Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school stubborn about handwriting

My DD4.3 has been reading "forever" and able to sound out and spell words out for a long time. She has amazing fine motor stills with coloring and her drawing stands out as very advanced (better than some adults)and she could write her name before three, BUT now she wants to write things and could use help making letters the "right way," but typical for her, refuses to be shown things or helped in any way. This is frustrating because she wants to write things down. She spontaneously makes the letters the correct way with Playdough and can write a fair amount of them correctly, but there are some that are off, and I know she would love to be able to write better. Like I said, it is strange, since she can look at a picture and draw an almost identical animal, etc. Are there any other kids like this? I guess I can just let it go and let her either improve her writing on her own or let her preschool do it, but my sense is they aren't focusing on writing yet. The issue is the huge gap between her reading level and her developing spelling level and her writing. I guess I just don't know what typical four year olds writing looks like and even if hers is average, that frustrates her since those other skills are so many years ahead. Any suggestions?

It is pretty normal and I believe that most kids, esp ones who read well, self correct with these things in time. My DS6 (then 4)decided to write his name with his first letter backwards for about a year, just because he wanted to be different at first I think, then it became habit. No one said anything to him (because he is a perfectionist and wasn't really keen on him going on a writing strike again because he was afraid it wouldn't be perfect) and one day he just started doing it correctly.
I have found my son isn't really very interested in being taught much at all, he'd rather learn it himself. He tends to retain these new skills better I find.

One suggestion is to get a drawing / writing board with the handwriting lines on it, like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002SFLAQ8/

Ruled paper would work as well, but my son preferred using an erasable surface. The lines may help your child self-correct sizing or relative displacement types of errors.

With regard to correct shape and sequence of the writing strokes, you can find on the web some guides like this one:
http://www.handwritingforkids.com/handwrite/manuscript/alphabets/images/tguide123.gif

There are different ideas about the correct sequence of strokes for some of the letters, so you should look at a few before deciding.

IIRC there are some Kumon workbooks out there that may help. We have some (can't find them at the moment) that were good for letter formation: there would be a heavy outline to trace over, then a light one, then you would be expected to write the letter(s) on your own.

One way I've handled this (having a highly independent kid myself) is to overcome any resistance, over time, to help/teaching. Incentives can help, and so can communicating clearly the benefit you can give. You may have to be highly persistent, depending on how set in her ways she is. This will be a useful life skill, being able to learn from others.

I love your ideas, Lucounu, but she won't do those sort of things. She has never been interested in workbooks, or following directions through a "sequence of strokes." I wish she would do those things willingly, but I am not going to force her and turn it into a battle of the wills. I will continue to work on explaining to her how important this skill is and see if I can get her to take some baby steps. She really has this attitude of not wanting to be the student. Oh boy, I guess I was exactly the same way...

FWIW, I remember from my kids' preschool days that most 4 year olds could only write their first names and that many of them still did that badly, so I think you're right not to put too much worry into this. I also seem to recall many K students unable to write both their first and last name or any discernable letters at all, for that matter. And even quite a few 1st and 2nd graders who made their letters in a weird way even though they ended up looking normal.

Just in case this might work, I thought I'd tell you what I did with my kids that encouraged them to start writing. Thank you notes. Anytime they got a gift, they had to write a short thank you note before they could use it. At first, I would just ask them what they wanted to say and I would write the note with them signing their first name. When they mastered that, I would write the "Dear so and so" part and then draw dots in the shape of "Thank you" which my kids would "connect" to wrtite the words, and then they would write their name. Another technique that worked would be for me to just write "Thank you" on another piece of paper and then have them copy it on the thank you note as best they could from looking at it. Eventually, it progressed to writing the name of the person, thank you, and their name. And by that point they often began to write a short sentence or two. With some of my kids the whole progression was quick, and with others it took a while. After all, there aren't always a ton of reasons to write thank you notes -- usually just birthdays and holidays. Obviously, you could do the same thing with any kind of correspondence, but we found it worked with thank yous because we could emphasize how nice it was for someone to give them a gift and how it was important to say thank you before using the gift. And besides, sometimes they just wanted to use the gift!

Anyway, I could see writing down their phone number in dots and having them connect the dots, which gets them writing and learning their phone number. It would work also for their address, their birthday and Christmas wish lists, etc.

BTW: I totally get the attitude of not wanting to be the student. I never wanted (or want) to look like I don't know what I'm doing. Heck, when I was a kid I didn't even want to play in the front yard for fear of our neighbors or even passers-by thinking that I was childlike!

She might be beyond this idea but if she is having difficulties with getting the shape of the letter it might work.

Fair warning this little project is messy. Mix together a flour paste/paint. Everything is in your kitchen and you can find recipes online for it. Put it in a rectangular cake pan and have her 'write' her letters. It might keep her attention long enough to get the motions down and she should be able to then write them on paper.

Yeah, DD is like this. She has been reading fluently for a long time now, but her writing is far, far behind in comparison. She first wrote her name, recognizably, at 2, but she doesn't practice much. Every once in a while, she gets on an I-want-to-learn-to-write kick, and then she'll practice a lot, and makes significant improvements...and then she stops for a while and seems to forget all about it.

A few things we do:

When I'm writing something, she will help by writing some of the words or some of the letters. For example, when we recently moved, I labeled each box on each side (I know, I'm a bit of a nut). She would watch me write it on the first one or two sides and then want to do it herself on the other sides.

We make cards to send to people. She does the picture, and then we compromise on who does what writing. I typically write a bit of it and she writes a bit of it.

DH & I often sign our artwork. So she sometimes wants to sign hers. That gives her a bit of practice, especially because she sometimes wants to write her (long) full name.

DD has workbooks, but she doesn't use them much. She also has a few of the dry-erase books with letters to trace, but they're really frustrating because the pen slips around so much that it is impossible (even for me) to make one's letters really neat. I do think that tracing can be a helpful tool in learning to write, but I don't think it's the only way to do it. DD mostly prefers to watch someone write a letter, then write it herself.

Recently, DD got the idea that she wants to make her own book, but we haven't had time to do that yet. Maybe today.

I'm not worried about her learning to write, but I guess I might be more concerned if she was in school. She's probably just a bit ahead of average, but that would definitely hold her back if we were going to have to try to advocate for the radical acceleration she'd need to be challenged in a school setting.

Thanks for the suggestions. We tried the sloppy flour and water suggestion, and she LOVED making a mess with it. She was thrilled with it and even made some letters in there and let me guide her (which is almost unheard of with her). Later she wrote some B's down for me and handed them to me without my asking. She NEVER does this. My main motivation for helping her write better is in case she needs to be accelerated in a year or two and they require her handwriting to be at a certain level. We will try to make some cards and write letters too. She would much rather do something meaningful than just trace letters. She has such low interest in that sort of thing (I can't really blame her). Thanks again.

That is wonderful
My DS only wants to write things that are meaningful to him too.
He has a little project where he grows and sells seedlings. He writes the labels for the little pots himself and he is really very motivated there.
The other thing that happened the other night was when he pulled out my partner's Scattergories game. We played an untimed version and he stayed focused on writing down all of his answers.
He also has enjoyed writing the occasional note to remind me to do something for him.
On his birthday I gave him The Second Big Big Book of Tashi and wrote a little note wishing him happy birthday on the inside cover. He wrote "thank you for the book" completely independently and came and showed me.

So glad it worked and she enjoyed it.