handwriting probs

[rachel(mumsnet)]

v v rare I do this - usually change my name but wondered whether you wise old owls can help me with this one...
My eight year old son has terrible motor skills and it's resulted in his handwriting being appalling. I mean really really bad - poor fella - he's left handed, and holds the pen/cil awkwardly and hardly puts any pressure on the pen at all. We've tried pen grips but they don't seem to hve worked (although I'd be willing to give them another go - he is quite impatient). TBH I haven't done an awful lot about it up until now as I've just thought he's still young and it'll come but it's really starting to effect his work now and his confidence. He's really bright at a recent parents evening all his teachers say it's starting to become a problem - not just cos of the poor presentation but also because it takes him so long to do the work on paper that he loses interest. Has anyone else had this problem? Any tips? Am going to see the school's sn teacher to see if she can organise some one-to-one with him and getting some special paper/pen grips home from the teachers - is it just a matter of practising and practising or is there anything else we could be doing?
Many thanks in advance for any advice.

OK, there are a great scheme that was suggested to us by the Ed Psych that we saw for ds (same probelm as yuor son, ds now dxed as dyspraxic)

Write from the Start, it is called.

you can order it from Amazon, and do it with your kids. You can photocopy the pages if you need to repeat them. They take your throu all the hand movements that you need for good handwriting...in minescule steps.....there are 400 pages!

After only a month ds can see the difference himself

Not got any advice but having same problem, my sons nearly 7 and i was shocked when I saw his books at parents evening. He's left handed and his writings terrible. He doesn't seem to care that it's not neat like everyone elses.
I'm going to try just getting him to practice at home more, if he really tried he can be quite neat, it just takes so much time and concentration.

DD (same age as your DS) has a sloping writing board for use in class and the OT has suggested a clamp attached to it to keep the paper still.

I know it sounds a bit nuts, but you haven't got a piano or a keyboard have you ? DD asked to have piano lessons, I inwardly cringed at the idea of her being co-ordinated enough to do it but I am really pleased she is. I think the auditory feedback she gets from playing has really helped her learn how much pressure to apply to a pen. She used to apply hardly any pressure but has got the hang of that a lot more now and I do think the piano has helped with this.

I think that when they start to get demoralised that it can help if the school will let them use an alternative way of recording what they want to get down, DD has used a tape recorder and had a classroom assistant scribing for her at times. It takes the pressure off a bit short term and lets them get across what they are capable of which doesn't show if they are struggling to write and with DD had a detrimental effect on her confidence.

I would ask for a referral or advice from an occupational therapist who would have ideas about this

the sn teacher would be the first place to start

dd1 has cp; she has a board to prop up her work and has also trailled an impressive array of pencil grips (the winner - after all that - a blob of blu-tak )

an OT would be able to give more detailed advice

there is a whole load of stuff around about left-handedness (my daughter is one too and it does complicate things) that you ought to be able to access

if it is a problem later there's always the possibility of pushing for a laptop

dd uses one because her recording techniques (ie writing) aren't keeping up with her ability to learn

DS (5) is just starting out at writing and we were told it is very important to get them doing lots of things that help them with the fine motor skills - lego, playmobil and all those other fiddly, fiddly little things.

I know at your DS's age you need more specific writing type help, but maybe also consider getting him interested in something like this or meccano as well as part of a two pronged approach?

DS's teacher said the advantage is that they will tend to play with it for much much longer than the average child will do extra-curricular actual writing stuff.

My DD (aged 5) is also left handed and the occupational therapist who reviewed her recommended the Handwriting without Tears scheme. It is fantastic. I purchased the first set (initial cost about £98 but when I need to add to it, it will never cost me that much again) and showed the school. First they said they were going to follow their own curriculum but at our last school meeting the teacher said she had purchased this set for my DD and it has improved her fine motor skills no end.

