year 9 year old - handwriting problems

[christywhisty]

My 9 year old daughter is very bright, described by teachers as one of the most intelligent children in the class and verbally brilliant. They use her to bounce off when trying to liven up class discussion etc.

However her handwriting and presentation are awful. She is left handed which doesn't help and she does have an eye convergence problem so she see's double when close up.She reads very well with a reading age of about 12.She is in the top groups for everything.

Teacher won't accept left handedness for bad handwriting.
She is also very inconsistant with capital letters and still gets her b's and d's the wrong way round.
She has produced one or two neatish pieces of work which shows she can do it if she really tries.
It affects her maths because she does not get her columns level and therefore adds up the wrong number.

Her latest report all her grades have now gone down to "level for age" when previously she was "higher achievment" for nearly all subjects. Although talking to friends I think it might be common for children to plateau about year 4 then take off again.
She has a short attention span, but I think this is more because she is interested in everything, she catches on very quickly and just wants to get onto the next thing.

Her Year 6 brother has a specific learning difficulty with spelling and punctuation, but he developed very differently and has a few associated problems ie can't read music and problems with time (ie yesterday asked me when is Tuesday)
I have tried bribery ,ie if she comes home with a special mention for handwriting or neatness she will get the toy she wants, but that hasn't worked. The teacher does know about this.

She has been srting a play at home this week about Henry VIII going to school with Jane Seymour. This was her own idea, but I did say to try and concentrate on presentation, spelling , punctuation but it is not much better.

Really not sure what to try next.

the title should be Year 4,9 year old

Have same prob with ds12 he is bright and able but his handwriting etc. is atrocious.I HE so am able to get him to use a comp to solve prob.He started writing a story and I let him get on with it.Since then his writing and spelling have natuarally improved.I'd talk to teacher and explain that maybe using a comp and letting her stories etc. improve it all might help.Have you tried some comp spelling game software? DK do some good ones. Hope this helps

In Germany they used squared paper (tiny squares) for all school writing at this age: it apparently helps to even up the letter sizes, alignment, etc. Would this be worth trying?

Ds1 does not write 'beautifully', or tidily; but he does write correctly and it doesn't cause his work to be marked down. My brother was always getting bollocked at school for his handwriting (also LH); he's now a consultant surgeon, and still has awful handwriting. Sometimes teachers can get hung up about this when it's not important.

But your descriptions about bs and ds, capitalisation, and problems with Maths do suggest that it is an issue that needs to be tackled.

aren't docs supposed to have bad hand writing

Yep, it's obligatory I think
Screening process for Med School: all As at A Level incl 3 sciences, plus atrocious handwriting.

I think I agree about left handedness not being an excuse for bad handwriting, lots of people in my family are left handed and all have lovely handwriting!

Can she be paired at school with someone who has lovely writing - my friend at school was SOOO neat that it really made me want to be the same, and my handwriting really improved.

Also, would she get interested in calligraphy? I remember loving using the ink, and the pens, when I was a kid and it feels quite creative and artistic to produce this 'special' writing; maybe the practice of it would help with her usual writing too?

I have the same problem with my DS1 (also 9, and in yr4) He's been shifted up to doing Yr5 work with a couple of other children, but his handwriting and presentation are worse than DS2, who is 6, in Yr2 and was being assessed for Dyslexia earlier in the year! I've come to the conclusion with DS1 that he just works too fast, it comes out of his head faster that he can get in on paper and consequently looks dire (and too often unreadable) I have to say that I like the calligraphy idea, and I'm going to get him trying to work on squared paper too, see what happens....

Thanks for all the replies

Looks like she could go far, although yesterday she told me she wants to be a journalist, are they notorious for bad hand writing as well?

She is supposed to be writing her on the computer when she is finished, so will encourage her to do that.

I like the idea of the squared paper, will talk to her teacher about that.

She does have a calligraphy set, but she has lost the pen (fairly typical) Will see if she can find it.

I have to agree that she does sound a bit like Serenity's DS. She is in such a rush to put her ideas down, that everything else goes out the window.

She also doesn't see the need to be neat in anything, her cardigan is always hanging off her shoulder. 5 minutes after doing her hair it is all over the place, so I very much doubt pairing her up with a neat child will work.

I had this with my ds. He was left handed, and teacher wouldn't accept this as an excuse, which pissed me off no end. It stands to reason, that if writing is taught by a right handed person, in a right handed way, then left handers will struggle. I think it is discriminatory to treat left handers like this.

However they do need to write neatly for exams. Ds is now 13, and writing has improved a lot, but still not wonderful, although it is now legible.

Just a thought, ds had a good reading age, but is also dyslexic, which accounts for letter reversal, and can hamper handwriting and presentation. If she is very bright, this may be masking dyslexia, which could account for grades dropping, as the older they get the more it affects them. Ds was very bright, and when tested came out in top 2% but with quite severe dyslexia.

One other thing. I am also a teacher, and have read somewhere that massaging dc's hands for 1/2 hour every night, helps with handwriting, as it relaxes grip on pen.

HTH

I think legibility is important, but beautiful handwriting is not. In fact for many children it becomes an obstacle because they are obsessed about the presentation, the neatness of the work rather than the content.

Several children I know will do half a page of work, then screw it up and start again, and never complete anything because it doesn't "look nice".

