Handwriting letting him down (to put it mildly)

[drspouse]

DS is in Y1 and you can't read a word he's written. You can just about tell if he's writing a T or an O or maybe that could be a Z or an S, maybe, but beyond that it's guesswork. All the letters that have a curve and a tail (a, b, d, g, h, p, q, y) look the same as they are a circle with a random line or two somewhere on them. Also everything is enormous and all over the page (he'll start somewhere in the middle, write the letters in order, but end up in the next county).

We're hoping for a referral soon to investigate dyspraxia.
The class has spelling tests and they are sent home with words to practice - and they have a Big Write each week, and various other writing things in class. He does practice at home and if I ask him the letters in the word he can sometimes get them.

So, not surprisingly, he's just come home with a report saying "not meeting targets" in writing and SPAG (though he can do phonics quite happily and is fine in reading, just needs to speed up a bit).

I think I'm most concerned that his writing isn't improving, but for his own well being I think it's a bit unfair that he gets 0 every single week in his spelling when he can usually try one or two of the words and quite often (if you watch what he's writing and he tells you which letters it is) gets them right.

Firstly any tips for really helping his writing? We do practice pencil skills most days, nice grips on pens, please don't tell me about "strengthening his shoulders" as I have looked it up and it has not been shown to help, he's not great at other fine motor skills either but frankly it's enough hassle to get him to practice his pencil skills so it's going to have to be something he'd really LOVE to do (sorry I know that is NOT helpful - oh and also he has zero interest in Lego)

Secondly is it fair to ask the school not to make him write out his spellings? Should they be letting him skip the test? Or letting him do it in plastic letters or something?

Plasticine
Stress balls
Thumb Wars
Both holding a piece of paper between forefinger and thumb and trying to pull the paper away from the other
Writing on a slope
Pencil grip (outs was a special one fitted by occupational therapist) popping bubble wrap

Using a laptop for written work.

Occupational therapist told the school that they had to choose what they were looking for from a piece of work - good handwriting or the content. If they were looking for the content then to use laptop.

He's really young for a laptop we feel. He's 5 and can't find the letters on the keyboard yet. So he is not yet going to benefit from that we don't think. He's still at the stage where sometimes a capital vs small letter throws him, so all capitals would also be confusing. THat's why I was wondering about magnetic letters etc.

We do have special grippy pencils (left handed Stabilo ones) but they don't seem to make much difference. Hopefully the OT can find the right ones for him though when we do get a referral.

We haven't tried a slope - definitely worth a go. Writing on a blackboard seems to make little difference though. Everything still looks the same and carries on into the next room!

Why not strengthen shoulder muscle bad idea? It did make huge difference with my ds. Monkey bars, to be precise. He didn't even realise why I was taking him to the park and encouraged him to play with all the equipment that involved upper body muscles, he was just playing.

you do need to do a bit of gross motor skill stuff too, like crawling through, balancing, rolling balls, digging.

For the fine motor stuff we did a lot of hama beads, threading, cutting things out , playdo (look up dough disco), cutting things up

anyway in year 6 the writing is legible. (we saw an OT who told us to do all the above)

and I think an alternative format for spellings is really sensible and would pursue that. My son used to have a scribe.

DS School gave him touch typing lessons that really helped.

Why not strengthen shoulder muscle

There's no evidence it works - I've looked up the literature.
It may be coincidence, or may work for some but make it worse for others (so, on average it doesn't work).

Brie what age did you do touch typing?

grass as I've said there's not much evidence that gross motor skills transfer to fine motor skills.

Dough disco sounds fun but I'm reluctant to do anything involving small parts (e.g. hama beads) as he has zero attention/self control so it would be 90 seconds of craft followed by 2 minutes of throwing stuff and 30 minutes of clear up.

Try just a plain foam pencil grip. I spent a fortune on those stabilo pens but as ds (dyspraxic) has a slightly different way of holding his pen they didn't help at all. The plain grips made him more comfortable and he still uses them age 9.

e.g. this paper

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dmcn.12008/full

and this one

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071909105000859

say - use task oriented approaches (train for the task) not sensory or deficit oriented ones (assume you have to fix X overall skill before Y specific skill will come).

3boys great tip! thanks

I couldn't have written your post about my DS a few years ago.

One of the things that helped him (as a 4yr old plus) was learning to play a musical instrument. We started with violin (didn't love it), then recorder and piano and later swapped recorder for drum kit.

We had to pay for a private diagnosis of dyslexia and dyspraxia at age 8. Note my wording! We could already see that he had these things! But the official diagnosis meant that teachers took him seriously and didn't just refer to him as lazy/low achieving/not trying enough.

Another thing that helped was just spending a huge amount of time doing things together to improve coordination. For example, he loathed jigsaws, but did them with me in short bursts because I tried to make it fun. We did a lot of cooking and arts and crafts - cutting and sticking, junk modelling, plasticine, painting, glitter pictures. I have to say, his skill level in all of these was very low and he needed a lot of encouragement. But we persevered.

We also enrolled him in a few sports activities. Again, he wasn't actually good at any of them. But we worked in the principle that every little bit of skill building helped.

He's now a high achieving sixth former with sights set on university. Still has awful handwriting, still clumsy, still can't wrap a present in paper, still can't tie laces properly. But nevertheless happy and achieving.

Good luck.

Climbing at the local climbing wall has made a huge difference to a friend's child who had handwriting issues, if that helps....

What about writing in shaving foam? Get one of those big trays (£20 ish) and fill it with shaving foam and get him to write with his finger.