If you are interested, the web site is:

HWT

Ds1 has poor fine motor skills. Even when he had learned how to grip the pencil he applied very little pressure and, as you've seen with your own ds, the results aren't great. Th school worked first on improving the strength in his hands so that he could use firm pressure. Rolling and squeezing playdoh or plasticine for a few minutes each day made a massive amount of difference. He also had a few minutes of one-to-one each week to help him to form his letters correctly as even thoug he is right-handed he forms his letters from right to left as some left-handed people do.

It might also be a good idea to ask if your ds can record his work in other ways while he is working on his handwriting skills. Ds1 was sometimes allowed to type his work on the class computer. It helped to relieve some of his frustration and built up his confidence a bit too.

def recommend Write From the Start, its what our OTs use and Ive got my DD on it at the moment.

Its by Lois Addy and (somebody) Teodorescu.

Some schools buy it in, so its worth asking around before buying it yourself.

Hiya, my other half is studying to be a primary school teacher and I asked him what he would do - basically to encourage lots of fine motor skills exercises that don't involve writing - anything from plasticine to coloring, and painting, and things like decorating fairy cakes and biscuits. But without any 'pressure' and with lots of praise.

And to get him to write about things he likes. If he's into sport, get him to keep the cricket score or write a report on a football match, or anything of interest to him. It's really important that he doesn't get bored and frustrated. Hope it helps!

Hi Rachel - my DS is now 11 - he's a leftie and also tends to the clumsy, and was diagnosed with ADHD in 2003. His writing was awful when he was in infants and right up until last year (Y5).

We moved areas last year and into a new school where DS was given a fresh start. The new teacher helped him develop his writing skills by encouraging stories - often short and about battles!!! DS also joined a dance class (he's dead keen) and it really helped his co-ordination. I don't know if it connected, but now his writing is neat (with occasional twirls ), he can use a fountain pen without getting smears everywhere and his spelling has improved 100-fold.

DS, aged 8, has problems with his handwriting and general coordination and one thing we do with school which you may want to consider talking to the SENCO about is special finger exercises. Ds has a tray with things like rubber bands, putty, smallish beads, rubiks cube etc in it and during registration each morning, he is allowed to play with these things as warm up exercises for handwriting later in the day. His writing is still terrible but I dread to think what it would be like without these excercises.

If his teacher knows sign language and is prepared to run through it with the class everyday, it may be helpful. DS's fabulous teacher when he ws in year 1 did the alphabet in sign language everyday and that made a huge difference to DS's fine motor skills. If you CAT me, I can e-mail you a colour handwriting template that you can print off to help him make sure each letter is the right size.

This is going to sound really odd - but DD1 who is nearly 10 (year 5) had this problem. We tried all the fine motor suggestions and couldn't see any real improvement - school gave her special one-to-one sessions with TA - we tried every proprietory pencil, grip etc under the sun. No improvement.
She decided two years ago that she wanted to learn the violin. This might seem a bonkers choice of instrument for a girl with fine motor problems. She has stuck at it, despite (as far as I can tell) a complete lack of any innate musical ability and is now reasonably good - and she went back to school in September and her handwriting had magically improved from Reception child standard to more or less normal for her peer group. The teacher asked me what we had done - I can only think it is the violin.

I am a WAHM and have developed a range of educational stickers, placemats and templates called AlphaLearners designed to help kids with writing, reading etc....I have used with my daughter whose writing is lovely and have had very good feedback on them from other parents. Am running a special offer for MNers.....see the classifieds. If you'd like to try them out let me know and I can suggest what might be helpful for your DS.

Rosa - your case shows the importance of getting a proper assessment - sounds like your DD had bilateral integration problems, where there is difficulty coordinating both sides together. Using the violin is a very 2 sided activity, so maybe it did some natural "brain training" for her!

Same problem here with DS2 who is nearly 10. His writing has improved beyond belief now he has been encouraged to join up. It was painful at first but has been worth the effort. He saw an OT just last year who says he has very long fingers and grabs onto the pencil for dear life. Also chews it and wriggles around in his chair. He prefers things propped up in front of him. It turns out after YEARS of asking that he may be dyslexic and is being tested privately soon. Don't be fobbed off with the 'messy boys' answer if you think there could be more as we have wasted so much time, despite asking constantly at school for help.

