Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How To Improve Handwriting?

It takes daily practice.

In my skip from 7th to 10th, my history teacher made us all read and take notes or take notes from her lectures. She graded us on the note taking. It was torture for me for the first few weeks as I was writing for 45-75 minutes every day and she checked our work EVERY day. I remember walking out of there with a sore, cramped hand and a bruised ego from the feedback. It worked.

I would suggest copying a print book to a composition book - pick a page a day to do. Then review. I would aim for high quality at first then both quality and quantity and then use different kinds of pens and pencils.

I'd pick a book on something DS likes or which is broken up well - perhaps poetry or "how things work" that has short sections and which are also interesting.

there are online work sheets for improving children's handwriting.
My daughter is left-handed, she began to write comprehensively when she was 4.


Handwriting practice consists of copying, not creating, letters, words and sentences. Ask your child to copy a letters..of course, the child will not perfect the handwriting in the first try. so, schedule a handwriting practice evryday or every other day. You can also give rewards if ever the child manages a good handwriting

We've had good luck with HWT and keyboarding on a daily basis.

I have a 3rd grade DS who is homeschooling. He is basically at age level in terms of handwriting (but as of this year is typing well). The output I require of him is age appropriate, even though the "input" is all way above grade level. He can produce something probably jr. high quality by typing now. But that is a fairly recent development.

This is hard and in some ways I think it is unfair to expect a 7 year old to write like a 10 year old very quickly because he can do everything else like a 10 year old? Any chance of working with teachers about the amount of output required in the interim? An ideal solution would allow him the time needed to catch up while giving him adequate classroom challenge.

Good luck!

Hi all, tks for the responses. Am making a purchase of the claw and HWT.

We'll try to take it easy - I never had this problem myself, but for some children, no challenge in school can be depressing. I'm only glad DS is quite motivated to change the situation.