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

[snoopy]

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.

I'm an artist, and my handwriting isn't all that great. People are always surprised to see my handwriting, I guess they expect it to be a work of art.

DS, on the other hand, has beautiful handwriting. So does his father. We are all lefties, so that doesn't seem to have any bearing on how good our penmanship is. I think its something you have or you don't.

 

[dianeschlicht]

My DD had and has terrible handwriting. We started having the Special Ed. teachers work on it in 1st grade. She continues to get help through 9th grade, but the handwriting really did not improve much. She is now 33, and I think the bad handwriting hold her back with jobs etc.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Originally posted by snoopy
We are all lefties, so that doesn't seem to have any bearing on how good our penmanship is. I think its something you have or you don't.

Well I don't know about that. I am having such trouble with dd that started K this year. She is a lefty and I don't know how to help her tie her shoes or make letters. When she makes a letter she starts it backwards. Leaves me confused. HMMM I think I will do a little calling around.
Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Minnie824]

I think some people just have bad writing. 20 years ago, people told me I'd grow up to be a doctor (nope) because my handwriting was so bad. I have to say its still terrible. I did great in school w/the tests for it etc, but taking notes, I just tried to write so fast and get everything in. Now, i try to type things more.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

My DS is in ninth grade. He also is an advanced student that had terrible handwriting. In about third or fourth grade, I pushed for an occupational therapy evaluation. The only reason he could get it was because he had received speech therapy (for a medical problem) in second grade. You could not get OT without already being in special ed. in our county. Then, through a friend who was a special ed teacher, I found a program, I think it was through March of Dimes, that was a summer handwriting clinic. $10 a session and well worth it. I wished I had found it when he was younger.

DS has worn glasses since age two. It was thought that his handwriting problem was a breakdown somewhere between what he sees and what his hand does. He recently got contact lens and this seems to have improved his writing.

 

[Mskanga]

And I thought I was the only one with that problem!! My DD is also in fourth grade now but ever since first grade she has had this problem, but her sloppiness comes from being too fast at doing things and not taking her time, the teachers all have known since first grade. Now she writes in cursive ( they started last year ) and she writes better in cursive because she has to slow down but if she prints, forget it, it's a mess!!
She doesn't get deductions but for the projects that she must turn in , I inspect them first and if I don't like them , I will make her repeat it neatly.
She's a straight A's student in the gifted program but she's a disaster in handwriting, but I will take that anytime over bad grades for some other reason.

 

[doxdogy]

My printing is nice and neat, my cursive is horrible. Drove the poor Nuns crazy when I was in school. My father's cursive is sloppy, mother's was neat. My older brother has the most beautiful cursive writing I have ever seen.

 

[honeywolf7]

No, but I had terrible handwriting in school. I was getting all A's for my other grades in 2nd grade and C's in cursive. My handwriting still isn't that great, but luckily it never really affected my grades (other than my actual handwriting grades.)

 

[justjulie]

My son should join this club. His printing and writing is not very good either but I opted to try changing his pencil and it seems to have made a difference. One teacher suggested using a sharp pencil so the letters are more clear. I purchased several mechanical pencils and they seemed to have really helped - now my son recommends mechanical pencils to his classmates because it made such a difference for him.

Good luck, I know how frustrating it can be - I'm an old fashioned stickler for penmanship.

 

[Straycat]

My son also has very messy handwriting. He is 13, in the 8th grade now and the teachers dont seem to mind. It affects him the most when it is time to copy something off of the blackboard and there isnt much time, then it gets really messy because of the time pressure. He is a very good typer though, so when he has homework, they allow him to type it up. He can finish up work in five minutes that would take him a half an hour if he had to write it.

 

[Dizzy-Disney4]

My DS, also in 4th grade, has terrible penmanship too. Its not too bad if he slows down, but most of the time, I can't even read what he's written down on his assignment sheet...and neither can he! My brother (28) still has horrible writing unless its on a cake in icing (he's a baker). If he writes anything on paper, it looks just like it did when he was in elementary school, it has never improved.

 

[danacara]

I had terrible handwriting until the fourth grade, when Sister Mary DeAngelis told me that no one would take my work seriously in high school with this handwriting, and I had to work super-hard for the next month to make it as perfect as I could. And, no recess unless everything I wrote in the morning was readable. One month later, I had handwriting that would make a language artist tear with joy. Even today, I get the "were you taught how to write by nuns" comment because it's so clinical-looking.

You know what works sometimes? Not therapy, not counselors, not special ed - just one good old-fashioned tough teacher who won't tolerate carelessness. Dysgraphia is another issue entirely, but 99% of bad handwriting issues do not root in that.

 

[snoopy]

The Mystery Machine, it is very common for lefties to "mirror" write, in other words, their letters might appear as if one was looking in the mirror, so a b might really be a d to them. Its quite common among young children who are lefties. My son did it when he was in kindergarden and still does it in 2nd grade ocassionally. I've been told by educators not to worry about it. I think I did the same thing when I was young, but eventually grew out of it.