Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Handwriting accomidation

KaT -
How many wpm is your son typing? It's great that he has a laptop as a back up, so now I suggest that you make sure he can use it as a tool when the time comes that he is shown to need it.

Personally, I would never be able to give such copious, detailed, thoughtful advice if I had to handwrite every word. As driven as I am to "share" I wouldn't bother if I had to pick up a pen every time - it just wouldn't happen.

I waw away on vacation, and reading my YSP emails on my cell phone. I got the strong urge to respond to one of the emails, and had to use the number pad on the phone. Believe me - it affected my response, in length, level of detail, and level of irritation that showed through in my writing tone. "Wow," I though to myself, "No wonder my 7 year old gives one word answers on his worksheets even though the teacher keeps critisizing him for not repeating back the question stem, and writing full detailed sentences."

You might want to let your son type his homework, at least. I get the idea of "just like everyone else" and I see it's appeal, but "hello? - is he just like everyone else? No." So how much of a pain in his neck do you want to be?

BTW - did you ever try Handwriting without tears? How did that go? I think that insisting on Handwriting practice is a good thing, I just don't think it's fair to ask him to use it as a tool at this point. Later when he is more mature, and has more of a desire to fit in, there will be time enough for handwriting. Actually this is a terrific question to post on the YSP pgclassroom list. Go sign up, post and intro, and ask away - a lot of people will disagree with me, and that's good.

Love and More Love,
Trinity

Hi Trinity,

I got my son one of those Typing Tutor computer softwares, and haven't checked lately what his speed is - but I know he can type fairly well whenever he uses our home PC, and this was backed up by the GATE teacher and his Technology teacher from school.

Never really got a chance to try Handwriting Without Tears. I'm still getting the feel for how the lists work on the YSW, but I will definitely bring this up as a topic.

Thanks much
KaT

I'm glad to hear that his typing is "usable" - still, check his WPM, casually, when you can. It will help you gauge just how much of his effort is into typing, and how much is left for expressing his mind.

Have you signed up for pgparenting email list? If not, send a quick email to your family consultant asking to be added to the email list, and "stand back" - prepare for your inbox to suddenly expand!

Then send a paragraph introducing yourself and outlining your school situation, to the list and ask if anyone has had luck with handwriting.

Smiles,
Trinity

chuckle...carriage returns.

There aren't any real standards, but apparently most schools look for the typing speed to be greater than the handwriting speed before they will allow keyboarding in the classroom. So, for most 8 year olds that would be about 18 wpm or so as handwriting is about 10-14 wpm.

before setting up a practice handwriting regimen, watch your child for signs of pain or discomfort, imbalance or posturing during handwriting tasks. Often they don't realize they are in pain, but you may see them pause now and then to shake the hand or head, shrug the shoulders, shift the balance from one side to the other and so on.

If you see these signs, then reconsider practicing and instead pursue core muscle development, OT for bilateral coordination if necessary...etc.

Handwriting isn't so straight forward as it seems. We decided this summer to give Mite (9) a break from his handwriting. his keyboarding has taken off and now he wants to use a keyboard at school rather than write. He's so relaxed when he keyboards. He pants when he writes.

then he is doing great. Wow!

Has anyone tried teaching cursive writing to their younger kids (starting at age 5 or before)? Schools in many countries teach cursive writing before printing. The theory is that it's easier for little kids to make the loopy shapes of cursive writing than the blocks required to print (think: what were the very first shapes your kids drew: rounded or carefully, deliberately angled?).

My eldest son (age 7) goes to a French immersion school where the kids start cursive writing in kindergarten. Some kid in his class could write his name in cursive in the pre-K year, and Henry was very excited by this and wanted me to teach him. I wrote his name in script and was amazed at how quickly he picked it up (first try).

So his handwriting was gorgeous by early-mid 1st grade. His printing was still pretty ropey then and was pretty much like everyone else's in the class. The kids write very long sentences in cursive, even in 1st grade.

I'd also add that we've found that language immersion schools (some public school districts have these) are great alternatives for bright kids, *especially* if they don't know a word of the language when they start school. Not understanding the language means that 1. they have a challenging classroom environment because they have to **figure out what teacher is saying**, even if it's just "Color the octopus blue." 2. Also, they learn something that could serve them all their lives, and 3. they get extra development in the language areas of their brains.

We didn't try it, but I have heard that this can work well, as the cursive involves gross motor, while the printing involves fine motor that develops later. Typically cursive is the method of choice for longer passages - although personally, I hate reading even my own cursive, so I don't use it. To my eye, it just looks like squiggles - even the cursive in books. I'm sure it's that I've never used it enought to get comfortable with it.

Good for you for finding a way to make school work for your child, and for getting the tool of writing into his life! Yippee!

smiles,
Trinity

That's how I started - cursive from grade 1. If I remember correctly up until 4th grade everything had to be in cursive and after that teachers did not care. So I pretty much stopped using cursive around middle school and never picked it up again :-)