I really think you do need to tread carefully on this one. Some teachers get really hung up on this, and you don't want your children to pick up on these hang ups.

My DD is in y4 and all of her year are gradually switching over to fountain pens (when the teachers think they are ready). Apparantly they find that this greatly improves the writing skills of the children as to write in a cursive style in ink means that the grip has to be right and there has to be a flow to the handwriting.

Left handedness is still a problem though with this approach, as although it tends to be more neatly writting, it does tend to be horribly smudged!

Fizzbuzz - you have got me thinking. When DD ws 2 she badly burnt her left hand and had a skin graft over the back of her hand. It healed very well and the doctors were very pleased with her. The skin is loose not tight but I do wonder if it may have somthing to do with it with her hand writing skills, but it wouldn't explain the rest of it.

I really do think they only want legibility out of her and not expecting perfect presentation. In someways its all part of her charm and I don't want her squashed so much that she loses her bounce.

My ds (13) is very bright and also had atrocious handwriting. The school gave him special 10 minute handwriting lessons twice a week and once he improved they stopped. Not such an issue now as most of his homework is done on the computer (form teacher thought it better that, than have him obsessing about handwriting to the detriment of the quality of his work). Won't your dd's school consider something similiar.

That sounds very interesting. An OT would be able to advise. Not sure if they work in schools though, perhaps your doctor could get you a referral.

I know an OP was mentioned re ds's pen grip, but I can't remember in what context. I'm sure your GP will be able to help

Yes also agree with ranting housewife. Ds does most of his work on computer now, and is quite fast at typing. Not sure they can be used in SATS though, although I think vaguely that they can.

Yeah, never thought about the SATS issue, but you would think that the school would offer some form of help, she can't be the only pupil the school have had with bad handwriting.

Well, they should be offering help. Just because she is bright, it doesn't mean she should be ignored. Ds used to have 2 special handwriting sessions a week in primary.

You have to push the school though

Have to agree there, fizzbuzz.

I think handwriting, spelling, creating and punctation, b and sds is a bit much. She needs a target. Focus on one thing at a time - for example putting capitals at the start of sentences and when she has done that consitently for a few pieces of writing go on to captials for names as well etc. She will need to go back and revisit some targets but hopefulyl she will get there. When she has achived her target, before she gets her new one, she needs a reward. She doesn't need to get her capitals correct 1st time - but when she has finished writing then she must go back and check for them.

The maths - she must look at her answer and check if it is correct.

She needs to practise slowing down and re-reading her work - this is dull and lots of childrne find it really hard.

Transposing letters, poor handwriting, poor personal organisation - sounds like my two dyslexics - one of whom has v high IQ but writes at the astonishing speed on 8 wpm at 11 years .

Also, another thing. When I read your post, I had to go back and check you were writing about a girl. Bad handwriting is usually a boy thing.

Although I teach secondary, I can't remember ANY girl with bad handwriting, in my 11 years of teaching. Unless of course they had very bad learning difficulties. So it could be skin graft thing.

Have to agree with last post, it does sound like some dyslexic problems, especially letter reversal.

I am an Art/DT teacher, and dyslexic kids are often good at design and creative stuff. When looking at exam results a higher than average proportion of high grades are from dyslexic kids. It ia quite a known link. So waht are her drawing skills like, is that affected by handwriting business?

Thanks again everyone.

No she is not partucularly good at art, but she is musical and apparently shows promise in being a very good pianist or so her old teacher said.

With regard to Dyslexia, my husband didn't learn to read until he was 12 and my son does have dyslexic traits and although reads well now, he struggled until he was 7 (whereas DD virtually taught herself)His spelling and punctuation was 2 years behind whereas he is at least a year ahead in everything else. The school have given him a lot of individual help with spelling, so they know that there are learning difficulties in the family.

Will definitely be going back to see her teacher after easter and try and get her extra help.

fizzbuzz, i am a girl with very bad ahandwriting. I have to print in order for other people to read it
I am mildly dyslexic, my son is too.

christywristy, Teach her to touch type, computers are the way forward for us messy writers

Seriously, your OP rings huge dyslexia bells to me, is it worth having her assessed? if she is, she may get extra time in exams etc, or be allowed to submit typed work.

Hi everyone,
I am concerned about one of my trips, I have two boys and a girl. They are year 4 now and all are very weak on maths, and Thomas is also has very poor handwriting, and gets the odd letter or number back to front. I have voiced my concern that he may be dyslexic, but was poo pooed until his teacher this year. The thing is he is not consistent with what he does. He reads very well, works 100%
hard, great imagination for literacy but all is let down by his poor writing. All three are also very weak with their maths, but then I do partly blame the school for that, they basically had a very poor yr 1 and the same for yr 3 as teachers were on the move! I am now considering a private maths lesson a week to see if this would help. Thomas is going to be looked at by the SENCO teacher, he is a very bright boy, knows the latin names of all insects etc, so I am confused!

I agree with Roisin - I use squared paper for ds from time to time. It's quite common for dyslexic kids or other children who don't leave spaces between words.
Does your dd hold her pen properly?
Does she press too hard/not hard enough? (I could recommend a couple of exercises)
Can she use a fully joined cursive style she's happy with?
Have you tried traditional handwriting paper?
I really believe handwriting can improve - I've seen it with students of mine and my ds. The school really should have some suggestions.