the grip she uses it is rubbing on the tapered end so I am not sure that will work - but possibly worth a try.

Right- I would work on her loving handwriting again. I run a handwriting club and have found these things work really well:

Writing letters on each others backs to get them to guess the word- really focus on getting the shape of the word correct.

Writing with wiggly/light up pens. Get some scented pens, the special handwriting pens (no grips) in her favourite colours and maybe even scented paper (this is something you could get her to make- normal paper and perfume and hang it up to dry?)

Basically- get her excited about handwriting and HEAP praises on for her handwriting. So many children feel insecure about their handwriting, and I feel it is massively ignored in school. She needs to feel like it is a fun thing to do- and there are some great advice online about getting the right 'grip' on the pen/pencil. I like holding the nib in one hand, spinning it over and then it's in the right place (not sure if that was clear...)

Handwriting without Tears is a system I really like.

Hope that helps and sorry it is so garbled!

yes to making it exciting

is there anyone in the famil that she could write to?

getting letters through the post is really exciting and would be an incentive to put pen to paper.

how does she feel about drawing? drawing helps develop pen control etc

Thanks.

The funny thing is that she will pick up a pen and write random notes to put on her door (dont come in I am bizzy etc.) Not excessively but she definitely does and and I don't think she does it significantly less than my older DCs did.

her fine motor skills seem fine - she does a lot of craft and sewing quite successfully. Her gross motor skills seem fine - she will throw and catch pretty well for her age etc.

We did have some issues on letter formation between reception and Yr1 (going clockwise around the 'circular' letters) but I worked on this in that summer and she was really on top of it by the start of Yr1.

She doesn't write well with pen TBH. She struggles to get the ink flowing on gel pens and to a certain extent a biro because of the angle she holds it at - which TBH doesn't make sense because it is quite upright/ slightly pointed away from her.

I have just asked her to do another line in her handwriting book (current strategy is 1 line per day) and after watching her I asked her to copy the way that I was holding the pencil and her response was "NO! its comfy" so not sure it does hurt her.

This presumably won't help if she discomfort when writing, but one thing I found that helped my DD when she was reluctant to write much was to get her to dictate a story and type it up on the computer. This enabled her to "write" much more complicated and interesting stories and showed her what she was capable of. It really increased her confidence and helped her to see writing as communicating rather than just fixating on spelling etc.

She will dictate happily. She just won't physically write.

I was a bit harsh with ds1 when he first started writing, I explained that his messy writing would only get better with practice and that everything they do in school from numeracy to geography to history has to be written down. It is how school assess student's work. I just told him to suck it up and that all the time he was messing around refusing to do it just cut into his play time. The work wasn't going anywhere and neither was he until it was done. The quicker he did it the quicker he could play.

Will school not punish your DD with missing some of her playtime if she isn't writing quick enough? They do at our school.

My friend's son hated writing and was put in bottom sets for numeracy and literacy even though school knew he was more than capable in being in higher sets but they have to mark on the written work, not what they know they can do.

It may seem cruel, but I volunteer in a school and have seen how much effort the staff put in at our school in handwriting practice and extra handwriting work for those who struggle, so as a parent I put in work too. When doing display boards we ensure we show all abilities of work and handwriting.

Every year our school has an evening where they tell us where your child should be at the end of that school year, so for year 2 they show us written work of low ability, (missing capitals, full stops, structure etc) where they should be and then where some students excel. It gives us as parents an idea of what your child should be achieving. So we see handwriting, numeracy and literacy.

Ds1 is now 9 and has lovely handwriting, Ds2 is 6 and his writing is nowhere near as good as Ds1's but he is getting there.

But her handwriting isn't that bad (although she is going to quickly lose ground on her peers).

Her capital letters, full stops and finger spaces are there 80% of the time.

I am happy with her spelling.

She just refuses to write more than she can get away with.

Her sentences are short though mostly through a desire to get it over and done with. For her homework today she had to write about and explain her interests. She has written (spelling and punctuation as typed, including capitals for days of week).
.
I go to rainbows on Monday.
I go swiming lesons on a Sunday.
I like it in my bed.

When we started she would tell me all sorts of things she could write and then when we got the pencil out she got upset and wouldn't write any of them.

I think it is important that you let the teacher know that she is reluctant to do her writing homework because she feels her writing is too messy - there may be something the teacher is aware of, which will help you make sense of this. I would want to know if she feels the same way about her handwriting at school. Maybe the homework is a bit dull?

@ HauntedLittleLunatic

I was about to start a new thread regarding my DS1, but your post has more or less done this for me. DS1 appears exactly like your DD - a good allrounder just started in yr2 but just simply will not write.

