How can I help my son improve his handwriting (age 10 left handed)

[paul2louise]

Hi

My son has struggled with his handwriting for a while. He is in year 5 aged 10 and is left handed.
I think the lockdowns haven't helped as remote learning means using laptop more. I had his parents zoom evening and his teacher said that his handwriting holds him back and if she can't read it then it's difficult to mark it. I know he rushes his work and I tell him to slow it down. I think the ascenders and descenders are not always as clear as they should be. Joining up handwriting makes a longer words harder to write. He does plenty of writing and is always drawing and colouring so I don't think it's a strength issue.
Can anyone help or direct me on how to help him. Thank you

There are some "improve handwriting" work books on Amazon for KS2. I got my kids to use them and they have definitely improved. One being Year 5 and other in secondary. Youngest now has his pen license and eldest is much clearer to read. We had a couple but there was definitely a Carol Vorderman one.

One of my DC is a lefty and using pens and pencils meant for left handers have definitely helped. Try a few different types and see which suits your DC the most.

Teacher here. As well as a suitable pen for left handers, he needs practice, practice, practice. It’s like anything requiring fine manual skills. Short, frequent sessions. Practise on the high frequency and statutory spelling words, because then he’ll actually be practising the joins, letters and sequences of letters that he will be using. Stop when his hand gets tired. He will get more writing stamina as he practises.

Oh and tell him he doesn’t need to join every single letter. It’s not reasonable to expect all letters in a long word to be joined, especially at first. Some letters are hard to join eg x.

The best thing that worked for me is turning the book or paper through 90* so that the top is to the right.

I think left handed writers will always struggle in our right handed world but my DSS (39) has particularly nice italic style handwriting so I don't know if your son could try that ? I also wish to add that my DS (23) has terrible handwriting really bad and an English degree so he was always allowed to type in his exams - from GCSE level onwards on a notepad type thing with spell check disabled. So don't worry too much about it .

Yes, get him to turn the paper 45 or even 90 degrees so he’s sort of writing downwards. It helps with holding the pen in the correct position.

DS has rubbish handwriting and a dypraxia diagnosis. He can use a laptop for assessments, but prefers not to as he doesn't like to look different.
It can be an issue in subjects he is very good at like maths. He has the correct answer but it's not legible.
In secondary school there is virtually no support, compared to primary, so I would see if they can do more with him now while he might get some help.

Left handed pens.

Can I quickly jump on and ask for recommendations for left handed pens?
Thanks!

If you can afford it you could get get an Occupational Therapy Assessment. I had one done for my DS2 who was struggling. Although it was centred around handwriting (a DASH Assessment) she also gave my son advice on posture etc. He is actually very hypermobile.

Another left handed here, and another vote for turning the paper - I usually turn it 45 degrees to the right, sometime as far as 90. Avoid any type of ‘inky ’ pen as it will just be smudged as his hand moves across the page (and I still end up with ink on my sleeve or arm occasionally)

Things have definitely moved on since I was a child and being left handed was almost considered a handicap by some, but everything still defaults to right handed.

@babycorn1

Can I quickly jump on and ask for recommendations for left handed pens? Thanks!

I’ve never needed or used a left handed pen but I do find that pen nibs “mould” to my way of writing so when right handed people try to use them they go all scratchy, same with if I try to use a pen that belongs to a right handed person. So always try to have your own pen. Right handed scissors are the main issue for me!

I m a dyspraxic leftie so gave up on cursive writing as soon as I got to high school as no one could make sense of it.
Equipment wise things you could try;
Pen grips
Writing slopes
Rotating the page at an angle
Stabilo left handed handwriting pens
Triangular pencils could be easier than round
Stay away from anything very smudgy like fountain ink

This is all good advice, everyone needs to be able to hand write easily but remember that once he gets to a certain age he will be typing everything anyway.

I don’t understand why we don’t teach our children to touch type. We could do it in primary school.

I bought the Magic Link handwriting programme for my 10 year old ds. It was a bit of a slog getting though it but it made a massive difference to his handwriting.

I have ordered some pen grips. I have found a few poems written in cursive style and we have been practicing writing together. I don't write correctly either so it's good for me to try too as I have developed bad habits. I will have a look at some of the books too. Words with h, t, d are needing practice. So I am picking a few common words to write like 'and' 'that', 'when' etc. Rather than writing long paragraphs just a few short sentences.