Howto improve young children's (6-7 years) handwriting?

[newnametoday1]

I said I would post this for a friend as I am sure people on here will be full of good ideas. Her son is having a few issues with handwriting. He has been taught cursive but he seems to have gone backwards from where he was a couple of months ago, Messy and difficult to read. Are there any websites or particularly good books to work through methodically to improve this? Thanks very much

My year two little boy and I have worked together through the Write from the Start books, which are available on Amazon. We did five minutes a night (he was bribed with 5p per evening so he concentrated nicely). The books don't focus on practising letters but on training the hand and the brain to be able to flow nicely and move the pencil how it needs to be moved. I don't know if that was what helped (his school have focussed on his handwriting a lot too) but the progress he has made this year has been phenomenal. His writing is now legible - I am very proud of the hard work he has put in!

I've been using some free worksheets from this website with DD.

I also have The Puffin Book of Handwriting its a really old book I picked up at a jumble sale but it works through quite nicely from first holding a pencil through simple cursive and on to italic handwriting and is a lot more helpful than a lot of the modern handwriting books I've bought.

If your friend has a tablet/ipad there are lots of free handwriting apps, which DD will do even when shes refusing to do anything on paper, somehow it being on the tablet makes it automatically fun.

I am currently bribing my y2 ds with trashpack cards... he still doesn't form b, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, u, y and z correctly. I have begun to wonder if his teachers have given up on his handwriting as the rest of the class move onto cursive. We did write from the start last summer which helped with pencil control but doesn't make a lot of difference if you have a child determined to start letters at the bottom and use capitals if the lowercase letter is tricky.

Check he is forming the letters correctly. With cursive this is very important as if you don't then it is difficult to join them up. My DS had this problem. A new teacher spotted it and got him extra lessons. Made a huge difference. He went from having a scrawl to doing lovely joined up writing. His first teacher just told me to make him practice every night. Pointless as he was just practicing the wrong thing. But I had not been taught cursive at school, he was my PFB and we had a huge learning curve together.

Had exact same problem with DD2

We found these Collins Handwriting workbooks 1-3 (ages 7 - 9) really helped - and coincidentally taught spelling rules at the same time: www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=collins+handwriting+7-9&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Acollins+handwriting+7-9

Very traditional - shows how to form the letters, using two lines for top & bottom and dash line between (for middle) to help you better gauge height and then gradually gets you to join them up.

another vote for 'write from the start'. We did the Collins handwriting books first, which helped, but in hindsight, I would recommend doing Write From the Start and then move on to the ones you can buy in WHSmiths.

Please can someone link me to the "write form the start books" as nothing relevant seems to pop up when I search Amazon. Thanks

"Write from the Start" even!

Thank you for these replies. My only concern with the hard copy handwriting books is obviously you cannot do that much practice as, by nature, they are pre-printed.

Has anyone used a handwriting online resource (including the ones you have to pay for) which has been any good. I'm just thinking that you can then keep repeating the pages as necessary. I should be grateful for any recommendations. Thanks.

DD had issues with writing when she finished Y1, I think it started earlier but as she never wrote a lot at home we didn't realise it.

First, she had - and still has a year later - an incorrect pencil grip. It gets better though with pencil grips and a more ergonomical formed pen.

Then we got this book:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007338031/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It was the only one I found which is the same style of cursive our school teaches, all resources online were a different font. Even schools in our neighbourhood teach different styles, it is a bit of a nightmare.

We practise once a week, time is tight unfortunately, but also increased writing at home like shopping lists etc. 3/4 of a year later and there are def. improvements and she now forms the letter correctly and neatly.

I would go for a variety of tools. Get him to draw some 'mazes', and then trace them with different colour highlighter pens. Get him books with 'join the dots' games. Use a tool such as this one: www.happypuzzle.co.uk/products/MAGNA-MAZE.aspx, and/or other games that will make his hands stronger and improve control, such as making loom bands or playing with Waxidoodle. He needs to practice making long pencil strokes without lifting the pencil - which would be very good to do before he starts with practice sheets, and improve on fine motor skills.

re the pre printed books. You can re use them the old fashioned way by clipping tracing/greaspoof paper over the top, or just scan and print ...

Actually if you look on the Happy Puzzle website there are lots of toys/games in the section 'Special Needs - Dyspraxia' which focus on hand motion control.

www.amazon.co.uk/Write-start-Programme-Perceptual-Handwriting/dp/1855032457]

I got a printer with a scanner and I was able to photocopy pages