8 year old & handwriting problems

[mrsbornkuntry]

I don't know what to do here. My 8yo has always struggled with fine motor skills, he is a very small boy (only weighs 50lbs) and has tiny fingers. He struggles with using scissors, but most of all with writing. I discussed it repeatedly with his teacher last year and she even tried to get him help with it through occupational therapy with the school, but they refused saying they couldn't help him unless he had a learning disability. Everything else he does is above grade level, he is being tested for the gifted program starting tomorrow, but I don't even see how he could succeed in that if he can't write legibly. On the other hand, I don't want him to not be challenged if he is gifted because right now he is really bored in his class.

We have practiced with "Handwriting without Tears" at home, even bought him shorter pencils to use from that program. We do stringing cards, putting things on strings, puzzles, video games, play-doh, etc. It just isn't doing anything for his handwriting, I'm not seeing any improvement at all.

He has to write down his homework assignments in his agenda each day and today I honestly had no idea what it said and he's my 4th child so I can usually decode little kid writing.

Has anyone else dealt with this before?

 

[RMAMom]

I have a cousin who struggled with the same thing. No one could decipher his writing but he was smart as a whip and had no trouble keeping up in class.
He loved sports and his Dad told him (in middle school) that if he improved his handwriting he would get him a subscription to his favorite sports magazine.
Today Dan is a 40 something lawyer who graduated at the top of his class at Cornell University. He makes millions of dollars a year and has a beautiful wife and two children!

Nurture your son, he is 8yrs old and if he never learns to write legibly well then so what?! By the time he gets to middle school he will be learning to type anyway so will it really matter? Encourage him, love him, challenge him to do better but remember he is only 8 and today it really doesn't matter!

Just my 2 cents.
Mary

 

[ABE4DISNEY]

Try to locate a pediatric therapy clinic near your home or even a Children's Hospital to find an occupational therapist who works with children. My son has greatly benefited from weekly therapy on his fine motor skills and handwriting. Also, if there is anything else contributing to his writing difficulties an OT will be able to help diagnose this. Good luck and HTH.

 

[deva]

Does he have difficulty with gripping properly? (An improper grip can cause lack of control and sloppy writing). We ordered something similar to this "Start Right "grip

http://www.otideas.com/Items/PencilGrips.htm

It forces the right grip with the proper fingers.

 

[CLR4321]

I would talk to his pediatrician about it. They may be able to work with a specialist to get to the root cause of it to help your son. Good luck to you!

 

[disneycruising]

My DD (9) has dyslexia which affects her handwritting. We did a few things that helped: had her write on an angel (we used a 3 ring binder flat on the table), pencil grips, & when ever possible, do assigments on the computer.

My oldest DD (15) had horrible writing. She has Aperger & ADD. Her writing did not improve until she us put on adderall at 13.

Is it possible that the poor writing could be caused by something else?

 

[happymommy]

At his age, he could possibly benefit from learning some keyboarding skills. My kids' school now teaches that intensely starting in second grade (my son can type better than I can! And when I was in school we didn't learn "typewriting" until senior year).

Several students at my kids' school use a little netbook, as they also have difficulty with writing. You can get one fairly cheaply, and they are small and have a solid state hard drive (so they are really tough). Maybe $300 or so?

I would talk with the school some more about other options like this for him. My son also has a hard time with handwriting. We tried OT for a short time, but really it was torture for him, and didn't help. His dad also has horrible handwriting, I mean horrible - well, he's a wonderful husband, a lawyer, a former Marine officer, and runs a multi-million dollar company that employs over 300 people.

My one girlfriend always jokes with me, when I worry about my son's handwriting - what are doctors known for??? (my son is also way above grade level).

Good luck!

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

I would talk to his pediatrician about it. They may be able to work with a specialist to get to the root cause of it to help your son. Good luck to you!

I've been wondering if I should take him to a pediatrician, if they could help at all. I guess it couldn't hurt, he's due for a check-up anyway. If my insurance doesn't cover it we won't be able to do OT. It's frustrating since his teacher doesn't know if his answers are right or not sometimes because she can't read them. His teacher last year had taught kindergarten through second grade for years and still couldn't make out his writing. She did tell him that she couldn't tell how smart he was because she couldn't read his answers and that helped him slow down and remember spaces between his words.

