Handwriting Help for My 4Th Grader

Have him trace letters.
Use a thicker pencil and/or a pencil grip.
I agree that he could probably benefit from some OT.

As long as it is legible, I don't see a problem. I have heard that the smartest people have the worst handwriting - because their brains are working so much faster than they can write. And I have noticed that at work - the best attorneys have atrocious handwriting.

Could you give more of a description of your son's handwriting? For example, is his writing on just one side of the page, or does it slant off the lines? Does it slant in a particular direction? Does he form the letters at all correctly? For example, when writing a lower case a, does he follow the way the arrows instruct a beginning writer to go, or does he just make a shape of an a by any means possible, even if he starts at the bottom or makes it completely wrong, and perhaps different every time? Does he form letters backwards? Can teachers (or you) read what he's written? Can he read what he's written? Can he read other people's handwriting?

I'm asking because my daughter was diagnosed with dysgraphia when she was in 3rd grade. She had no vision problems, could build Legos, was an advanced reader, etc, but her writing started in the center of the page and drifted down to the right in an extreme way. It was illegible. She got some occupational therapy, and was allowed to use a keyboard with a 504 plan, when answers had to be handwritten. The questions I asked you above were some of the questions they asked us when evaluating her.

You can't equate building Legos with handwriting. It's a totally different skill set.

You need to find an Occupational Therapist (OT) to assess him. I would even go so far as to take him to a pediatric neurologist. That might sound like overkill, but the reason I'm recommending it is that I took my own son because his OT asked me to. It turned out that he had a weakness in his right hand and I ended up taking him to an OT who actually specialized in handwriting (not easy to find). I did this to address this issue AND teach him to write at the same time. It was just before he went to kindergarten (I redshirted him for a year, so he was older) and both the OT and the handwriting classes helped him a great deal. She used the "Handwriting Without Tears" method by Jan Olsen.

The thing is, you haven't had your child evaluated. You have NO IDEA what his problem is. Do him the favor of having an OT work with him some.

Not everyone has neat handwriting. My husband is 50 and I cant read anything he writes.

I know typing is becoming the norm but I still feel that people should learn to write even cursive. We sill need to sign our names on important documents.

Try some writing pads and suggest that he keep a daily journal. He only needs a few sentences a day not pages full of writing.

My son's hand would cramp up in 4th grade. He would say it hurt and have a little "tantrum" throwing his pencil at home when he was doing homework...and just give up. I talked to the school and they had us both go see the occupational therapist. She gave us a list of things for him to try. He is a lefty so it is harder for him to write. He grips the pencil in a death grip so that is why his hand hurts. He also presses too hard. She had him focus on writing lightly, try mechanical pencils which break if you press hard, do hand and arm stretches (bending hands back, squeeze and flex, move hands in circles, etc). She had us try different pencil grips...those rubber things you can put on a pencil. He liked the triangle shaped one. She told him to stop every few minutes and consciously notice his hands are tense and loosen them up, do stretches, etc. That's all I remember right now...these things did help. I realize this is different from your son, but perhaps something from this list will help. Honestly, I would give him handwriting practice 3x a week at home...lightly tracing letters in a handwriting book and then moving on to doing it on his own on that special paper for practicing handwriting. I'd have him focus on getting all letters the same size.

My husband has terrible handwriting. Often times he can't read what he wrote. Today he would go to OT to address this problem.

I think you are making a mistake thinking it is not a fine motor skill issue. Have your son evaluated so then you know for sure.

Hand writing matters even as an adult... My husband is convinced he failed the one section of the CPA exam because the reviewer could not read his writing. (There are 4 sections of the test, he passed 3 the first time and the section he failed was the section he felt he was the strongest in but it required hand written answers.
Also, my husband leads many meetings and it is not uncommon for him to use a white board. He really would love to have neater writing at this time)

You can get practice books at office supply and teacher supply stores.

At our schools, the 3rd grade focuses on handwriting and by grade 5 you are counted off points if you don't have cursive that's decent... We don't ask for perfect... Just readable and ability to improve.

Practice with home projects, spelling packets for the week, etc.

I'm 42, my letters are a blend of cursive, cap and small, in all different sizes. Yes, it's nearly impossible to read. I blame it on too much school. My writing was decent before grad school.

Handwriting is old fashion. Like seriously, in 10 years there will be no paperwork.

