Does Terrible Handwriting Cost Marks In GCSE Exams?

[AlwaysHungryAlwaysTired]

Just that, really.

Thanks in advance.

I raised DS poor handwriting with SENCo, he was having a touch typing intervention but hasn’t had anything since before Christmas Parents evening in a couple of weeks and I’ve contacted the SENCo for an appointment... still waiting for a reply

Interested to read that a laptop make it worse for him.

teen yes, you can but not the ones with the rubbers on the end. DS1 had that taken off him!!

Certainly if illegible.
We are told not to escalate if poor handwriting is the issue, and as a senior examiner my eyesight is no better than a regular one.
I do flag it up at my own school but only some students find laptops better.

I used to do a lot of marking and, while you don't specifically lose marks, you can miss a lot. If I can't read it, I skip it. I can decipher a lot though so it'd have to be pretty bad.

Piggy Thanks. I knew you can't use erasable inks (something about scanners making them fade I seem to remember?). Good to know that DD will be able to use the 1 pen we have found that keeps her writing have legible.

Just thought of something I get my poor handwriters to try. Drop the cursive and move back to print. It's a little slower, sure, but there are no marks at all at GCSE for cursive writing and in many cases, children's work is instantly tons more legible. Worth a try, OP?

Try a wide selection of pens and possibly pen grips, different pens can make a huge difference. Wider pens such as the bic '4 colours in 1' seem to work well for some of my students with difficult to read handwriting as they dont have to grip as hard to write although the berol handwriting pens often make the writing worse.

My ds has illegible handwriting and a spelling standardised score below 70 - despite 4 years of different interventions.

A laptop is always suggested for him but I continue to argue it's moot because he's slowed down by spelling and also if he can't spell words and computer cannot even dechiper them if spell check is used it doesn't allow him to express his knowledge - which is ultimately what's being tested.

To give an example he's 13yo and is asking how to spell words like 'check'

Do they allow students to use dictation programmes for exams if it can be proved it provides the best outcome?

He had a scribe for says but for some reason he doesn't qualify for this now?

My son has terrible handwriting despite years of practice. Lots of schemes, Ot input etc. We eventually got him a dyslexia assessment and he was found to have it with a really poor working memory.

He never had a problem with reading but he did have with spelling. He has been doing touch typing and uses a laptop for many subjects now. I dread him doing his GCSEs that he will still need to write in - maths and science.

I went to an OT conference at Brunel Ybivetdity and there’s a lot of research now on the links between handwriting and dyslexia.

Try Magic Link, run by Lee Dein. It worked beautifully for us and she takes children 5+ with no upper age limit. Takes about 2-3 months and she will fix anyone, no matter what ability. She is in London, but I think she does some kind of online courses too. If you google her by name, even the FT covered her.

@ViceAdmiralAmilynHoldo - talk to the school about access arrangements. In my Dyspraxic son's case, this meant use of laptop where appropriate and 25% extra time where not appropriate, eg maths and science papers. But your DC will need an assessment by the school and then an OK by the exam board - a diagnosis isn't enough.

DS was taught cursive at primary school, and I think it has hindered him now..

What pens do you recommend?

You may be interested to know that use of a laptop is not an 'access' arrangement- that can only be granted by getting an ed psych assessment. The senco at each school has the power to allow any student use of a word processor/laptop. It's an internal decision. They do have to be able to justify it. It also has to be a student's 'usual way if working' or they use a laptop in lessons/do mock exams on a laptop. Schools are difficult about this because if it was widely known they'd have a huge issue as they can't provide WPs for all. As a parent - I'd really push for this if my child was doing essay A level subjects. It's a massive advantage as if you can type well, you can type much faster than write. Note if you use a WP you can opt for when you want to use it - doesn't have to be all subjects or even all of a paper.

Ds was taught cursive writing from reception and had the most awful hand writing. He was lucky enough in year 9 to have an English teacher who took the time to sit down with him and watch him write.
She realised what we had already suspected and that was that Ds had never really learned to form each individual letter correctly and had ended up with his own mish mash of the alphabet.
She got him to go back to basics and to forget about joined writing for awhile and then gradually reintroduce it.
He is now at uni and has beautiful hand writing. I don't know if this is worth trying.
He also experimented with a range of pens until he found one that he is comfortable with.

Sometimes though, what parents perceive to be poor handwriting isn't actually that bad-which is why teachers often say they've seen worse. I've examined for years and seen very few scripts I can't read. Having said that, I got laptops for 3 of my boys last year because 2of them had teeny tiny writing which vanished into nothing under pressure and one of them used to write the first letter, then slip into just a line.

I have struggled with handwriting all my life. Was told at 7 that I'd never pass an exam and hauled up in front of the class and told that I had no pride in my work.

A* in English. Fuck you, Miss Hughes (yes, 30 years later and I'm still bitter.She was a nasty, nasty cow who encouraged bullying).

bebumba DS1 had a similar experience - it was his Y6 teacher who took the time to focus on it with him, saw he was forming letters incorrectly and then spent months providing handwriting exercises for him. He's dyspraxic (though nowhere near as severe as many) and her view was he needed to use 'muscle memory' to relearn his letters. It really, really helped, though his handwriting is still not brilliant. The difference between mine (I'm also dyspraxic) and his at the same age is striking, I don't know what my teachers did with me in the earlier years but it worked.

He's in Y7 now and his school definitely do care about handwriting and SPAG. His English teacher advised him that he had lost a whole grade for the first term's work because of his simple grammatical errors like forgetting Capital letters, commas, misspellings where he really knew better and also his handwriting was illegible sometimes. Sadly using a laptop seems to be even worse for him. I know they'll work hard with him to overcome it though, as they don't want to bring down their '99% of boys get all grades A*-B at GCSE' madness. Well, either that or they'll ask him to leave...