You could also fill it with sand and do the same, and use it for the dreaded Hama beads so the mess is contained.

How is he at threading buttons and cotton reels onto laces?

My ds is now in y8 and his handwriting has been appalling-barely legible for years but is just starting to improve now. He passed his 11+ and got into a super selective school because the exam was multiple choice, not written!

drspouse - I think you might struggle if you aren't prepared to practice any fine motor or gross motor skills as this is what the OT will do! My examples were the things the OT did with my son.

Would he cut up fruit or similar. It doesn't have to be lengthy activities, just build it into the day, Here come help me chop this banana, - pass him a pair of scissors and say could you just cut this out for me, or eat with chop sticks one night. The threading wasn't messy at all. but hama beads can be a nightmare I agree. would he pop bubble wrap, that's always fun, or using tongs to pass some things to you. Just quick activites

DS saw the occ therapist in reception so wasn’t too long after that end of year one probably.
DS was on the gifted and talented register though and could already read and spell perfectly (age 14+) so May have had an impact on how he learnt to type.

Climbing - forgot about that as we did it mainly to strengthen his core muscles which were very weak. But his hand writing has improved since he has been climbing

I agree grasspigeons, I was given those from those OT as well, along with Hamma beads and Loom Bands to help strengthen DS fine motor skills.

My DS has hyper mobility and the fine motor skills are important for writing along with actually writing. My Ds also uses a soft pencil some thing like a B2 as they are easier for him to write with he doesn't need to put the pressure needed for an HB pencil.

My DS is now 13 and uses a laptop at school as he cannot write legibly at any reasonable speed. He can draw, play piano, touch type and assemble incredibly detailed models but something in the brain to hand route does not work for handwriting. He's also a bit hard to help so rather uncooperative at being told to tilt paper, hold it with the other hand etc.

Primary school tried very hard to help him, it is hard to tell when they are young if they are just late developing, destined to have messy but fluent writing or really struggling. I would try all the things suggested and if it's not improved by say the start of ks2, get assessment for dyspraxia/dysgraphia so he can get used to working on a laptop and concentrate on learning in time for Sat's and high school.

I think DS was really hampered in English in KS2, as when he should have been developing skills of composition and different writing styles, he was just struggling to write half a page of scrawl and being told to present his work more neatly. He's only catching up in secondary now with the laptop.

Ds6 (yr1) has been to OT and ended up with really low results for gross and fine motor skills and balance. Gotta go bk to doc to get dcd diagnosis but OT recommended special grips and scissors, a slope, a handwriting scheme to do at school. They also recommended that he type his work.

Atm though we are fighting to get the school to do anything though as he will easily meet his targets, despite the fact that his writing, at times, is barely legible and we are currently waiting to see if he gets more conditions diagnosed.

Ah now we already saw the OT (preschool) and no mention at all of gross motor activities (but the stuff we had then was quite easy). So having read loads of people on here say they were important I looked it up and as you see the evidence is it's more helpful to practice fine motor coordination. Dare I say maybe the OT we saw knows best practice?

He likes cutting, both scissors and fruit. Would happily pop bubbles. Threading is quite easy for him now but he's not fond of buttons so that could use some work.
I probably do need to set him up a Tray of Stuff. Just shuddering at the mess.
We have started recorder and oddly, unlike every other activity under the sun, he does it better with me, and it's NOT messy. He's been told not to come back to the recorder group (I'm seriously contemplating a complaint) but we should really persist I think at home.
He's not really G&T just doing ok so I think I'll leave the typing for now.
B pencil - foam grip - tilted slope (yep I know he'll moan and grump and throw things too) - taking notes!
My problem really is with two DCs, one of whom has behaviour and attention problems, we do something once, then he loses the bits, or DD puts them in her toy handbag, or he refuses to do it again, or it takes him LITERALLY 90 seconds till he loses interest or decides it's too hard and runs off shouting or hits someone.

Handwriting scheme - do tell! They use bloody cursive IN RECEPTION at DS school. I could cry.

All in all with ds there was about 26 pieces of equipment or changes to the school day that the school was asked to provide.

You could be describing my ds2.

Position at table for writing - sitting with feet flat on floor (or on a step if chair is too high) , comfortably at the table.

In boys of this age the testosterone is known to reduce strength/affect ligaments and use of the hands so there is an element of waiting for that to settle down.

Rather than practicing writing at home you would be better to be developing fine motor skills and shape making (some of these have already been mentioned) and let the actual formation develop within school, you risk putting him off writing getting him practicing all the time and some of these allow stealth school work
Playdoh/plasticine
Baking
Writing in sand with finger
Writing on steamed up windows with finger
Drawing shapes and animals
Painting
Cutting out shapes with scissors
Hama beads
Threading shoelaces
Sewing
Knex (my guy struggles with Lego so isn't keen but found knex loads better for his strength level)
Squirting water bottles
Nerf guns
Playing racket sports and catching sports
Writing apps on tablets are really good too

Based on what you've described I'd look much more at more strength in hands than dyslexia (if it's just writing that's making you look at dyslexia - ignore me if there are other markers, my ds1 is being tested for various learning issues now and he would point blank refuse to write and couldn't do any of it compared to ds2 who just can't actually write but can spell and read)

Targeted scheme called ‘write from the start’. School has not implemented yet. His help in class consists of TA going past him and telling him to redo as not neat enough.

Ironically ds is a demon with Lego.

We also used bath crayons in the bath and white board markers on a white board. They both slide across the surface more easily than pencil on paper so are less tiring to use.