Handwriting Without Tears

I took my kid to the store and let her pick out a cheap fancy pen. She picked one with a big poofy feather ball on the end and glitter all down the length of it. She LOVES that thing. She tries extra hard when using that pen and is less likely to throw in the towel because she desires to use that pen.

In addition to practicing her writing make sure she gets lots of practice building up her fine motor skills: beading, lacing, making chains out of paper clips, that kind of thing. Working those muscle groups will really help with her writing skills! Ask her teacher for other ideas and maybe a referral to a handwriting or OT teacher/center.

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She may very well have a fine motor delay.

I think that needs work, not her handwriting, that will come naturally.

Talk to your pediatrician about an eval & getting some OT. Likely it will be fully covered by your insurance. Don't wait too long! Call now. And you can reinforce with at-home activities. It really will help her.

At the very least, google "fine motor activities" and work on some with her.

A pencil grip, a triangular pencil and drawing on a perpendicular surface (paper on the wall, art easel) will also help as will gripping & using tiny crayon stumpy bits and bits of small sidewalk chalk.

Did you get one of the triangle pencils? they are shaped like a triangle and help with the holding. also get her things to trace. this helps a lot. if she has one of the tablets that shows the letters and how to make them correctly. just give her a couple a day to do. then have the bottom line be one that she writes herself.

When my son had this trouble, the school suggested that we buy the pencil grips that you slip on over the pencil. They are a rubber like material and I bet you can find some in sparkly colors or something she might like.

If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, send me a private message with your address and I'll put some in an envelope so you can see. They really helped.

Also, the school resource spec. said that Hand. W/O Tears would be good but she had some of the worksheets that she had copied and gave us some. You can also try ebay.

We used clay and the squishy balls to increase strength in his hands also.

Good luck.

Fine motor skills take some kids longer to develop than others. I would do what I could to encourage her to have a pencil, crayon, marker, whatever in her hand as much as possible. Approach it from the artistic end and she might not realize she's working on those fine motor skills. Buy a white board, mount it on the wall and let her play teacher. Coloring books, buy white butcher paper and let her make pictures on it to become a tablecloth, sidewalk chalk, Magna Doodle boards are great. Let her pick up dried beans with tweezers. All those things will help improve those skills.

As for holding the pencil correctly, try buying white plastic practice golf balls, those little whiffle balls with holes all over them. Take a short pencil and push it through the holes. Let her write holding the ball. It forces her to hold the pencil using a pincer grip.

There is a lot you can do that will help her practice those skills without her realizing what she's doing.

Talk to an OT and ask her. I'll bet she could give you a recommendation.

I have used Handwriting Without Tears and I think it's a wonderful program, given that the person using it knows what they are doing. For my son, an OT taught handwriting group classes. I liked that because the kids saw other children doing it and that was better than one-on-one. She also worked with them on fine motor skills during little "breaks" (the kids didn't know they were still working -they thought they were having fun.). And she did some things that helped with sensory integration.

I loved this, T.. Tough insurance didn't cover it, it helped more than PT could have, and was a lot cheaper than either PT or individual tutoring or instruction. And I had the benefit of her professional training. I hope you can find something similar.

Dawn

Don't have her practice writing, have her practice drawing pictures. You can even have her practice tracing pictures.

My daughter had trouble with handwriting and she hated practicing so we had her practice the basics of handwriting (loops and lines) but with pictures. Also lots of coloring pictures (which my daughter liked). She didn't even realize she was practicing handwriting, she thought she was doing art :)

Her handwriting improved once she got better control over her pencil and we didn't even have to have her drill letters at all!

I agree with others. Contact an occupational therapist who can send you in the right direction. I have a cursive Handwriting Without Tears workbook that my coworker (OT) gave me to use with my students.