Another problem that goes along with it is that he writes very slow, especially doing creative writing or journaling. He usually only gets one sentence down in the time it takes everyone else to write a whole paragraph. I'm having a conference with his new teacher next week so I'm going to see what she says about him typing some of his work. If she'll allow it I'll start teaching him to type.

I'm glad to hear that this has worked out okay for so many people, it puts things in perspective.

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

My DD (9) has dyslexia which affects her handwritting. We did a few things that helped: had her write on an angel (we used a 3 ring binder flat on the table), pencil grips, & when ever possible, do assigments on the computer.

My oldest DD (15) had horrible writing. She has Aperger & ADD. Her writing did not improve until she us put on adderall at 13.

Is it possible that the poor writing could be caused by something else?

I've been wondering if he has an attention disorder because he has a hard time being still when he has to wait and he says he gets bored in class when his teacher sends a note home saying he's been fidgeting (she's only done that once this year, it happened a couple times last year, too). But I think he might truly just be bored because he already knows how to do alot of the material that they're working on and he picks things up quickly so he would get bored with extra instruction as well so maybe the gifted program would help with that. If not I can discuss that with the dr., too.

I also wondered about dyslexia, especially since he makes alot of his letters and numbers backwards still, but he does not transpose his letters or numbers and he reads very well so I think we can rule it out.

 

[PollyannaMom]

DS still doesn't print very neatly when he goes fast, but when he was learning, it was worse. It helped some to have him practice writing larger and vertically - like on an easel or chalkboard. (You can tape black construction paper to the wall for a single-use "chalkboard" if you don't have one.) And I second the pencil grips for school!

To give you a little hope - in 3rd grade, they'll probably start cursive, and then everyone will be reminded to go slow!

 

[dreamer423]

Some do at home things:

To improve Tone: strengthening the muscles responsible for strength, stamina, grip and endurance-from shoulder on down:

1. Wheelbarrow crawls-whee you hold his feet and he walks on his hands.
2. painting while standing up at an easel
3. Swimming

For grip stength:

1. Lightbright-pinching and picking up the thingees
2. break crayons off till only about an inch or so from tip-smaller than HWOT pencils-he has to grip properly
3. squeezee or stress ball
4. art projects using markers or panting-a much more fun way to exercise than plain old writing

HTH

 

[NHdisneylover]

DS10 still has handwriting which looks more like a secret code than writing. It is terrible for him because often teacehrs want to think he is not smart because they cannot read what he is writing--meanwhile he thinks it is great fun to do his big sister's algebra and is bored with the learning portion of class. He also has an issue that he has to concentrate so hard on the actual act of wirting that he looses his train of thought. So, he can type or dictate a great report, but if he has to write it out there are words and ideas missing. He had OT for about half a year before we moved here and it did help somewhat (I am still trying to find out what resources are available herea and how to get them). The two little things which seemed to help most were having him hold a crumpled ball of paper in his hand while he is wrting (helps him adjust the grip) and having him "warm up" his fine motor muscles by squeezing silly putty into little pea sized squares with his thumb and each individual finger. With that and lots of patience he can manage to write more like a typical first grader which is at least legible. Maybe those things would help your son

 

[hanutedmansionmomma]

both of my children have/had handwriting issues. went to OT privately with one child, they said do upper arm/shoulder strength, so signed her up for gymnastics, rather than pay for private ot . my other one has an awful pencil grip, but he's too old to change it, is my understanding. both children readable now, but not so pretty look look at. if you see my DH handwriting it all makes more sense. at least they got my looks LOL

ANyway, if this is impacting his educational progress, you can get help through the school. there are a lot of accommodations and modifications schools can make without needing to have LD! I would keep asking what they can do to help. Maybe as you go thru the gifted evalution process you can continue to bring up handwriting.

good luck

 

[ireland_nicole]

as I understand it; a parent has the right to request an OT eval through the school. And a child does not need a LD for a 504 plan. A child can have dysgraphia w/o a LD.

Check if your insurance covers OT, though; because it would probably still benefit him. A private OT eval will give you a much more complete idea of his fine motor issues.

