Help with Writing

[Fml1980]

I have been on here before about my sons writing, he does have a dx of ASD and is 8 years old.
He is working at age related on most areas other then English and Art.
I'm beginning to think there is more going on as his writing really hasn't gotten any better since reception.
His spelling is ok if he says it verbally, but writing it down tbh most words are unreadable.
Makes me quite sad when he trys so hard writing a short story for me to read and I can't read it.
He does have a pencil grip, and we do activities to help with fine motor skills but it just doesn't seam to be improving.
Picture is my sons writing from yesterday.

I can see why you are concerned. I had a bit of luck with the "write from the start" books that were recommended on here. We finished reception year with very little pen control and did a page a day over the holidays. After that his writing had improved and the control had increased. Still forming letters poorly (that's the next holiday) but the colouring has improved.

Have you got your DS an eye test? We discovered that ours is long sighted which is probably not helping with writing...

Good luck

Hi, thanks for replying.
Yes he has had an eye test as he scrunched his eyes an awful lot but it seems they are fine.

I will look at the write from the start books, just feel for him as I don't know what to say when he wants me to read what he has written but I can't.

It is horrible when they desperately want you to be proud of what they've done but you've got no idea what it is. Totally feel for you.

I am not trained in this area - the SEN teacher in your school might be better to advise. I wonder whether it is worth splitting this into two different things - one is the letter formation and the other writing. It is wonderful that he is making up stories and writing them down, but frustrating for both you and him that you cannot understand what's going on. I wonder whether you could get him to type up his stories to encourage his literacy whilst you do exercises to build up the letter formation?

What do his teachers say?

They have put things into place for his writing but it seems it isn't really doing anything.
I got him a little laptop a while back so will encourage him to maybe write on there,
but try and get him to practice letter formation as well.
I think it's a case of going back to basics with him, he can't write a fluent letter he takes the pencil of the page to even do a basic a.
The a is a o and the a dash rather then it being all joined up.

My daughter has very poor writing.

She is in Year 4.
She hates writing, so its difficult to get her to practice.

I've just bought the write from the start books, I'm feeling it s abit late.
But I've worked so much with her. I've done so many different things.

Tried to improve her fine motor skills, threading beads, play doh etc. Simple sewing for kids. Tying knots. So I've done lots and lots and lots of work with her.

Her writing has improved a lot, I think if I hadnt done all this it would be unreadable, but from year 1 I knew she needed help.

Anyway.

Even with this all this work,. She still has difficulty with word spaces and poor spelling.

Like I said I'm now doing the write from the start program. Your child's writing seems to need a lot more support.

I would get in touch with the SENCO. Asked for an assessment.

I've resigned myself to the fact that my daughter may in the end need to just use a laptop for her writing in the future. And I think its really common in Secondary school too.

So although try and help as much as you can, I think it's more important getting any diagnoses that may be present e.g. dyslexia. So that in future school can arrange extra time in any exams/ laptop for noting things down.

If you get time, it may even be worth working on his typing skills.

These days as an adult, I cant even remember the last time I've had to write a long piece of writing. Everything is on a screen. I'm even typing this.

So try and help as much as you can, but try and ensure any diagnoses have been diagnosed so that your child can get the extra help he may need.

I know a good handwriting tutor who is a retired child OT. If you are in the Manchester area, pm me and I will give you her number.

I will be honest OP, his handwriting isn't legible at all. My son is in year 2 and his writing was letting him down since reception so start of the year I bit the bullet and spent a few hundreds on getting him a magic link handwriting teacher. The results was instant and amazing. He now has the best handwriting in his class. It was a lot of money but I really thought long and hard before commiting. I tried to help him myself but honestly I wasn't the right person to help him. Is this something that you can look into?

Ask your GP to refer to him an occupational therapist. My DS struggled with handwriting in KS2, the OT discovered he's dyspraxic. He had lots of interventions including a slope to write on and permission to not do cursive and he writes very well now. School can refer him too but it's often quicker via the GP.

