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I'm dysgraphic as heck (not nearly as bad as my son, but still pretty bad), and I took up calligraphy as a hobby as a child, partly because I loved words and wanted to make them beautiful, but also because I thought that it might help me with my handwriting.

It turns out that, since I'm a half-way decent artist, I can draw letters beautifully, and if my handwriting needs to be legible, this is what I do. It takes me about five times as long to draw letters as it takes other people to write them, but if what I am writing is short enough to hold in my working memory, short enough that I don't get fatigued, and if I have no time pressure, I can usually produce very clear output that makes people marvel at my lovely printing skills.

Of course, I can't do this if I simultaneously have to seriously think about composing what I am writing. In those situations, I either need a word processor, in which case I am fine, because I can easily go back and proof out all the motor errors that are sure to happen, or what will show up on the paper is a sloppy, illegible mess with poorly formed and sometimes indecipherable letters, letters and words out of order, omitted letters and words, orientation substitutions (d, g, q, b, p, etc.), and, seven out of ten times, poorly organized arguments, because trying to think about putting words and ideas together and trying to think about how to get them on the paper simultaneously is just more than my hands and brain can get together to accomplish at one time.

It is possible that what you see with your child is all motor delay, but I wouldn't be too quick to rule out dysgraphia. If you have inconsistent written work samples in class, I might consider asking the school to evaluate for dysgraphia or other hidden disabilities that could be affecting his ability to produce quality work in some circumstances and not others. The OT's report mentioned above about his writing speed should be considered as part of the information used to make this determination. Usually the school will also do IQ and achievement testing to find out the current level of academic functioning, and other, more specific tests to look at areas with suspected deficits.