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Any suggestions/methods for helping a young teen to improve his handwriting?

DS13 recently asked me how to improve his handwriting. He doesn't know how to write cursive and his handwriting is sloppy. I have complained in the past that it is barely borderline legible and have gone as far as to request an OT assessment in 2nd grade and in 4th grade as I was concerned with some form of dysgraphia although content-wise his writing is strong and quickly produced. DS13 was informally assessed both times. However, teachers are more skilled at deciphering bad handwriting and do not see a significant problem plus the OT assessed his handwriting issues to fall within acceptable parameters and clocked his writing speed at well above the minimum threshold. There is no functional impairment per se as he receives A/A+ on writing assignments, including handwritten ones so there is no basis for requesting help from school.

I think DS13 is sick of always having to dictate during group work in class, particularly as he often provides a majority of the content. He sees it as a handicap. The other kids are nice about it and volunteers to scribe and it has not affected his popularity/desirability as a group member so again no functional impairment as far as the school is concerned. From my perspective, I have seen how laborious and time-consuming it is when he has to copy essays neatly on applications when typing is specifically not permitted.

Anyhow, I am at a loss as this is something he should have fixed years ago but I could not have forced him. It seems to me that he has to learn to write neatly and then practice writing that way over and over again.

Any ideas?

Honestly, probably the easiest and cheapest way to do it would be for him to find a font he likes and to practice copying it. Over and over and over and over. Retrain his hand and his brain to make the letters.
I did that for myself in 4th grade and I still don't love my handwriting but it is legible.

I don't know Quantum - can he just use typing instead at school?

It makes me think twice just a bit - if his handwriting is laborious enough that he's dictating during group projects, it sounds like it's quite a bit slower than his peers. Have you tried measuring his speed at home just to see if it's significantly slower than expected for his grade/age level?

If it is, I'm a bit skeptical that handwriting practice at his age is going to speed it up.

I'm also not 100% convinced I'd rely on a teacher's assessment of handwriting ability or sometimes even an OT's assessment re dysgraphia diagnosis. My extremely dysgraphic ds has an OT assessment that falls within average - all that really says is that he's not motor-disabled to the point he can't do the task, it doesn't address what's going on neurologically that actually results in his dysgraphia. I realize I'm not explaining this very well at all.... I'm in a hurry lol!

Has your ds had a neuropsych eval ever? Was there a gap in processing speed vs other subtests such as verbal etc?

Best wishes,

polarbear

I actually looked at Handwriting Without Tears many years ago but DS was so resistant to working on it so I never bought the materials. It's kind if funny but DS actually often writes with his papers at an angle, particularly when he is not at a desk.

One of DS's problem is that he doesn't naturally write his letters the correct way; for example, he has a tendency to start from the bottom, etc. There are also still some issues with spacing. His handwriting is probably considered legible by most people although it is often hard to read unless he is making the effort to write neatly.

DS is endowed with high processing speed so is actually very fast with almost everything, including essay composition and even handwriting. The OT in 4th grade clocked him at above average in speed, measured as number of characters per minute. I think his teammates scribe not because he doesn't write fast enough but so that they can read the writing afterwards. Fortunately, DS can type bigger assignments or anything that goes home. It's just not very practical to type everything during class. I think his goal would be to write neatly at a good speed; right now he usually writes very quickly but apparently legible to the teachers although barely legible to me and often not legible to his peers. When he tries to write very neatly for applications and such it takes him a long time - maybe it's also an issue of finding that in-between neatness/speed combination.

Hm. One wonders if his nonstandard letter formation (which I often see in dysgraphics) is a reflection of some subtle motor planning or visual-spatial relative weakness--if you start all your letters from the bottom up, you don't have to predict where the bottoms of them will end up accurately enough for them to land on the lines. The spacing issues would be consistent with that, as it sounds like he does not automatically judge the correct distance between letters/words before he begins writing them. Does he have any other spatial or fine-motor planning symptoms?

The "processing speed" I was referring to is a very specific subtest under the processing speed category on the WISC (coding) - which can have results influenced by fine motor challenges (it's a potential clue re dysgraphia). Although the subtest itself is supposed to be measuring how quickly a person works produces output. if the person has fine motor dysgraphia they may have what looks like an anomalously low score on this subtest.

The description of how your ds form his letters (bottom to top) and issues with spacing sound very much like my dysgraphic ds. Does your ds have an unusual pencil grip? Does he have any challenges with spelling *while writing* (not spelling tests).

If you haven't googled symptoms of dysgraphia you might want to take a look at it - there are several different types.



I dunno, there are quite a few of us with dysgraphic kids who actually do type everything in class (even one-sentence responses)... it works ok


The "apparently legible to the teachers" made me giggle - I've had so many teachers insist they can read my ds' handwriting when even he can't read it lol!


