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Just really frustrated
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Ok – handwriting is just frustrating me so much….
Delta (9) and Echo (7) have just so-so handwriting. When not doing copywork, Delta reverts to printing with a mixture of caps and small letters. Echo also tends to do capitals. They have been doing copywork for a while – and I admit that I’m not always watching closely because I just have so much going on…… but watching today – they are both forming some letters completely wrong – and Echo seems to think that spaces are totally optional. ARGH! They have trouble following lines etc too!
Here is our handwriting history….
Delta – Grade 1 – cursive first, adding in Pencil Pete.
Delta – Grade 2 – moved ot Peterson Directed Handwriting (with their cursive first option) because we were getting nowhere with the other.
Delta – Grade 3 – because Delta never used his handwriting skills except when forced (and because Echo was having problems with Peterson) – moved to Penny Gardner Italics. Saw improvement…..
Delta – Grade 4 (up to now) – moved to Joined Italics. (Using models from Briem.net)
Echo – K – Tried Peterson Directed Handwriting (Cursive First) – couldn’t get a legible letter and worked pretty much the whole year on the basic strokes and the letters “i” and “t” (the first letters)
Echo – Grade 1 – switched to Penny Gardner Italics – saw immediate improvement, although certainly not “prefect execution”
Echo – Grade 2 (up to now) – went through all the letters again… and just barely started doing copywork….
I am looking to start Foxtrot on doing basic letters – but really – What am I doing wrong? Why can’t my kids get the basics on writing??? I have tried to follow CM’s recommendations, but obviously I’m not doing something right…. and the thoughts of trying to fix the letters they are doing wrong is just making me want to weep. If my ds isn’t doing copywork, his writing looks like he is in K!
I’m just so frustrated in general today… My son (who I know is very bright) is doing….
- Grade 2-3 level math (RightStart Level C)
- Grade 1 level spelling (All About Spelling Level 1 (just started) – he can’t spell many 3 letter words)
- Handwriting looks like K level unless he is copying a model
- Reading at about a Grade 4 level – but has dyslexic signs (misses words, endings, gets the wrong word)
- Got “dropped” from violin by his teacher for not progressing fast enough (which isn’t supposed to happen)
- Usually narrates in 1 or 2 sentences – although sometimes has a lot to say
I am just feeling like we aren’t getting anywhere….
We struggled a bit with that, so moved to Peterson Directed Handwriting (with their cursive first option)
((HUGS))
I’ll be honest, handwriting is not worth stressing over! My oldest Makayla is much neater now that she’s 11 but still uses a lot of capital letters in the middle of words. She was one who didn’t start out doing copywork, we came to CM later. She can do cursive but prefers print. I can read it so I don’t worry. And if she is doing copywork with a model she does letters right. (And I don’t look to see how she is forming letters, if she can get them on the page I’m just not going to worry about it at this point.)
Joseph is 8 and prints, has done copywork for a good long while now and does okay, however he tends to forget to leave space between words. Not stressing. During copywork ONLY will I insist he uses spaces. In other writing I just don’t worry. I know he starts some letters in weird spots, I just don’t care. I can actually read the letters so I’ll take it.
Emma is 7 and taught herself to write letters before I did, she is left handed like me. She also has some dyslexic tendencies to write specific letters and numbers backward (all the time consistent on which ones she does). She has been doing copywork and with a model does wonderfully. Without she spaces words, has mostly lowercase letters, they just end up backward. We ARE working on this. Slowly. In math I do expect her to rewrite numbers she does backward (her 6 and 2 look nearly alike..sigh). In copywork I require her to fix any letters she gets backward.
The others are just turned 5 and under. Nuff said!
Tristan, your Emma sounds a LOT like my Grace (almost 7). We’ve been doing Dianne Craft’s writing 8 exercises and it IS helping with those backward letters and ALSO helping with her reading. The writing 8’s doesn’t take long each day, but does require constant oversight – the right brain exercises take longer, but we’re finding small improvements that I’m hoping will be major improvements later. I’ve decided to use this method to teach my 4 year old how to form her letters so that I can have the two of them work on their “handwriting” together and hopefully pre-empt any backwards tendencies that might develop in the four year old.
Blessings,
Rebekah
See, that is the part that I don’t get Rebekah – Emma’s reading is great, she spells well, etc. She just writes some things backwards. I’ll take a peek at Dianne Craft’s stuff if we can’t sort things out with some specific practice here. Thanks for the tip!
My 7 and 9 year-olds also do this. It is not as much as they used to but they will both use capitals in the middle of words and write some things, mostly numbers for my 9yo, backwards. We use HWT. They can do fine in their hw books but it doesn’t carry over well to other things. I am mostly trying to be patient with it and hope they will slowly outgrow it. I guess with copywork I do make them rewrite things correctly but not with other things they write.
I go back on forth on whether to make my 9yo wrote his numbers better for math. Do you know what 9009 looks like when you write your 9s backwards? Let’s just say that that answer caused Mommy to have fits one day The kids still laugh about it. It works with 900 too.
Nebby
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