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Boys and Handwriting
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Just had a question about handwriting-my boys both have absolutely terrible penmanship. I’ve used BJU’s pre-cursive handwriting curriculum with all my kids-and the boys know how to form letters properly and their work in the actual handwriting books is decent, but what they’ve learned there just doesn’t show up in their other writing-if they write letters or stories-things that aren’t required “school work”, their handwriting is awful. My 9 y/o still needs the big lined handwriting paper-he writes huge letters. My question : Is this a boy thing? Am I doing something wrong? Are there people who just simply not going to have good penmanship? My daughters have perfect handwriting. What should/can I do???
You might try triangle pencils and/or pencil grips. Are they working on it a little bit every day to develop their muscles?
Overall, I do think it’s a boy-thing. My now 8YO son had a difficult time with handwriting. My 6YO daughter, though, who has some difficultiies with motor skills, also struggles. These are some things that worked for us:
-daily practice, even if it is just a few words
-a pencil grip if they are not holding the pencil properly. This is a very temporary thing, in my experience. My daughter needed it just long enough to train her hand the proper way to hold a pencil.
-My daughter is now practicing writing just her name each day. Each time she writes it she tells me which letters look correct, which letters still need improvement, and she challenges herself to write it better each time. Sometimes she gets excited about the challenge and writes it 5-10 times each day. For now, I’ve taken her off all other handwriting until she can do her name perfectly.
Hope those things help. Two of my four really struggled with handwriting. With daily practice (just a tiny bit each day), though, my 8YO’s handwriting is now beautiful.
Feel for you. IMO, not a boy thing. I have three boys (+ one girl, the youngest) and they are all completely different in this area. My eldest is probably what you’d call average. His penmanship is not terrible, but not what you’d call beautiful. When he really makes the effort it is quite nice (but not beautiful); but when he’s doing regular work it is merely legible. Boy number three (age 7.5) has incredible handwriting and has been writing REALLY beautifully almost from the beginning. I can’t wait to get him on cursive now to see what he’s going to do with that! Boy number two is similar to what you are describing above. He has absolutely HORRIFIC penmanship on his daily work (okay, it’s legible, but really VERY messy). And then, when he’s doing a birthday card or some other special project, really taking his time, and REALLY concentrating, the penmanship is better. Much better – though still not smooth or lovely in any way.
These boys all used the same handwriting program!
I’ve come to think this problem falls in the “best effort” category, and truly, I struggle on what to do. Boy 2 would take an hour to copy three sentences if I insisted on his “best” each and every time. So what, do I lower his work volume for this reason? Do we do HALF the amount of grammar, spelling, etc. so that he is ONLY forming his letters and words nicely? This didn’t seem to fit with me, so I’ve opted to let it go. Now, when I see a page or a worksheet that is moving into the “barely legible” category, I make him re-do. I also try to point out, as gently as possible, the impact that his feeding-the-lazy-penmanship-habit may have on his future. That he might find it holds him back in a job, or in college (if he couldn’t write neatly while still writing quickly), could cause him emabarrasment, etc. I’ve tried to encourage typing and I suspect, if he becomes an excellent typist, I will feel better about the whole writing thing. But yes, it is frustrating trying to figure out how “hard” you push on this one…
Not sure if I’ve helped but wanted to let you know you are not alone!
No advice but I have one of these too– my younger son will be 11 in a few weeks and his handwriting is awfully. It’s decent for copywork but it doesn’t carry over into other work. And as the pp said if I insisted on good writing every time we’d never get anything else done. Hoping others have advice…
Nebby
Same boat almost here.
Here’s the advice Sonya gave this weekend (she said this much better of course) – Set your bar. Decide what level of penmanship you want in each child’s schooling. Get there and move on.
Of course the child must be able to communicate in a written form. If it is going to make the chlld feel horrible about himself and his schooling to keep harping on it then you have to ask is it worth it? Is that the goal here? If not, you can adjust your expectation and move on from there. Typing could become their mode of written communication. IMO it is the degree to which this needs to be an issue or where your bar is set.
I think we sometimes get stuck on the CM idea of perfection in all executions and forget these are people in front of us who have feelings and limitations and strengths and weaknesses just as we all do.
My son can write legibly enough to easily read what he’s written. I am not going to (now that I’ve gotten this good advice) continue harping on his failure to form perfect “s” letters. I want to hear his ideas and they are bursting forth in him. I don’t want to inhibit that with something that clearly (because I’ve seen him work very hard at this for a long period of time) he isn’t very good at doing. And because there is an option – typing.