Have you asked him why he thinks it takes so much longer? You might try asking him if he's having to think about how to draw each letter, to get a sense if that's the issue (dysgraphia) or if he answers that he's just trying his best to be neat that would sound a bit less like dysgraphia.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I do have to say that I can read handwriting that dysgraphics can't read themselves...but then I've spent a bit more time than most people reading, um, idiosyncratic handwriting!

Why not? Lots of kids do (including both of mine).

It takes some practice to get up to a decent speed, but after that, it's a huge relief for the kids. For years, our school didn't provide AT, so we just sent in a cheap laptop ($100 or so should get you a refurbished Chromebook-type laptop - small enough to always be on the desk/ in knapsack, and boots up immediately). I suspect that huge amounts of practice to improve his writing may create much misery, but have limited effect, especially in the longer term. Dysgraphia doesn't fix easily, but it's readily by-passsed with a keyboard.

I'd second this - with the exception that if it is dysgraphia, chances are it won't "fix" at all. Handwriting might look neater with time, but the challenge with dysgraphia that's not easy to see is the impact on written expression - the dysgraphic person has to use a significant portion of their working memory forming letters which in most people is instead free to focus on spelling, punctuation, grammar and most importantly, content.

One other note - if it is dysgraphia, then he doesn't need to develop lightning-fast typing speed for typing to make a difference. Let him develop his own method of adaptive typing and don't focus on the speed.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Can he do the 2 things separately. Type for class and work on handwriting at home. I have write things by hand so often that I believe legible not too slow writing is essential. Not pages and pages usually though.

My son is 14 now, with dyslexia and dysgraphia. About two years ago, he asked for help improving his illegible handwriting. He also had never been taught cursive in school (which is ridiculous!!). He's always had terrible handwriting, but we focussed on reading intervention and ignored writing because it would have seemed just too punitive to do both. I bought Handwriting Without Tears, and another book that received 5 stars on Amazon. He worked on it periodically over a summer. He can now write cursive, and wrote me a lovely cursive letter for Christmas! He's still slow at it, but he can write legibly and it doesn't take him too awfully long to write longhand. I think we'll go back to his 504, which allows him to write on a computer, when he takes AP classes. I'd say if your son is ASKING for help improving, get one of the handwriting books and see if he wants to do it on his own and if he wants help remembering to do it regularly. If he's motivated, he'll probably just do it himself.

I think you are right on the money. When he was much younger, there were obvious but subtle motor planning and visual-spatial (relative?) weaknesses. Over time, he has improved tremendously. I think video games and instrumental music helped along with neurological maturation. At this point, he may even be above average in those abilities but still with certain subtle issues that are generally well-compensated. It is hard for me to judge visual-spatial because my abilities are far superior to his but then they also are to the average person's. I think his visual spatial skills are okay partly because he did extremely well even with AoPS 3D Geometry problems - he can visualize well enough to create and manipulate 3D images using software in order to solve problems. Of course, when he drew and extended 3D images by hand they look confusing.

Polarbear, those are really excellent points and I know what you are getting at since my oldest is dysgraphic and have classic symptoms. I am pretty sure that DS13 is not truly dysgraphic. He can write really fast so can't possibly need to think about how to form each letter. The spacing issues have improved tremendously from early elementary and the formation issues I partly blame on lack of strict teaching/correcting in K. I can see how typing everything would be an improvement for students with dysgraphia. As for DS, I think that it takes him a long time to write neatly because he stops and thinks about what he is doing (maybe even each letter/word?) and he is trying to be too perfect.

Hats off to you and to all those teachers who have to suffer through pages and pages of barely legible handwriting!

Patypus101, you are absolutely right as far as typing for people with dysgraphia. However, it is more efficient/practical for many other students (without writing challenges) to make short notations on handouts than to either compile separate notes or scan every page before marking comments with a keyboard and printing. I have fast handwriting and also am a proficient touch-typist and would never limit myself to typing. It is faster and more efficient for DS (both while making notations and for checking/reviewing in the future) to write most of the time in class. He is fast and legible to himself and the teacher, just illegible to many classmates.

I do think he "wants" to work on handwriting at home to improve legibility to the average person. Hopefully, he will get around to using the HWT. If it were pages and pages, then he would automatically use the computer so not an issue.

That's great to hear, syoblrig! Good for your DS. Things have been heating up but hopefully by summer if not by spring, DS will have time to work on HWT on a semi-consistent basis. I think he does want my help to nudge/motivate him, kind of like an informal coach.

Thanks, spaghetti, for another confirmation that it's worth revisiting! DS doesn't approach anywhere near the severity of your DS' symptoms, but I have certainly notice neurological changes, particularly over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, DS often writes his name worse than he writes everything else, maybe because he has written it so often that he does it super fast. To be fair, it is still legible (barely) but requires an unfamiliar reader to pause.