Summer handwriting help (OT's chime in)

Silver Member Joined: Nov 09 2004 Posts: 871

My son just finished first grade, the one "issue" he had this year was with his handwriting, I am looking for ways to help him improve his handwriting over the summer.

I recently read the book "growing an in-sync child" and agree with the philosophy that poor handwriting is from more of a lack of spatial awareness, and muscle control issues, then just needing repetitive practice. I just dont think I can get him to participate in the exersizes if he is the only one doing them.

He is a very bright child, and part of the problem is that he thinks faster than he can write, also in general he doesn't care about neatness and perfection, so he doesnt see why he needs to work on making neat letters, if the teacher can still read his messy handwriting.

He has great gross motor skills, but I don't know about his fine motor skills, as he is not into playing with legos or other small toys, if he wears a full button down shirt, he will ask for help with his buttons, but he can do it.

I am looking for some ideas of how to help him with his handwriting.

Thanks

Diamond Member Joined: Apr 27 2006 Age: 30 Posts: 2535

can u get him evaluated by an OT, to determine what's the underlying issue and which exercises/activities would be beneficial for him? that will be helpful.

also, an OT who evaluates him will be able to give you the best home program for him to do to promote better handwriting for him.

google "handwriting without tears", they have a link of OT's who specialize in handwriting, u may find one in your area. also there's information for parents.

good luck!

Diamond Member Joined: Aug 07 2006 Posts: 2556

My family loves Handwriting Without Tears! We used it on our own (no OT). The program comes with detailed instructions, practically a script to follow, as you guide your child. There are no repetitive exercises and the daily instruction takes about ten minutes. You may want to get an OT eval to see if there is a real problem, but if not, HWT is really worth a try.

Senior Member Joined: Apr 04 2011 Posts: 134

OT here, chiming in.

Has he had an evaluation by a developmental optometrist? True, he might just have poor fine motor skills, but he may also have poor visual fixation skills, which make it difficult to focus on an object for too long. This would explain why he doesn't like to button.

Once you rule that out, you can practice handwriting in fun ways...and by fun I mean he has no idea he's practicing handwriting. Write with chalk on the sidewalk, spray letters with water, use wikki stix to form the shapes...
Let me know what happens

Hatzlacha

Posted: Tue, Jun 21 2011, 2:40 pm Post subject:

Another HWT fan here! The best writing program I ever used, and best of all it's quick!

Silver Member Joined: Nov 09 2004 Posts: 871

Ok, thanks everyone for your replies, I checked out Handwriting without Tears, it looks interesting, which product would you recommend I get? I looked at what they recommend, and the second grade packet seems good, is this a program that I can do over the summer? or is this meant to be a year round program?

Is this a lot of repetitive copying of letters etc, he doesn't like "busy" work. He'd rather make up his own stories, than just copy other words and stuff?

Can I do fine motor activities over the summer, ie: stringing fruit loop necklaces, perler beads, etc. and hope that will give him the necessary eye hand coordination, fine muscle tuning to help his handwriting, without the drilling of the actual handwriting.

OTSrock, can you give me more info about visual fixation skills that you mentioned, he did get glasses before this school year, because of an astigmatism, but claims that he doesn't see a difference with the glasses.

thanks again for your input.

How important is good handwriting these days, when everything is computer driven?

Senior Member Joined: Apr 04 2011 Posts: 134

There's a book called "Developing Ocular Motor and Visual Perceptual Skills in Children" - it has activities you can do with your child. But I'd recommend an optometrist to rule out any visual issues. If glasses didn't help it might not have been an acuity issue but rather how well his eyes work together, how long he can focus on a target, how fast he can skip between visual information...