My eight year old son has dreadful handwriting and compares himself to his friends who do nice, neat, joined-up writing.
I have to make him write his homework with a combination of encouragement and threats (depending on his mood and mine) but I try to make him see it in the context of a lifetime of writing.
A friend of mine is a very successful writer (both telly and radio drama) but is left-handed and had such awful hand-writing at school that he was given special dispensation to learn tough-typing and use a typewriter. This was years ago before computers.
So it doesn't mean your son won't do well, and things that are important at school are often much less so when you're an adult.
My son thought this story was very funny, and laughing about it has helped him feel less hopeless about his scrawly writing.

Fubsy - that is really interesting - is there anywhere I can get more info on this. I have been really concerned about DD but DH refused to admit there was a problem, even when aged 8 she still couldn't use a knife and fork or scissors properly and her 6 year old sister had better handwriting. She is very bright, an early reader and good at spelling and maths so school would not agree she was dsypraxic and I made sure she did gym and ballet outside of school to help her keep up in PE because she would get very despondent and tearful over how clumsy she was and how conspicuous it made her in PE lessons and suchlike. Watching all her friends ride bikes when learning was a real struggle for her didn't help either.

Our local primary uses Write Dance and ds1 has shown some good progress on it - however it may well be aimed at younger children (he's almost 6).

My ds1's handwriting is really terrible - he's left handed and his spelling was so bad that he was assessed as having spelling age of 8 years 2 months when he started secondary school. This despite the fact that he's a fluent reader and well above average in Maths & Science.

However... he now uses the computer for most of his homework and his spelling is average for his age (13). I think the brain must use a slightly different process when handwriting to when you type.

BBC Dance Mat Typing is fun - get your son touch typing early and even if his handwriting is poor he'll have a head start on the computer.

I can see now that it is important to get an assessment as they may get longer to do exams and even have a scribe for exams. Keep asking and don't let your DS struggle if there are other pointers towards dyslexia or dyspraxia.

Rosa - bilateral integration (coordination of both sides of the body during activities) would be assessed by an OT and/or physio when assessing for developmental coordination disorder (dyspraxia).

A lot of schools have staff who can recognise dyspraxia, but they do not do the in-depth assessment that therapists can. If its spotted early and activities done in school, often the problem can be headed off early. In an ideal world we would have OTs in all primary schools to advise on this, but of course that doesnt happen.

A lot of myths are growing up about dyspraxia - eg if a child has ASD, behaviour problems, learning difficulties and also presents with dypsraxic tendencies, then a bit of OT or physio is going to sort it out because the behaviours were associated with the dyspraxia. I dont think that is necessarily true, as its often the other way round - if a child has developmental delay, learning difficulties etc, they are bound to have some elements of dyspraxia., as it means the abilty to plan movement.

Also some schools are coming to believe that if a child functions well in some areas, then they cant have dyspraxia, ASD, etc. It sounds like this is how your poor DD fell through the net - she was good at spelling and maths, so they didnt think she could be dyspraxic. TBH, if someone described to me what you have, I would have suggested getting an assessment, going via GP rather than through education. (Im a physio by the way.

Some children respond very well to treatment, but others with more complex diagnoses (eg those overlapping with language or communication disorders, ASD, ADHD) may not. But its always worth getting more information, even if therapy isnt going to be the answer.

Try googling the Dyspraxia Foundation for further information (sorry, Im no good at links!) They have some good leaflets for parents and schools.

Oh yes write dance is fab - we do it with our Year 1s. We also have a fine motor skill groups - which works on strengyhing the hand muscles. We do all the stuff cat64 does - clothes pegs is another good one. Get your ds to hang out your washing. Triangular pens/pencils also help but most children by the age of 8 have settled on their own grip. He is left handed and I tend to leave left handers alone to work their own grip. Maybe also just practising writing squiggles will help as well - get him to used to holding the pen and making marks without the need for thinking what to write.