How can I help DS10 improve his handwriting?

[BreehyHinnyBrinnyHoohyHah]

Hopefully you can see a sample of his handwriting from today. It's almost illegible.

He's 10, year 5, left handed, and his handwriting has got a lot worse this academic year. It's never been beautiful calligraphy, but in previous years it was at least readable and a reasonable size.

He has a tendency to rush through his work, always looking to get onto the next task. He actually hates handwriting full stop which doesn't help.

I'm concerned that it's getting worse and it won't be long until he's in secondary school where I doubt his teachers will find this acceptable.

Any tips?

I think definitely worth a chat with him, explaining rushing through work with messing handwriting won't be acceptable for long, his year 5 teacher may accept it, but once in secondary school it's likely they'll ask him to re-write it, so in the long run causing him more work!

I'd go right back to basics, have him practice writing for 5 minutes a day, just simply practicing a different letter each day correctly, then once he has mastered writing individual letters correctly, then moving onto joining letters each day.
Get him to slow down, start taking pride in his work and noticing himself when his writing is looking scruffy and needs rubbing out and re-doing.
The 5 minutes doesn't need to be a whole page of writing, more so just a couple of lines of really careful writing. Quality over quantity!

I agree he needs to go back to basics and slow down, you could ask the school for some lined paper (with the dotted bits at top and bottom) or you can buy it from Amazon etc.

Is there anything he wants? Can you do it based on rewards? Then if it follows through to school work he’s gets something else

That looks like spelling practice.
Is his writing any better when writing something a bit less dry?
DS1 has pretty awful writing, and primary always commented how bad it was. Secondary don't care.
Teach him to touch type would be my suggestion. DS started typing all homework, and now has a laptop for extended work and assessments in English/History/Geography. Plus other subjects if he wanted it.

Ergonomic pencil holders can really make a difference.

Get him a lovely fountain pen and real ink. Then teach the correct formation of individual letters. Set him short targets for correctly formed letters/words

My DS has writing like this and they let him use a laptop in secondary school

They tested him for dyslexia and it came back inconclusive

There is nothing he can do to improve it.

His primary school taught cursive writing from day 1 which for him has been the big downfall because he can't naturally separate the individual letters in the words to make them more legible

He's allowed to do all his exams on a PC

He's currently studying for his A Levels and is an A * student. Fortunately he is excellent at maths and his numbers you can read clearly.

A half decent secondary school will work with him esp re laptops etc.

I'd get his current school to do a dyslexia test.

My DS secondary school initially refused to do a dyslexia test as he's in the top 1% academically.

But they called me the next evening to say they had done it and it had come back as inconclusive and we figured that my DS had been compensating

Get your DS to read out loud. If he seems to read his words by looking at them letter by letter which is what my DS was doing then it's likely mild dyslexia.

I only found this out accidentally whilst testing DS vision as one of his teachers thought his eyesight wasn't good.

She was right and in turn it opened up all sorts of little issues and explained all of the above.

DS has been very supported and is doing very well

My DS did try to make his writing neater by practicing but it was a losing battle

I can read your DS writing because I'm used to my own DS writing

The suggestions of forcing him to practice sound like torture for you and for him. Looking at the writing, I’d have him assessed for dysgraphia (could have dysgraphia seperate to dyslexia if he has no trouble reading). For high school, typing might be the way to go.

Has he dysgraphia? Ds has dysgraphia and could not improve his writing. He was able to type in secondary and university.

My son is also in year 5. He has writing just like that. He has dyspraxia and we are in process of getting him assessed for dysgraphia also. Are these things something you have considered?

Real ink pens are a nightmare for left handed folk as their hands drag over the fresh ink.

Also, have the teachers at school mentioned anything about his writing? Do they have any intervention in place for him?