I filled out new patient paperwork today, and I kept thinking, why aren't I just filling in docs online? The admin wouldn't have to enter it, and it would be easier and faster for me too. Someday there will just be computers or tablets at registration.

My olderst has horrrible writing. So when he knows someone is going to be trying to read his writing he will write with his left hand. My oldest is 20 but his hand writing is absolutely aweful. He did make it through grammer school and high school with the aweful writing. He learned how to communiate with teachers typing his throughs over writing them out.

Get him to practice. Teach him to type and perhaps he could use a table to type things that class mates are asked to write.

He could practice writing stories. I also like the idea of him copying paragraphs. Paragraphs from his text books would be great.

More practice. Give him a paragraph a day to copy PERFECTLY NEATLY for you before he can do any privileges like TV or video games. If he does just that much per day, it will get better over time. It's sad that schools don't stress actual handwriting "neatness" practice. They don't teach cursive at my kid's school so we do the Zaner Blozer workbooks at home and I have them practice a few days per week, just for about 15 mins or so. They get home, rest, snack, play, and then before dinner they do instrument practices and cursive exercise (2-3 times per week) then dinner, then regular homework.

Can't he start typing at this point? My son was also AWFUL at handwriting, hated it (and was a master Lego builder as well!) but by fourth grade they had some decent experience with a keyboard and most of the kids (boys especially) preferred to do their written work on the computer and print it out.

Have you talked to the teacher? How much time do the kids actually spend writing? Some classes are using keyboards so much, of they aren't truly working on "penmanship" and they haven't been required to really write legibly. It could be a fine motor thing - the skills for writing are different from those for drawing and vastly different from building Legos. Have you looked at his pencil grip? My son was great at Legos and art but had an unusual grip and poor handwriting.

It may be an OT sort of thing but the first step is to look at what's in the curriculum and school expectations. I don't think you can get him to practice until you know what's already been done and what techniques are beneficial. There is also special paper that helps kids learn about placement of letter parts on, below and above the line. But cursive is an entirely different skill set than block letters. I'd get some professional input on this from the school.

Maybe he should keep a journal.
Practice is what he needs.
If that doesn't work, he'll have to become a doctor.
His handwriting will be perfect for writing on prescription pads - not many can read that writing.

What does the teacher say? Isn't this something they should be working on during the school day?

My handwriting has always sucked. Always. But if required, I can write relatively neatly. I have to purposefully do so.

My youngest is the same way. I finally started making him rewrite his work if it was messy. I erased it all and made him do it again. I explained that perfection wasn't required, but slowing down and writing mostly decently was. It didn't take long before he showed improvement, and I ensured that he know I saw it. His writing still sucks, but it's legible and consistent.

My 9 year old 4th grader is the same way. Often it's because he is rushing. He doesn't write neatly and quickly. So when we get him to slow down, he does fine. We make him redo his work when it's not neat.

look into and research and practice Form Drawing and teach it to your son. I guarantee if you do this consistently and if you use the method of telling a bit of a story with it his handwriting will transform.

As with everything its a matter of practice makes perfect or at least makes progress.

I'm in exactly the same boat. - same description of my son's interests and everything. I recently suggested to my son that he try his left hand - his dad is ambidextrous and it's possible he is too and may do better with his left. He's trying, but In the meantime, I'll be interested to see responses.

Talk to his teachers again and consider speaking to the occupational therapist for the school. Some things that were suggested for my DD were to write with a special pencil grip, to practice letters (as one would at a younger age) and to use a binder to write on a slant. If he rushes, encourage him to take more time with his writing. It's not a race. And try to get him to write fun things - like groceries he wants, special outings, letters to Grandma, etc.

My SS wrote so poorly that by 8th he was requested to type his work. To this day he writes like a lefty with his right hand and is almost indecipherable. Thank goodness for computers! However, I do agree that legibility is a problem even for adults. Taking notes in meetings, writing legible phone numbers and email addresses, etc. It would only help him to work on it.

Teach him how to write in cursive. You can check almost any homeschool website and find several different handwriting methods/workbooks. My younger daughter used to have handwriting that made it look like she had written it with her feet. I am not even kidding, that's exactly what it looked like. My grandmother, who taught 4th grade for 45 years, suggested that I teach her cursive. Voila! That solved the problem. This child now has gorgeous handwriting. I think the problem is that they don't really teach handwriting in most schools anymore - and really, how can we expect children to have nice handwriting if we don't teach them how?