Messy Handwritting

In severe cases this can be caused by a disability called dysgraphia. My son has this(it happens commonly with Aspergers). He has had occupational therapy, which helped a bit. Even in 3rd grade, his letters are backwards, oddly shaped, and unevenly sized and spaced. When he is working one-on-one with the therapist on special paper, he can produce neat work. But in the regular classroom and when doing homework he cannot keep up, show what he knows, and produce work at his grade level. His teacher often has him answer verbally and then writes for him. At home, I let him type his homework unless the handwriting itself is going to be graded. There is a yahoo discussion group that has been very helpful. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dysgraphia/

Let me tell you about a little boy named Kenny. His penmanship is BEYOND legible. I have tried and tried to read his scribbled notes. Its frustrating. His mother and sister have complained to me about it time and time again. My own sister stated one time that he must have been "drunk" when she saw his writing.
Kenny is my husband. He is 48 years old and is a software engineer. He is SUPER intellegent. I often say that it quite literally looks as if a chicken walked through ink before walking across the page.
Should you work on it? Yes. Does this means something other than poor penmanship? NO. He is probably very smart. Lets face it...some of us can write...some, not so much.

It's not always easy to make the fine muscles in the hand cooperate in a smooth, coordinated manner. I'm an artist, and I've always taken pride in my bold, expressive handwriting. But I've been losing it, due to progressive nerve damage, and possibly, age (63). It drives me crazy, because no amount of effort allows my strokes to be as smooth and effortless as they once were. I have a great deal of empathy for little kids who haven't yet mastered all those fine motor skillls. They take practice, and even then, not everybody will have good, legible handwriting.

Rather than make him redo what is probably a pretty laborious task, thus turning it into a punishing task, I'd just send the cards as he writes them. Little kids' handwriting is charming in its imperfection. It's authentic. You can think of it as his written voice. We wouldn't ask a child to change his voice to please us (well, okay, we do sometimes when they get too loud or whiny).

For future writing tasks, it's reasonable to ask him to take a little more time with his work (he no doubt wants to get the job out of the way), break it up into shorter sessions, and maybe even give him short practice assignments that focus on beautifully-shaped letters.

Then hang those pages up where the two of you can admire his improving penmanship. It's helpful, when praising kids, to admire the effort and the improvement. If we start praising for excellence and achievement, we risk making them more cautious and less willing to try.

check out this site in general, but ALSO the tutorials for helping kids with their handwriting:

http://www.hwtears.com/

Dear L.-

Perhaps your son in going to be a doctor?? lol

my eldest was left handed with OUT a doubt when he started school...then...IDK...maybe he was pressured by all the 'righties'?

Anyway...he has POOR handwriting. and he 'writes' righty...he 'eats' lefty...bats lefty...throws righty...

he is now 21...and we mostly e mail...text ...or phone!!

Good luck!
michele/cat

In the 3rd grade, handwriting is still 'messy' and not uniform.... and there is still a lack of organization... or rather, a 3rd grade level of organization.

My daughter is in 3rd grade.

I am a Mommy helper in class and help with the Teacher's paperwork/kids work... I SEE the entire classes handwriting.
It is 99%... still messy and not uniform. Among all students. There is only one kid in my daughter's class, that writes like an 'adult.'
It does not matter if it is a girl or boy handwriting....

Ask the Teacher about it.
But don't worry about it unless his Teacher is.

all the best,
Susan

I had this complaint about my first grader. She has messy handwriting and even though her letters come out correctly, they are messy because she writes them from the bottom up instead of from the top down. Every year the teacher promises that the next year will fix the problem. This year's teacher flat out told me that they no longer teach handwriting. She said it was a shame but there was just not enough time for it. She said she leaves it to the parents to work on that. So apparently this is across the board. I would continue to work on it with him, but don't force him so much that he starts to resent doing work with you.

Is your son left or right handed? Left handers are notorious at having sloppy handwriting until later in elementary school. Ditto the mom who mentioned fine motor skills. Fine motor skills typically take longer to develop in boys too.

