So dd6 is seemingly doing great in school. Straight 1's (yay!) except for handwriting where she got the worst possible score. I agree with the teacher. Her handwriting is terrible! I've tried HWT, daily handwriting practice.... Neither has helped. Any suggestions? She seems to just not have the best fine motor skills.

Yes, it could be a visual processing issue. What did you do for vision therapy? Are there books that you would recommend? Did you go to a therapist, or is this something you can do at home?

This might be a silly question - but is her handwriting always bad? I mean, for my DS (granted he has super strong fine motor, so this doesn't exactly apply), while he CAN write beautifully... a lot of time (or if he is writing more than a few sentences), he will just get really sloppy. I think it's mostly laziness/rushing on his part. Again, this might be silly because you already ruled this out, but just in case she is rushing or something like that, I thought I would mention - maybe it's just a matter or taking her time. Or some combo of that and visual processing. Or just the latter. Or something else entirely. lol, super useful, I know! Best of luck, hope you figure it out.

Thanks for the questions Marnie - yes, just trying to figure it out. She *can* write neatly if she really slows down a lot and spends a ton of effort on it.

There's a big difference between "cannot" write neatly and "chooses not to." It sounds like your DD is in the second camp. It does take more time and effort to write neatly, and when your brain is working at 1,000 wpm, that's torture.

My DD9 had the same issue at your DD's age. She had been writing beautifully at 3-4 (better than I ever did), and then started turning in slop at school. We intervened by telling her that she didn't have to write perfectly, and we understood the desire for speed... but "good enough" is only good enough if someone else can read it. Thereafter, if she did a homework assignment and we couldn't read it, we'd make her rewrite it. That taught her to put in enough effort to get it past us the first time.

She was having similar issues with rushing through her work, too (not reading instructions fully, sloppy mistakes in math, etc.), so we instituted an incentive where she can earn a few additional dollars when she brings home papers with As and Bs on them. It's got her paying a lot more attention to the quality of her work, and has been very effective.

Really confused on our end about printing. Gifted son printed beautifully for cyber schooling. In public school setting, time is always tight, the lines to write on are narrow and our child seems to think speed is necessary, so neatness is compromised. Wondering if standardized testing at the state level might require a computer for essay writing. This seems to be a common concern for gifted boys. I do not have info. about gifted girls and handwriting. Hope it helps.

Sometimes it's more complex than that. Kids with handwriting disabilities sometimes "draw" their letters rather than "writing" them if they have to be neat-- engaging the "wrong" part of the brain, and making it really hard to focus on content and the actual production of writing at the same time.

One of my kids can either write legibly or keep track of his thoughts, but not both at the same time. Thanks to serious motor planning issues, the writing takes up most of his available brainpower. Typing is improving things somewhat.

If neat handwriting is better only with a lot of effort and attention, that is substantially different than being lazy. When handwriting is automatic, letters come out fairly consistently with little attention. Whether diagnosable or tolerated by a school, I personally think it is a real and important distinction. Either way, early keyboarding may help from becoming disgruntled with all of writing due to being penalized or stressed over a lack of automaticity.

I can write neat, if it is the only thing I am doing. It isn't really writing, it is more like drafting or drawing. There is no fine control automaticity in it. While writing neat, I can't be very creative or think deeply or even pay attention to what someone else is saying.

ITA with DeeDee and ZenScanner. FWIW, I don't think it's necessarily easy to recognize what's up if there is a challenge with motor planning and handwriting when a child is still in K-1st grade. My dysgraphic's handwriting was incredibly sloppy at that age, but it wasn't the sloppiest handwriting in the class.

Some things I'd look for if you suspect a potential issue with handwriting:

1) (and I think you've noticed this) Are the challenges with handwriting way out of step with other academics?

2) Is your dd refusing to do work in class or at home that involves handwriting, but otherwise seems to be work that would be easy for her? (We saw this with math worksheets - we knew ds understood the concepts and the applications, but he would sit and stare and do nothing when he had a worksheet in front of him - and if we encouraged him by showing him verbally that he knew what to do, then encouraged him to write down answers, he threw tantrums instead of writing)

3) Try to observe how slow and labored the handwriting is compared to peers in her classroom

4) Does she seem to be slow to do other fine-motor related tasks - things like tying shoes, manipulating buttons, zipping zippers, putting on a coat etc. (note - I would not assume that because a child can draw well or make tiny clay figures easily that they aren't challenged with motor planning and handwriting - these are two very different types of activities).

5) Does she seem to consistently form her letters (however she's been taught), or does she seem to make them randomly each time, or stop to think about how to draw them?