 

[left210]

We had a very similar issue. DS was in kindergarten at the time and he had bad handwriting. We could read it but his teacher said it was not very good for his age. The school said he could not get in for an OT evaluation through the school until he was in 1st grade. That was not acceptable to us so we went through our own insurance and had him tested with an OT. His fine motor skills were low and his grip strength was very low. He went through OT for 3 months and it helped alot. He is 8 now and his handwriting is not great but so much better than before especially if he slows down. Some things were learned from OT to do at home were to take alot of little things around the house and lay out on a table and then have him use tweezers to pick them up. Also, we purchased our own therapy putty (we got blue - color is based on how hard the putty is to manipulate) and put beads, pennies, etc. in it and you pull it apart to find the items. This really strengthens their fingers. Do not wait on the school to help you. Take it into your own hands as it will alleviate future problems for your child. Good luck.

 

[Hannathy]

1. He just may be a terrible handwriter!
2. If he is smart, he may just not care!!!

My DD is both of those! Her writing is atrocious. Hasn't stopped her in the least unless never being asked to be the recorder when working in group projects is a liability. She went thru the charter school for the highly gifted and as a senior this year is already done with all the AP science courses our large school offers and the English and is at the university for classes in the afternoon. Her printing is slightly more legible so she never uses cursive. As they get older most assignments are or can be done on the computer. Could she learn to write clearer? sure. does she want to take the time to do that? nope. Of her friends from the gifted class who are all at the top of their class academically, only 1 has writing that you would call good, and that girl is OCD about organization and neatness (teachers would sit her next to their desks so she would clean them everyday)

Work with him so that it can be read but don't stress over it. And take a guess what my DD plans on being in life?
Yep a Surgeon!

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

Thanks again for everyone's replies. I wouldn't be concerned if it was just bad handwriting, two of my children's are like that, but his is illegible and creative writing is a consideration in their advancement here.

As I mentioned, I am going to discuss it with his teacher next week and see if they can do anything in the classroom. My pediatrician knew exactly who to send me to in the school system for my other DS's speech problems so I'll start with her and see if she has any OT suggestions before I try to find one through my insurance company.

I didn't think about gymnastics, has that helped? I don't know if he's interested in that, my older three children all took it for a couple years, but he hasn't mentioned trying it. It's worth looking into when soccer season is over next month.

 

[allyphoe]

I also wondered about dyslexia, especially since he makes alot of his letters and numbers backwards still, but he does not transpose his letters or numbers and he reads very well so I think we can rule it out.

I agree with the other poster that there's an issue here (dysgraphia). DD's first-grade teacher told us that reversing letters and numbers was only age-appropriate until about the end of 2nd grade.

Hearing what other people's OT "assignments" have been is really interesting - DD's kindergarten teacher did a lot of those things with all the kids in her class, and we thought they were kind of weird, but now I'm thankful that she did them.

 

[seashoreCM]

It is my current feeling that a kid who is fast in some subjects and slow in others should devote more time to the slow subjects. I realize the difficulty in getting the kid to actually do that and not be bored (been there done that as "the kid")

In the case of handwriting perhaps writing a little bigger and not rushing is all that is needed to help.

 

[disneycruising]

I've been wondering if he has an attention disorder because he has a hard time being still when he has to wait and he says he gets bored in class when his teacher sends a note home saying he's been fidgeting (she's only done that once this year, it happened a couple times last year, too). But I think he might truly just be bored because he already knows how to do alot of the material that they're working on and he picks things up quickly so he would get bored with extra instruction as well so maybe the gifted program would help with that. If not I can discuss that with the dr., too.

I also wondered about dyslexia, especially since he makes alot of his letters and numbers backwards still, but he does not transpose his letters or numbers and he reads very well so I think we can rule it out.

My DD has ADD which means she doesn't have the hyper part. She is more a 'Day Dreamer'.

Have you thought of having him tested for learning disabilities? Being gifted does not prevent you from have many different disabilitites.

I would highly recomend that you get your son "tested" throught the school. If he does have a disability, it is better to know NOW, then next year. If the testing comes back with 'nothing'...nothing is lost.

I would not rely completely on a teacher. They are not skilled or educated in what to look for in 'disablities'.

Always listen to your own instinct. If you think there might be something wrong...there probably is.

This site has a list: 'warning signs of learning disablities' and also info on ADHD.
http://www.ldonline.org/