Handwriting problems are not as much of a problem now for my 10 year old son. He is actually writing more numbers now that I started letting him use a calculator. I still have him do a few of the problems without a calculator and I let him try to figure out some of the answers using mental math. I bought a lap desk that has a calculator on top, a clip to hold papers in place, and room inside to hold math books. It always seemed like he had trouble with pencil lead breaking and now it is easy for him to reach inside the lap desk and get another pencil. And it always seemed like using scratch paper was a problem for him and he would somehow wrinkle the pages and this annoyed him. Because the clip on his lap desk holds things in place he doesn't have this problem and he can move to a different room to do math if he wants.
He is not having any trouble doing a page a day in his 8th grade math workbook and he prefers doing this to doing Aleks because he can show his dad what he did and he can tell that we are both very happy about this. His dad notices the difference in his ability to write numbers, especially his ability to write small enough now to write answers in the workbook.
He has always been proud of the fact that he can mentally get answers faster than I can. I tell him this is because I became calculator dependent at an early age and I didn't want that to happen to him so we will continue to do some of the math without a calculator.
He does still have the same trouble with hands getting tired and he does still complain about this but it is almost like math is a little more fun now so he will keep going after just a short break.