Visual processing was mentioned above - and I have a dd who has had visual processing issues - her handwriting was very sloppy when she was in early elementary prior to vision therapy. I wouldn't immediately run off to find a vision therapists on that alone though. For instance, our dd also struggled with learning to read, and she appeared to be extremely klutzy, plus she didn't sit on chairs, she was always sliding off or wanting to stand up etc. She held her head in a very odd way when she was doing her schoolwork.

The thing is there are all kinds of things that could be going on, and for kids who have either visual processing or motor planning issues, there is a wide spectrum of how each child is individually impacted. I've offered up a few observations from my family's experience, but really I could never have figured out independently with either of my kids who had sloppy handwriting in early elementary without the help of a thorough eval by a professional that looked at a broad range of functioning. I was, quite honestly, caught off-guard by both of their diagnoses, even though I thought I knew what was going on with each.

Best wishes,

polarbear

It's probably too early to expect automaticity in a K-1st grader, though. Automaticity is established via muscle memory, due to repetition.

The finer control you exercise up front, the finer tuned your muscle memory will be.

There is also a big difference between "acceptably legible" and "beautiful" penmanship.


The former is really the best that many people can hope to accomplish and maintain over a lifetime. Personally, I draw the line at functional handwriting when looking at whether or not there's something that needs addressing.

My DD's handwriting never really improved much even with a lot of practice and reinforcement, and she tires VERY quickly-- though she definitely has good automaticity while her hand strength lasts.

She will probably need to take notes even in college via a laptop or other mobile device. Longhand for an hour isn't going to happen, legibly or otherwise.

On the other hand, she CAN push herself to write legibly for a standardized test (state testing, ACT/SAT, etc.) when timed and when it counts.

At six years old, though-- she had the handwriting of a fourth year med student... or Sasquatch. Which is what my DH (lovingly) called her handwriting, frankly.

Because she didn't write (it was painful) she was quite slow to develop automaticity. She has it now, but it's been a long slow road.

Thank you all so much. I would say 90% of the time her writing is fast and very sloppy. Letters are not formed the same way each time, many letters look similar, and she still has "b" "d" reversal issues. If I remind her to write neatly, she can slow to about half the pace, the tongue comes out (somehow the tongue always comes out when she is trying to write neatly) and I would say the handwriting looks more typical first grade. If I offer a big incentive for writing neatly - a bowl of ice cream or something, her writing slows to a snails pace - and like zen scanner said - it is more like drawing or drafting than writing, and she can do a good job - but she can only do a few words like that and then she can't take it any more.

polar bear - 1) yes in most other areas she is really far ahead, but the handwriting really stands out as being an area that is a disaster. 2) She is a very active kid who would rather be running than sitting to write anything. 3)In the classroom she is both much faster and much more sloppy than her peers. Her teacher additionally commented on the volume of work she produces, because she will write pages and pages (of sloppily written work) in the time it takes most kids to turn out a single page. 4)bigger fine motor (buttons and zippers) are OK, but truly micro fine motor (tiny beads and rainbow loom) are not- I have no idea what is considered developmentally normally that way. Shoes are not ever on the correct feet. Never. 5) letters are always randomly made - lower case r is often formed like trying to write a checkmark backwards (starting at the right side of the letter). She starts each letter at a different place each time - we have done handwriting without tears, which tends to emphasize where to start from, but it did not seem to sink in.

I guess I am just wondering if this is something that can be fixed with more practice, and if so, what kind of practice...
I had a friend recommend that I try having her play with a squirt gun over the summer, practicing the pulling the trigger with just that one finger... I thought it was a good thought - this motion was really hard for her, and she always wanted to pull the trigger with two hands. Now that it is snowy, the squirt gun has been put away.

It seems like she may have some fine motor issues and some visual processing issues... but if that is the case... what should I do?

Can't remember if you said her pencil grip is Ok/normal? (tripod grasp). If she is holding a pencil incorrectly it could be she has weak hands/low muscle tone.
I would probably take her in for a private OT eval, specifiy that you are concerned with both fine motor and writing (but esp. writing) and they can do assessments to at least see if there is a fine motor issue. Some OT's can diagnose disorders like dysgraphia and others don't. But all of them can diagnose motor issues.

She is in a public school...can they/ would they do some of these assessments?... I would guess not for the visual processing, but I believe they have OT.

Is there still a preferred pencil grip? My kids both have a wierd grip, four finger grip for the one with bad handwriting. I pulled up the diagrams. My husband and I both have the tripod grasp. I think they were really particular about that back when we were in school. The other, dd, has some wierd one too which rests on her ring finger. Her writing is beautiful though, better than all of the rest of us. I never noticed until they were older, which may be too late to change.

I find varying info online. Anyone have any knowledge of that?

My son had an OT evaluation this week at school. We will see what she recommends in a week or so.