DS1 is not dissimilar (Y5, left handed). I, also left handed, simply never joined up my writing. And now get regular compliments because it is legible. I’ve told DS1 that once he gets to secondary he can stop writing ridiculous cursive and write as he wishes. His teacher agrees and says he routinely gets feedback from secondary teachers that they couldn’t care less so long as it’s legible.

Thanks everyone.

I'd be amazed if he has dyslexia. He is a very advanced reader. He reads a novel every couple of days. They use some sort of reading program at school and he's been assessed as being about five years ahead in terms of his reading ability.

His spelling is also good and he generally gets top marks.

His teacher has said that his content is excellent but the presentation is obviously lacking!

I have asked several times for help from school but they haven't offered much. I don't think he's a priority because in all other areas he is excelling.

I have never heard of dysgraphia and just googled it. Some of it sounds familiar. His grip looks really uncomfortable. He complains of his hand aching when he writes. However on the other hand his writing used to be OK.

My son's writing was always quite hard to read. His secondary teachers always mentioned at every parents evening that he needed to be neater. He was always good at English and his spelling and grammar are excellent and he can write well. He got a 9 at GCSE English when he was ECSTATIC to leave it behind for all science A-levels, and he got 4A*. He's now at Cambridge doing engineering. I honestly believe his brain doesn't have the patience to deal with neat presentation. I realise that sounds but I think his brain wants to churn stuff out really quickly and he doesn't have the speed at handwriting to get it down on the page quick enough. He has the stereotypical scientist's handwriting, and even his equations are very messy. Hopefully the people marking his uni exams will be familiar with that scruffy style

I'm telling you this in case you're worried. Kids can still do well with scruffy handwriting. I used to try and encourage my son to be neater by saying that all his teachers knew that what he was writing was great, but that occasionally they found it hard to read and if they did then exaqminers who didn't know his writing definitely may misread what he'd written in exams if it wasn't legible enough, and he'd lose marks. He didn't like the idea of losing marks so did make more of an effort.

Thank you. DH has a PhD in physics and I can't read his handwriting either!

There you are then. I bet your son will follow in his footsteps. Science brain as opposed to artsy brain maybe?

I work in an infant school by the way and the teachers' writing is SO freaking NEAT. It has to be because they're teaching the kids how it should look. But it takes them far longer than it would take me to write something down, cos I just tend to scribble notes and messages down quickly using cursive and then onto the next thing. All the teachers write everything as if they're teaching the kids and it looks perfect. But yeah, it's time-consuming to be ultra neat.

My 11 year old with dysgraphia (who reads voraciously several grades ahead) also seemed to have “neater” not great but ok handwriting when younger. His dysgraphia means that the process of writing as the ideas are flowing is very hard. His writing is far clearer when just coping out (less thinking, planning, and executive writing skills involved alongside the mechanics of writing). Much of the younger years of primary involve copying out earlier drafts and so his writing appeared ok when younger. We discovered his dysgraphia when aged 10, and nearly 2 years later are still trying to overcome the self-esteem damage we did by forcing him to rewrite things, practice and basically telling him to put in more effort (he was putting in enormous effort and feeling like he couldn’t do what the other kids could do even though his teachers were telling him he was so smart - felt like a fraud).

Is the volume of his written output low? (That would also point to dysgraphia)

My DS2 is exactly the same. He is 9, left handed, in year 5 and the sample in your OP could be his handwriting. We are a family of terrible writers. Our DS1 is in year 9 now. His handwriting was terrible up until he turned 10. His secondary school teachers now use his books as examples of well presented work. At the end of year 5 handwriting just stopped being a problem. I am really hoping the same thing happens to DS2, but it is not looking likely.

My DS2 loves to write stories, so I just encourage that, both handwritten and on the computer. That way, he is practising both without it feeling like hard work. Fingers crossed that both our boys start to find writing easier very soon.

This is really interesting thank you. His teacher hasn't mentioned any issues with volume. She showed me his work at the last parents evening and he seemed to have written a good amount, it was just messy! I will certainly bring this up though.

Thank you! Fingers crossed!