How to help improve 6yo handwriting?

[Curlewwoohoo]

My ds is 6yo and in yr2. He's always been a bit behind with fine motor, first picked up at preschool. He's being taught pre-cursive letters at school now. But still doesn't form his basic letters correctly and his writing is also very very big. I know some of this is developmental and down to hand strength. But school have highlighted it to me at parents evening so I feel like I should try to help him to improve his writing. Any suggestions how? I know about dough discos, and the videos on BBC bitesize about letter shapes but they are different to what they call them at school, eg giraffe letters / long ladder letters.

For hand strength try getting him to use pegs - you can make a game of it with a makeshift indoor clothes line / string and peg pictures / material / socks onto it. Has he had an eye test if his writing is really big? Also colouring books will help him with accuracy.

He does wear glasses actually. We've done peg games etc in the past, possibly 2yrs ago, which i had forgotten about. I can definitely go back to things like that. However actually he does lots of drawing and cutting things out, pic attached, plus does lots of Lego which is fine motor again. Somehow it's not translating through to helping his writing. Part of me thinks it's ridiculous I'm here typing this, as he's only 6. But the trouble is school is ramping up the work and I can really see he's behind. He is bright and really ahead on reading so it's a shame if he can't get his ideas onto paper.

Bump in case I can get more comments today.

Magic Link handwriting courses/packs

Have you used it, @SWLondonMum00 ?

We may be a year behind you so I’m interested in any advice you get too. I feel DS does a fair bit of fine motor activities, including Lego and Playdough but I doubt I could get him to play any of the other recommended activities more than once. Your DS’ cutting out and colouring looks impressive to me!

I thought it was good too, but it's not translating through to writing.

Second this!

Play dough is great. Make it yourself and get him to help massage colour or scents through the dough.

Does he sit at a table to eat?

Oh does he need a grip or a bigger pencil to help him

Yes and uses cutlery pretty well.

I found some fat triangular pencils today I had before and dug out a handwriting book, both from lockdown days when I was helping my eldest.

DD is 7 so in year 3 but in the begining of year 2 her writing was really big and a mess really. By the end of year two though her writing size had reduced and improved greatly.
Just lots of practice really, draw each letter out for him at the beginning and end of a line, and a dot in each space you want him to copy the letter.
I used to also draw a faint line across the middle so each letter would be the same size.

crayola light up board xx

We went through this with our DD and the root problem was that she hadn’t ever been told her letter formation wasn’t great and was holding a pencil inefficiently.

I think it was in year 2 we decided to help, and basically did reception level letter formation books whilst making sure we talked about each letter loads (the rounded bits, heights, vertical lines etc). When they initially covered this in reception the standards were lower for the acceptable formation, and she hadn’t moved on naturally like the rest of the class.

She also held a pencil very tightly so we needed to work on that to make the looser holding the default. Quite a big habit to break, and neatness did go down initially but sorted itself out.

I’m not saying bringing out young children’s workbooks for an older child is great, but we did it to spot problem letters before moving on to free writing with a focus on formation. It definitely helped in the long run.

Up until Y2 I think there’s an option to not write much, but in Y2 I remember writing becoming a much bigger issue if it wasn’t neat/fast.

Thanks @Towmcir , I will try this. Back to basics.

Thanks @Towmcir , I will try this. Back to basics.

I would buy him an exercise book with the handwriting lines (so 4 lines - 2 the small letters sit between then 1 above for the tall letters to go up to and one below for the 'tails' to hang down) and model the correct formation of a letter and get him to practise writing a line of those. If he's keen aim to practise about 5 letters a day, but if not just stick to one. Quite 'old school' but regular repetition will help and if he's not forming the letters correctly he needs to be shown and to practise writing them correctly.

monkey bars
other climbing frames.
throwing balls.

Hi, we had the EXACT same problem with our son who is currently in Y2 and someone recommended a local handwriting specialist tutor who runs the Magic Link handwriting course and this was money well spent. I definitely recommend getting on top of this ASAP as we learnt that schools do not really support children with handwriting difficulties, on the plus side after daily practice we saw a significant change in 3-4 months. Good Luck !