Handwriting!

[jack123]

Well one of the major issues I faced as a kid was my handwriting. It was always bad and my dad was after me but it never improved. I think handwriting is a part of your personality, its unique and cant really be changed. So i was never guilty about my bad writing. But now i see kids who dont write well and it troubles me. What are the ways to make a child improve their handwriting. Nothing really worked for me, so I want to know a way that really might help.

[tadamsmar]

Might be dysgraphia.

It tends to co-occur with other learning disabilities.

[parentastic]

Jack, i am curious to hear if you have ever tried to learn to handwrite now that you are an adult - a serious, calm, but dedicated effort. It may reveal different answers if it remains as diffucult / impossible as a motivated adult today, vs if it is not. Are there other tasks involving dexterity / precision that you can't do? When you type, do you have a tendency to switch letters or numbers?

Traching children handwriting depends on several factors:
- development of the finer motir skills required for handwriting, vs agr of these muscle development (for young children)
- intrinsec motivation to learn
- ability to focus ( i.e., the opposite of ADD)
- enough practice
- absence of learning disabilities

[jack123]

Well i personally do not have any other motor skill problem. And I personally dont think my handwriting is that bad because it is fairly legible. I understand kids who have other problems along with bad writing, but I want to know the ones who are otherwise healthy and do not still write neatly. I think Practice is the key from what i learnt from my colleagues.

[akmom]

My daughter's handwriting was usually discernible, but very sloppy. (Note that she is 5, so I am specifically talking about her ability to draw letters.) I noticed that most of the children in her class had much better handwriting, so I decided that it was time to address the problem. I just kind of assumed that they'd be spending hours and hours over the school year tracing letters, with an adult watching their form and correcting it, because that's what I remember from my early years of schooling. They didn't. In fact, they spent very little time tracing at all, and no time instructing them on form. They didn't even make sure each student actually finished tracing all the letters in their book. And it looked like my daughter either wasn't getting it by herself, or wasn't motivated to practice enough. So at the end of the school year, I showed her the letter positions (upstairs, downstairs & basement - as I learned it), and where each letter was supposed to go. It turns out, she didn't even realize that "n" and "h" were different sizes, so no wonder she made it so difficult to tell hers apart! We wrote down letters every day, with me sitting next to her to correct her form. I made her do each one over if any part of it was out of the lines, no matter how slow she had to write. I told her that she had to draw letters the right way before she could learn cursive, and that was plenty of incentive for her. Her handwriting is much more legible and hopefully that will facilitate her writing skills for first grade.

I think it's worth helping your child get it right. It will be a long time before everything is typed, and in the meantime, their handwriting needs to be good enough that an instructor can read it without too much difficulty so he/she can actually assess its content. Not to mention that writing with proper form allows a person to write faster. Tracing and practicing, with the oversight of an adult, is my best guess on how to tackle it.

[cybele]

^^^ Funny you should mention that tracing, because I was thinking about that the other day.

When Dita and Azriel were in school, fram grades 1-6 they had these books called "write well" which followed the same format, but increased in difficulty, they would trace the sentence then have to copy it. They did it at least once a week at school.

Sunny and Lux did it for a couple of years, but it was phased out, and by comparison, their handwriting is much worse that Dita and Azriel's were at their age.

It just seems like handwriting isn't "important" anymore now that they do so much on computers, which I don't agree with at all.

[jack123]

I think tracing is a good way to practice. Thanks for sharing that akmom. Also I totally agree with cybele on the fact that just because it is the age of computers, we cannot ignore handwriting. So looks like I got the answer. The key is Practice and appreciation and lets see how a combination of this is gonna work.

[Cartter]

Friend i don't think if you would consider this or not but i have always noticed that when ever you do some hand exercises it increases the grip on the things you hold and that helps in writing a lot. I t did had a significant effect on my handwriting too.

[jollysmith123]

It’s been told that Handwriting is the portrait of an individual's personality. If the kid’s handwriting is not clear, do check his posture of sitting, proper use of hands, arms, head, and eyes. These play major role in deciding the child activity. Making regular practice on writing book that involves writing Like Cursive, Block or Print. These are great to go for enhancing handwriting.

[masud27]

Don't worry. It can be happened normally. But I think you can apply different method whatever your kids like. May be your problem will be removed. And I think some new toys will help your kids to attract most.