I'm in the SW so no where near Manchester unfortunately.

I will look into the magic link handwriting teacher.

He has seen OT but unfortunately it was during covid and they didn't even see him write, but I think talk to senco and maybe a re referral to OT is the way foward.

Thank you all for your input

Gosh, I feel your pain. We have spent thousands on occupational therapy for handwriting, with very limited success. Ultimately, we have been told DC will need to learn to type for secondary.

Multi-sensory approaches tend to work best eg tactile letters, drawing in shaving foam / sand. We were recommended “ground, grass, sky” paper too, which helped with letter sizing. The dyslexia shop online does notebooks with shaded lines for handwriting practice too.

We tried a bit of “write from the start” but didn’t notice much improvement. School have done lots of different things too, and followed up on OT recommendations.

Also, a lot of writing comes from trunk and shoulder stability, so swimming is great for that.

Best of luck with getting the help you need for your son!

hi, I can make out some of the words (swords, found, monster, they, into) but sorry cannot read it properly. bless him - I can see he is making an effort with the full stops :) pls keep gently encouraging him to use finger spaces and also, try basic handwriting and letter formation books. he sounds like an imaginative kid !!

see this is what I could make out...

on that In the
got lost in the
desert and they
searched for
any thing <to?>
help them.
they found a
sword shield and
armor looked
for monster
but they ran
into a house
with log and
items.
they ran to(o)
far that they
found monster
and they fought
until they ax
down.

I think that you need to study extra and hire a good tutor.

Is his control bad (he can't draw a circle, say) or has he just internalised this way of making letters?
Are the school doing handwriting practice with him (which is what he looks like he needs) or writing practice (which he might not need - from what I can make out, it's quite a fun story and it's spelled correctly? Maybe if he reads it out to you, you can praise him for his ability to write great stories, it's just he needs to focus on making them more legible for people?)
If his control is bad, write from the start might help.
If he has just internalised writing letters wrong (and lightly?) then I'm not sure there's a better way than just writing the letters over and over. Have you tried that? It will just take a while to rewire the right way after wiring the wrong way...

Have you had any progress since October?
We've gone backwards with letter formation here, turns out that the interventions that were in place at school before Xmas were stopped after Xmas and we've forgotten how to write!

No not really, we are waiting for OT atm.
My son is using a laptop at school as writing was making his behaviour poor in school.

Im going to be honest, I can't read a single word of that. I can make out a few individual letters, it is illegible. You need to go completely back to basics and work on letter formation.
Get a CGP handwriting book for 4-5/Reception and have him to a page every day, hopefully he will have finished the Year 1 ones by September.
He needs to focus on quality rather quantity. Is he trying to rush his ideas down, tell him he needs to take the time to slow down and do it properly. The more he practices doing it properly the faster he'll get.

Hopefully the OT will have some good suggestions, but at least with the laptop he will be able to write his stories so that others can read them. Fingers crossed for you.

I think its a lot to do with hand control and he has very week fingers and wrist.
Also a very bendy thumb, so in combination its very hard for him to write ( he finds anything that uses his hands like scissor work, cutlery,getting dressed very difficult).

Along with Autism his patience is not great and he gets frustrated and angry very easy.

It may not be relevant, but there can be a link/crossover between asd and dyspraxia or hypermobility. May be worth looking into these two, and seeing if it helps?

I'm hoping the OT can pick up any other problems, I'm more worried because his writing has not got any better in 3 years.
He can work so hard but it is up setting for him that he can see its not the same as his peers.

Primary school teacher here:

Yes, for an 8 year old, that writing is concerningly-bad. I could just about make out the phrase "found monster", but that was it. What do the school say about this?
Have you the means to get a private tutor? Someone who could work with him exclusively on handwriting?

The school were the ones who wanted him seen by OT.
We could try a private tutor but I don't personally think that would help much because he will not do any work outside of school.

I do think it's more then just handwriting though, as he was playing on minecraft and he was making names out of blocks and the letters he writes the wrong way were also the wrong way on the letters he made out of blocks.