Handwriting Help

I am still working with my son on learning to write, so these are just some ideas and things we’ve been trying lately….

We were trying HWOT but something wasn’t clicking and I was kind of like you with the font. I have switched to a more traditional font, but still use some of the techniques from HWOT for the multi-sensory approach (the wood letter pieces are fun – we made our own which was cheaper – you could also use construction paper; I do try to encourage him to start at the top with his letters like they do; I do try to refer to the different strokes in a consistent terminology like they suggest; and we do use the magna-doodle and chalkboard). We are going to start going through the Zaner-Bloser workbook and see how that goes. One thing I noticed was that my son was getting bored with just writing letters by themselves. I asked him to write the word “LEFT” one day and it was amazing – he didn’t mind writing a whole word and was more focused on the formation of each letter. I also don’t ask him to write entire rows of letters so if he knows he only has to do three he will try harder with those – I’ll get him to write a few and then circle which one he thinks is the best. We’ve tried different types of papers also – we switched to a narrower rule and that was actually easier for him than the wide rule. It seems that sometimes the grey block paper from HWOT is helpful in having him confined to a certain area of space, but I want him to be able to write on lined paper as well. Some other suggestions that have been made to me were to let them write in a pan of shaving cream or sand with their finger. I also let him use tub crayons and that is a fun way to practice for a second or two. I remember from early on being taught that the lines on the paper had upstairs, downstairs and a basement (illustrated by a house) – when I showed this to my son he thought it was great. With the numbers we have been describing them as if they were a picture, e.g. a “2” looks like a candy cane with a line at the bottom, a “3” looks like 2 bellies sticking out, a “4” is like a small capital L with a long line, etc. It seems like once we made it more “fun” and a shorter time he was more eager to try it and do a good job at it. I’ll also sneak in a bit of writing practice here and there in ways he doesn’t recognize that he’s actually practicing writing 😉 One last thing (in my stream-of-consciousness writing here) that I read off of another post was to not make them keep working on the same letter until it is perfect, go ahead and move on. This seems so common sense I don’t know why I wasn’t doing it, but that has helped too. I have to remember that it will take a while before it all looks nice and need to be patient with the progress.