Year 3 ds needs to improve his handwriting - how can I help him?

[puddle]

Just had parents evening and all well. This is the only area he needs to work on.

I have no idea how to help him improve. They already write cursively which is half the problem IMO!

Has anyone tackled this sort of thing?

We spend our lives constantly tackling it here (sigh)! Both my children (dd in yr3 and ds in yr1) have handwriting issues.

The yr3 one was given worksheets (just repeating letters) and we try to do the worksheets in the Write From the Start programme (you can get it on Amazon).

But what really made a difference was getting her to do 10 minutes a day EVERY day after school. We have got lax in doing this but did it for around 2 weeks and could see the improvement. We had to incentivise her to do it though (additional pocket money via getting a sticker every time she did the 10 minutes).

Will have to start doing it again next week.

i did a diary thign ona shcol handwirint book to help ds1 join up whne he was in year...1/2 cnat remember

i stood oevrlike a hawk wiht he sheet on letter formation

ps they also write in cursive

(I suspect they will both just have untidy/crap handwriting in the end but I suppose we do need to get to the stage where their writing is normally legible at least!)

We had parents evening too this week.

Teacher has asked if we agree to DS1 going back to using one of those soft thingies on the pencil, to try and correct his 'extreme grip'.

Plus we are to encourage him to keep a diary, thus writing more.

We'll see

No help at all am I ?

sigh

yes, actually I do agree with cod - I went back to the start with dd and realised she wasn't forming her b, d, p, k, y, j, m, v, w, x, z letters properly at all which was really hampering her attempts at doing proper joined up cursive. She also didn't understand the joins between letters.

She spent a whole week practising her 'p' and you could see the improvement straight away.

It's worth checking that he's got the letters right first before you get him to just do writing practice iyswim.

Mine just can't hold the pencil 'properly'

He is right-handed, but has a kind of 'fist grip', so rather than holding between fingertips and thumb his whole fist is wrapped around it, thus rendered completely unable to make fine marks.

We have tried and tried at home to correct but he says it hurts. Aw.

Moan over. Sorry

might it be worth asking an occupational therapist for some help or exercises for his hands?

(was about to ask about the squishy grips but I see you are trying that. It's hard to correct something they have been doing wrong for such a long time isn't it!).

As far as I can see (and I will look again) he does all the cursive joins correctly. It's more that the writing itself is a bit straggly and messy. It looks ok when you just look at his but when you look at some of the girls' work in his class you can see it's just, well, neater.

I will have to bribe him to do writing practice - there's no way he'll do it voluntarily.

How about buying him an etch a sketch or a cheap whiteboard and drywipe pen to practise.

For some reason - children see this as less intimidating when handwriting because if they do it wrong they can just rub it off easily without it being permanent or making a huge mess.

Just a suggestion - it works with the children in my class anyway.

Just a note - make sure that you are familiar yourself with the handwriting technique that the school uses. These vary considerably from school to school.

DS1 has dyspraxia so has problems with handwriting. We saw the OT last week who suggested the Write from the Start workbooks as somebody else has also done and also Yoropens. They do a pencil version too. It helps the child with their grip. We haven't tried it yet as I haven't got hold of any but apparently they are very good.

Some children also benefit from having a writing slope to work on but DS didn't like it when his teacher got him one so we have abandoned that. Might work for some though.

Link to Yoropen

I think bribing is fine at this age. And don't be fooled into comparing it with the girls. We received a note from one of dd's friends through the door and I was convinced her mother must have written it, it was so neat!

It sounds like he just needs to practise a bit more? Dd also hates writing and thus writes as little as possible so it never improves and so on and so on. It's a vicious circle isn't it.

Thanks for your suggestions, sorry Puddle for hijack.

Will think about OT, never even considered that!

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