Has anyone had a child who has (or had) terrible handwriting?

[Planogirl]

Our son is 9 and in 4th grade. His writing (and printing too actually) has always been horrendous. I thought that he would improve with practice but I'm not seeing any sign of it. His teachers are losing patience and he's starting to lose points on his papers. Has anyone else had to deal with this? I don't know how to help him.

 

[lvs_eeyore]

If it is begining to affect his school grades then I would talk to the special education teacher and ask about getting occupational therapy for him. My son also has horrible handwriting but because it isnt affecting his grades, hes gifted, and he is making A's they wont do anything about it even though the teacher last year put in a recommendation to the school to do occ therapy for him.

 

[Michelle]

Have they started cursive yet? My daughter's also in 4th grade and her printing is atrocious; she CAN write neatly but she writes quickly and it's definitely not neat. However, her cursive is VERY neat...she is forced to write slowly when she writes in cursive. They will require everything to be written in cursive by the end of the school year so I'm hoping that will cure her messiness.

Good luck!

 

[Planogirl]

He's doing his work in both cursive and printing right now and he's very messy with both. He erases a lot and that only adds to the sloppiness. I think that he tends to hurry but I'm not sure how much effect that has.

The occ therapy is interesting. I had no idea that this was offered for handwriting. I'll speak to his teacher in the next few days.

 

[holycow]

Do you want to hear a sad tale?...My DS has had the most horrendous writing since the beginning....no teacher has taken an interest in him to help him out in that area....I tried to have him tested etc...but everyone always discouraged me and I mean EVERYONE....from the teachers, to the psychologists to the Prin....it was tremendously frustrating as he was marked down for his writing....Last year was his first good year! and he is in the 7th grade!!! ...I even had the psy...tell me that it wouldn't get any better and just have him type his work...

so my advice to you....fight with everything you have and demand he gets the attention he deserves!

from a mom would wished she fought harder.......
Holycow

 

[jx3smom]

It sounds as though you are talking about 2 of my 3 DS's. One is 21 and still has awful handwriting. Once they get to HS the teachers don't care as much . He was in honor societ and AP classes. The 11 yo is also very sloppy in printing and cursive. Some teachers take off pts and some don't. I try to make him write neater but it's a battle I seem to be losing.

 

[elgerber]

My son is also in 4th grade and gifted. His writing is just awful!!!!!!!! Even his favorite teacher, who worshiped the ground he walked on last year, would comment about it. So far we haven't been too worried, as my writing was awful (still is) when I was in school. If it starts affecting his grades, then I'll be concerned. I will be interested in reading the replies you get to your post.

Erika

 

[Planogirl]

I will fight for help and thanks for the encouragement. My son brought home a spelling paper tonight that had some relatively simple words marked as mispelled. I could see immediately that he actually wrote them so badly that the teacher either misread them or took off for sloppiness.

I was always messy too but my printing is passable. This has to stop somehow!

 

[Gail T AGAIN]

My son just turned 20 today and still has horrible handwriting. I seem to think it is a boy thing. My son also is a lefty which I thik makes it harder to write neat. I think the teachers shouldn't deduct points for penmenship, some kids weren't born to write or print neatly.

 

[Mom2Em]

I ALWAYS had horrible handwriting... It was because my mind went faster than my hands could!!! I would write too fast therefore making a mess of my work... Eventually, they threatened to hold me back because of it... Now it isn't beautiful but not bad either!! So there is hope!

{{{HUGS}}}

 

[RitaZ.]

From what I have noticed, some teachers want really neat handwriting, others don't. For instance, my oldest DS is now in 5th grade and his teacher isn't obsessed about perfect handwriting.

When he was in 3rd grade, his teacher would deduct points from his spelling tests if the handwriting wasn't perfect. Like CC's DD, he will write neatly when writing in cursive and will print neatly if told to do so. Otherwise, he writes fast and not so neat.

Luvseeyore~ I noticed that you are from S. FL. One of my friends is an ESE teacher here in Broward county. She told me that many of her students that really need occupational therapy are often denied those services. According to her, some parents have had to put up quite a fight for their children to receive occupational therapy from the school. She said that it has to do with the cost.

