How can I get my child to write neat???? HELP!

[anniebear]

she will be going into yr 2 in September and will be 6 and of next month

she does really well at school and is working above average in hboth Literacy and numeracy and also does really well in everything else

But she cannot for the life of her write neatly

I wouldn't be bothered if it was just a bit messy but this is to the point that the teacher can't somtimes read it and it is begginning to ruin the end result of her work

One of the problems is that she rushes, has to finish first

But to be fair, even when she takes her time it is not neat. Readable though, which is all I ask!

what can I do? I am not sure she would like to go back to basics! But I really am at a loss at how to get her to slow down, unles I go and sit on her shoulder in school lol lol

Thnak you

cant describe what she does, kind of brings her thumb round so instead of her thumb end resting on the pencil, the bit that bends rests on it

so her thumb ends up across her pointy finger

,all rushing off to get a pencil to have a go.

I have just ahd a go at writing like she does and too be fair, you still have cood pencil control that way

I did try to get her to hold it propelry but she wouldnt

I still think the biggest problem is rushing, thats what the teacher thinks also

although I dont think she will ever be neat, but just as long as its presentable

Thanks again for all your fantastic advice

As for the rushing thing, explain that we use different handwriting for different purposes. Sometimes speed is best, sometimes neatness is best.
Give her a short sentence - three or four words and challenge her to write it five times, each time making it neater and neater.

I will have to tell her teacher she cant help it..its hereditory

I rushed and was untidy at school my sister did and my Neice!!!!!!!!

and we all apparently talked far too much!! (me? never!!!!!! )

anniebear fwiw on the pencil grip thing, my DD who has really super writing (first in her class to get the "could" writing target )holds her pencil oddly too, a bit like yr DD as far as I could tell

We have tried to correct it but frankly I have given up if that's bad!

Teach her to touch type - seriously. Helps the brain to hand process. Great child-friendly software available. Worked for my son.

Anniebear

I can help you on this. Two things can be going on

1st. She is so smart that the work is boring her and she is rushing through it (this is less likely but possible)

2nd. She has weak fine motor muscles in her hands
(this most common cause for poor writing)

So what can you do. Give her lots of playdough and small things to manipulate with her hands. This will help her gain muscle strength and improve her writing. It takes awhile to see the improvements but it will happen. Also just in case she is bored try challenging her a bit with something that will force her to slow down.

i agree with trying the triangular grips that spudmasher mentioned.

doesn't anyone else find it that the teacher seemed so critical about her handwriting rather than attempting to explore reasons why it may be so?

has anyone mentioned to you about dyspraxia? if you can (sort of) rule that out, then yes, getting her to develop her fine motor skills in the many ways mentioned already is a good idea.

i teach secondary and i have 2 or 3 boys who are currently top set with v. bad handwriting. they are performing extremely well so no, bad handwriting shouldn't affect her performance.

Know a bit about Dyspraxia, would think she would have showed other symptoms?

Have just looked it up and it isnt her at all, she has never had probs with anything (until now!!)

she did most things early, could do small buttons at an early age, sat up early, dressed and undressed etc etc

she sat for an hr at a time at the age of 3 with polly pockets and had no probs dressing them

she has always done lots of cfrats and colouring

At the moment I am tending to agree with the teacher that it is just that she rushes

Will work on some things mentioned here, thanks

I don't think you should jump to the dyspraxia conclusion. ds has struggled with handwriting but it was also evident in other areas of fine and gross motorcoordination and he is still borderline.

then that is fine. it is better to know about things and rule them out, that is all i was saying.

Doesn't sound like dyspraxia at all, tbh, one would expect to see a much wider profile of motor difficulties in that case. You could try 'warming-up' for written work, to get the muscles in her fingers/hand/wrist ready to work, perhaps? Make it fun - would be great for twin too maybe - and have 'hand gym,' tap fingers together, stretch out, tickly spiders, pretend to play the piano on the table etc. Play dough also good, and/or lay soft cloth out on the table and draw it down into the hand using the fingers. The 'Write from the Start' programme mentioned below is good, best used for 10 mins a day, and isn't all tracing letter patterns but addresses the skills needed to enable good hand/eye coordination and pencil control.
Sorry, I've gone on a bit.
Oooooh, but have to add, make sure that you're really positive about it all, try to avoid your DD getting too much of a 'thing' about it - after all, it's all about making sure that people can read her brilliant ideas, isn't it?

Whether its dypraxia or not is almost irrelevent. Its just a label. Especially when no one really has clue of what dyspraxia is!

Sometimes its best to just help the difficulties and worry less about labels. For example my son had physio to help him learn to walk when he was little. We had no idea why he had problems, but the physio still worked.

Prehaps you should ask the school what they are doing help. If she has been on school action and things are not getting better then maybe she needs outside help.

thanks

To be fair, she is still 5 years of age and just coming to the end of year 1

I always thought you couldnt tell any difference between her and the others as some are almost a year older than her, as she has always worked above average

But...maybe this is were her age is showing?

At the end of the day she can't work at a high level in everything

I just don't want her to have her work marked as wrong as they can't read it

I am sure there are no real problems, never even crossed my mind

One child with SN has nearly finished me off lol lol

will speak to her new Teacher in September and see what she says

Thanks