If you really want to make a change for the better... one year my son's elementary school teacher gave all her students big, fat pencils for the year. The improvement was amazing with those large pencils. I was able to keep a few and still use them on my younger child, who really doesn't need them, but they are much easier for little hands to hold.

And, I bet there are some other wonderful qualities about your son, that you just adore. He has probably spent time developing other interests, not just penmanship yet.

Keep reminding him to practice and to try and neaten things up a bit. Hopefully he'll respond to your praise ;)

we rarely write anymore only to sign our name don't worry!

Hi L.,

Sounds like your son may needs more grip strength and better fine motor development. You could have him evaluated by an occupational therapist.
Does he use coloring books with crayons, not markers? Dot-to-dot pages? Play outside climbing and other activities that use the hands? Play with clay, not Play-doh?

Good luck,
: ) M.D.

How is he in other areas . . . physical coordination, etc.
He might need some help, extra coaching,
with how he uses his muscles in general.

Is printing (lettering) easier for him than cursive?
Would it be OK if he prints instead of writing cursive?

Also, I wonder if he gets anxious while writing
because he knows you're going to make him do it again.

Regarding organizational skills . . .
I think it is reasonable to help him in that area.
Some of us or more naturally organized than others.

I'm glad he's doing well in other areas.
I hope you (and other important people)
are giving him lots of positive feedback
for the things he's doing well.

Talk to his teacher. It may be nothing but he may need some OT to help with it. I am a teacher and a parent of a child with fine motor concerns who receives OT so I see this from both sides. One of the biggest things I would recommend is checking his grip. Most kids do not hold their pencil correctly. Get the teacher to help you with this so he/she can monitor it too. If a child does not hold the pencil correctly they can write neatly when pressured to do so and when they take their time, but they can not sustain that for longer tasks. We adopted a modified tripod grasp for my son instead of the usual grasp and it has worked well for him.

My son's in 2nd and I CRINGE at his handwriting. And his organization? What organization? You're not alone. (Light pencil lines on the thank you cards helped us, as suggested below.)

Practice, practice, practice...every day just 15 minutes, he will get better....

my second grade son got a zero in handwriting this quarter - we have gone back to the beginning with him - letter formation... we got the raised letter papaer from wallmart, and I sit with him while he does a line a capital A, lower case a,s he has to do 6 perfect ones then he can stop - he has to form them perfectly.
we are working on it, his writing is awful - he has poor fine motor skills.
his teacher suggested getting him a loom to try

Is he right or left handed?
My daughter has the worst handwriting and I can't read it, neither can teachers, so she types her papers. She's a lefty. Now she is a junior.
She has had to redo papers and she has had things marked wrong because they couldn't be read, that is when she started trying to make her work at least presentable, when papers were marked wrong when they had the right answer on them.
Has he started cursive? Somtimes that helps, sometimes not.
I homeschool my 9 year old, 4th grade. If I can't read it he redoes it, if it is a paper or paragraph he types it.

in our city, either 3rd or 4th grade they teach penmanship, check with the teachers and find out.. if they don't, any teachers store or educational store (ac moore even!) have practice books you can get and have him practice on his own.

I have one of those - in 9th grade now. We knew their was a problem in pre-k. We worked with her, but the school wouldn't even evaluate her until 3rd grade. Then they gave her OT, for 2 1/2 years. We also got a private tutor.

She's in 9th grade, and I still can't read a word of her writing. She never could do cursive, so this is printing we're talking about. She types what she needs to. It is what it is.

Probably not worth fighting with him too much. but maybe lining the paper with light pencil marks so he can stay straight and reminding him of spacign, and maybe threatening to take away a special something if he doesn't at least put forth a good effort.

This may sound crazy to you, but handwriting reveals what a person is like. I analyze handwriting and can tell you that if he has messy handwriting, you can't change it. It's who he is. As he gets older and changes, his handwriting will change as well revealing who he is becoming.