Do your boys spend time outside of school using their small motor skills? My seven year old son has beautiful penmanship (though he seems later at learning to read than my daughter). I think a lot of this skill lays in how the child is accustomed to using his hands. Even at a very young age, my son liked to turn locks and take things apart. He enjoys creating with Legos and has many of his own tools (hand tools, not power tools). He spends much of his time outdoors, playing and using his large motor skilles as well as taking apart junk (like old ceiling fans from the dump). If you want to help build up those muscles in your children’s fingers, play-doh is great for that, as well as using scissors to cut increasingly more difficult projects.
I agree with the above comments, though, that expecting best effort not perfection is always the best stance. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.
Sewing with needle and thread also builds small muscles. Great handcraft that could be used to make Christmas gifts!
Interestingly for us, my son is an avid user of fine motor skills – Legos, taking apart Nerf toys, pocket knife skills in the woods/camping, elaborate little doo das of paper and tape and such, anything with small parts/screws/springs – there some be some other magic bullet reason for poor writing for us! I tend to think this has some connection to being a very “boys boy” active type of kinnetic learner (how’s that for throwing in all the greatest labels? ha!) because life is fast unless it’s slow for these types. I think writing is tough because they could just tell you everything you want to know. It’d be fun to see how many of these poor writers are great at oral composition and narration and public speaking.
Love the post from Claire (above) about the advice Sonya gave. Well said.
Re. the consideration of fine motor skills – interestingly, the son I reference above with bad handwriting is wonderful with fine motor skills. Recently, a friend was kind enough to come over and give us all knitting and croqueting (sorry if spelled wrong) lessons and, out of all my kids, only boy 2 (the one with the worst handwriting) was able to really “get it” and LOVE it. Go figure.
Our children are all different, as God intended; we need to just appreciate that some will have the gift of penmanship and some will not.
I love thte statement by Claire/Sonya above so much, I will copy and paste again!
“Set your bar. Decide what level of penmanship you want in each child’s schooling. Get there and move on.”
To the OP, you might want to experiment a little and see what happens if you STOP using the big handwriting lines/width. Some “experts” say that large space actually causes MORE fatigue (to the hand/fingers) than the concentration required with more narrow lines. Food for thought. You mentioned that he still “needs” the wide lines, but it might be worth a try to tighten up (the width) on this to see whether it improves anything. Another suggestion I have read about is to move the child to a PEN instead of a pencil, sooner versus later. Apparently this is easier and smoother for the penmanship-challenged child. (my Boy 2 definitely does better in pen…)
HTH, Angie
That’s you for all the great insight-I especially love Sonya’s advice too. I will probably just let go of my older sons-he types now and prefers it anyway. His writing is legible enough and I will continue to always encourage him to do his best. I will try changing the paper for my younger-he’s the one that just baffles me-he is extremely talented at drawing and is very artistic, so to me, it seems like he should have pretty handwriting! 🙂
Please ignore my advice about fine motor skills! Sounds like that does not really make a difference. My husband does not have the neatest handwriting, nor his boss who is extremely intelligent and has published books. However, my husband does take his time to write neatly on an invoice for a customer. I guess it really does not matter in the day to day handwriting as long as you can do it when necessary.
Another thing I thought about is core strength. It may sound strange, but let me share about some missionary friends of ours. When they were preparing for overseas missionary work, one of their children was being tested for vision. The tester noticed that the child favored one hand over the other. Instead of reaching for something with the hand nearest an object, he would turn his body to use the other hand to get it. The mother had always assumed his poor handwriting was because he was a boy, however, core strength played a big part in this. He would sort of prop his head in one hand while he wrote with the other, leaning to the side, and similar actions. He went through some physical therapy before they left the country to develop the core muscles. The exercises he did sound similar to how most children play on a playground- monkey bars, climbing, as well as a few fine motor exercises. I’m just throwing this scenario out here for everyone in case it is helpful. I guess my recommendation is let boys be boys! Encourage them to go outdoors to run, jump, climb, and work off their huge amount of energy.
I just started using 1/2 inch graph paper this week, and there is already a 80% improvement. I make my ds8, write a lowercase letter in each small block. The capital letters, or letters like h and t, will take up the block above as well. Hope that makes sense. We will keep doing this for a while. but I’m very happy with the change 🙂
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