My best friend's son also needed it, but the school won't approve it. She decided to hire a private O.T. at a charge of $75 an hour.

 

[pollyanna]

My younger son had a terrible handwriting...at 18 it is just slightly better...ironically he is a fabulous artist.....his pencil portraits look like photograghs.

 

[Michelle]

OH, PG, that story about your son being marked down on his spelling tests makes me think back to my daughter's witchy 2nd grade teacher who would do the same thing! My DD is an extremely gifted speller (she honestly never misses a word) and her teacher marked off if the letter was even CLOSE to being messy, even though the word was obviously spelled correctly.

I honestly think that's where her rebellion kicked in and her handwriting went downhill from there.

 

[fireplug]

While I was learning how to write cursive, it was discovered that I needed glasses. I was trying to make the letters with being able to see how they were made. I recieved bad hand writing reports throughout my school years. To this day I print because it is somewhat more legible. Check his vision and see if he has a problem.

Steve

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I have a dd that is awful. Her dad is awful. In fact I had better handwriting in K than Dh has now.

 

[browneyes]

My dd can make 100+ points on a test, but she STILL gets deducted points for sloppy handwriting (she's in the 4th grade too). My ds is in 1st grade, and he writes a lot better than she does, and he has a broken wrist!

She gets her handwriting skills from me.

 

[Planogirl]

While I was learning how to write cursive, it was discovered that I needed glasses. I was trying to make the letters with being able to see how they were made. I recieved bad hand writing reports throughout my school years. To this day I print because it is somewhat more legible. Check his vision and see if he has a problem.

Steve, you may have something there! We discovered last year that our son needed glasses and we also discovered that he had been having a lot of trouble seeing for most of the year. It was hard to spot because even now he doesn't really act like he can't see well without his glasses but his teacher apparently did notice but decided not to tell us for some reason. His writing became really awful last year and after all, they say that old habits die hard!

It's a shame to read of the difficulties some have had due to bad handwriting! There's something badly wrong with this.

Again, thanks for the encouragement. If I get anywhere with our son's school, I'll post.

 

[kbeverina]

My fourth grade son has also always had a horrible time with handwriting. It takes him forever if he has to write in cursive and he sometimes loses recess time because he hasn't finished his assignment. Last year he scored low on the presentation portion of a project he worked very hard on--it turned out that because he had to write the report part in cursive, he couldn't read his own handwriting when it came time to present. This year his teacher has already mentioned to me that she has a small group she's going to have work with the school's occupational therapist and would it be okay if my son was part of it--of course! I didn't even know our school had an occupational therapist.

I agree that you should look into the possibility of secondary causes. My son has had difficulty with fine motor skills all his life, but we just found out in the past month that he has an extremely rare genetic disease called Distal Arthrogryposis--and we only discovered this because my 8-month old nephew has a more severe form and his geneticist identified the traits of it in my son as well. So you never know--there could be some underlying cause that may never be discovered. Good luck!

 

[lvs_eeyore]

I am in Fort Lauderdale...the next town over from you. I am going to fight with the school over this because its not his fault its not affecting his grades. He knows the work and knows it well but half the time I have problems reading it. The teachers do not mark off here for bad handwriting.

Right now we are in a parking fight with the school so I have to try to get that handled. They want us to drop our kids off and not park but they have no one out there to make sure the kids are safe until almost time for the bell to ring. I have a call into the school board as do other parents about this.

Im trying to get some resolution to this first before I go after them about the occ therapy. I may have to see if our insurance covers it and do it privately.

 

[Dancind]

You might want to do a search on the internet for "dysgraphia" and see if the profile fits your son. I know my DD has this, but the school won't test her for it or give her services for another more serious LD she has a diagnosis for. She is gifted and gets A's too, that's their reason. I guess worrying about her future is none of their business. ANYWAY. She was one of those kids that bore down too hard, had her nose practically on the paper, still leaves letters out of words that she knows how to spell. She can't copy accurately, and she messes up on tests with separate computerized answer sheets. We've solved most of the problems by having her take a keyboarding class, and buying her an Alphasmart. It's sort of a portable, lightweight word processor. She isn't currently using it, because she's just started mid-school and thinks it may not be cool, but I'm working on her. She writes much more and much better with it. Just my 2 cents. Diana