We plan to start a pen pal with a same age DD of a family friend in the US. We thought a letter coming from abroad would generate some excitement to want to write back. Unfortunately, getting the first letter off is proving impossible. We have even written down the text for him to copy.

He is spending the night with his Gran whom he is very close to (as well as us!) and Gran is already scheming on how to go about things with him in the morning. Maybe Gran has more success? We'll have to see.

Both his Yr1 and now Yr2 teachers are aware of this issue.

I will talk to teacher. I have already written a note in her reading diary to explain why she hasn't answered the book review questions fully. I will try and speak to her too, but I think this will be best when dd isn't with me. I don't want to exacerbate the situation.

Writing has always been the thing she avoids. She loves reading and spelling so I think she has the content. It's just not been a huge deal til now cos she could get away with minimal writing, but the amount of writing at home has been ramped up and I guess it has in the classroom too. I'm just worried that it will start to hold her back.

This really isn't about the content. She HATES using a pencil. Even her handwriting practice which is just shape patterns - no thinking about content, spelling and punctuatio is a huge chore.

Do you think any of the ideas I suggested would work?

Do you want me to suggest something different?

I don't have an issue with her handwriting (although very aware that it is her perception which is important here not mine). She does get lots of praise from me when she's doing her handwriting (but also told off when she literally scribbles which she did today in.an attempt to avoid doing it properly). And even tho that's what she said the problem was it was.in temper, and 3mins later it was that it hurts, then it doesn't hurt so I'm not sure she knows what the problem is.

Shape of letters etc. Mostly ok. Could work on getting descenders below the line and a more uniform size but shape itself is fine. So I am.not sure we need to practise this. I think this could just add fuel to the fire by making her do more practice IYSWIM.

My personal opinion is that she finds writing things down slow and arduous. She is a girl that likes to live in the fast lane of life. I think that modifying the grip is a possible solution, as I think that will speed her up a bit. I will google that as you say when I'm not on my phone. I will look at handwriting without tears too.

Is it worth trying the specially shaped pencils? I have one of the stabilo curved shaped ones somewhere I just need to buy some lead. Last year she was enthused for a bit when I got own 'special' triangular pencil but the novelty wore off.

Everything that is suggested that revolves around making her practice (eg writing letters to friends) just feels like prolonging the agony and torture for both of us :(

Perhaps she dislikes it because in the early years even relatively good spellers inevitably misspell many words, because English spelling is so often illogical (e.g. English, many, words, early, years)? This makes many children reluctant to write much.

You obviously missed the OP masha

She is a really good reader.
She is a really good speller
She is really good at number work.

HauntedLittleLunatic writing not only requires good fine motor skills it requires lots of gross motor development. Some children who don't have good shoulder girdle and upper body stability expend a huge amount of effort to write a short sentence. It might not be physically painful but it may be "hard work".

A simple check is to
1/ask her to stand up straight arms held out shoulder level and to make windmills first forward and them backwards
2/can she a hula hoop along the path?

Thanks mrz.

Can I clarify the second thing you are asking me to check? Do you mean hula hoop as in the big ring that you spin around your belly? I'm not sure that my 11 year olds could do that whilst moving, and the only hula hoops I have are huge and dd3 being so little can only spin a couple of time standing still.

I mean can she make the hoop roll along the ground...the hoop moving while she stands still.

Still not 100% sure I understand, sorry I am being dense. She can propell a hula hoop in front of her and it will roll a few metres before falling flat on the ground. Is that what you mean? If not I'm not sure how she stays still but hula hoop rolls forward.

Will,try to get her doing windmills when we get out of bed

Sometimes it is obvious that a child is writing with the whole of their upper body /shoulder/ arm just by standing back and observing posture and movement.

www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/shoulder-exercises-for-kids.html

www.therapystreetforkids.com/UpperBody.html

Sorry it's hard to explain here but that's exactly what I meant.

Ok, I think if you don't think it is actually a physical problem (though her pen holding sounds like an issue- I would definitely recommend the 'banana' style pens- quite cheap and you can add stickers etc to keep the novelty going) and encouraging a suitable grip (maybe sticking tiny point markers on showing where to hold her fingers?) but that you want to work on the time she spends writing and make her write for longer without complaining?

This will take practise and time, I don't see any other way around it.

Things to encourage her to not stop writing:

Play a song and for 1 minute and slowly increase the time, she Nat keep writing non stop until the song stops. Reward for going to the end. Start short so she feels the success and slowly increase.

Get HER to dictate into a recorder (your phone will do it) and then play it back to her and she writes down what she has said. The novelty of using the phone and hearing her voice will make this more fun and will allow you to show her how much more she knows.

Break down writin sessions into active play: start with grosse motor exercises (eg star jumps) fine motor skills (playing with little bricks) then get her to write.

Do these suggestions seem more helpful?