Handwriting

From the first drawings in caves to modern writing, Handwriting is a human function that has been done for centuries.

Today, Handwriting is still a necessary functional task for school aged children and the most common way they express thoughts, ideas, and knowledge and reproduce learned topics. Even though modern technology is getting more and more advanced and accessible, we all do many handwriting tasks in our life. Apart from writing down the shopping list, birthday cards or filling out forms e.g. in the bank, students benefit from handwriting throughout their education and consequently poor handwriting skills may have an impact on students when trying to achieve higher level education.

Handwriting is not a skill that comes naturally to us and has to be taught.

It is a complex skill and the child requires many different skills to perform well during handwriting tasks. A person who writes needs motor planning, spatial organisation, visual motor coordination, kinaesthetic and tactile awareness, perception, higher level cognitive processing and language skills.

Difficulties with handwriting:

As handwriting is such a complex skill, many children and adults find it difficult.

Problems can occur in one or more of the following areas:

«  Legibility (is it difficult to decipher single words or whole paragraphs without knowing the context?)

«  Speed (is the speed appropriate for the child’s age?)

«  Comfort (does the child express discomfort or even pain when writing e.g. in fingers, wrist or shoulder)

«  Motivation (is the child getting enjoyment out of writing or is every word a struggle?)

«  Neatness (does the child smear or smudge a lot?)

 

When writing does your child?

«  mix  up upper & lower case letters

«  mix cursive & printed script

«  slope in a variety of directions

«  have difficulties with the organisation on the page/margin

«  have difficulties regarding formation/reversals

«  have frequent erasures/smudging

«  have difficulties with spelling, vocabulary, content

«  have difficulties with organisation/sequencing

 

If you feel your child shows one or more of the above ask yourself the following:

«  How is your child’s general coordination

«  How are your child’s fine motor skills/manual dexterity e.g. use of knife and fork?

«  Does your child use appropriate handwriting tools?

«  Is your child upset about his/her handwriting abilities?

«  Is there much noise around the child when writing?

«  Does the child sit properly at the table? Are his/her feet firmly on the ground?

 

I think my child has handwriting difficulties. Does he/she grow out of it?

Mild difficulties can often be corrected quickly with good teaching strategies and the child will catch up with her/his peers.

More moderate difficulties often require a more intensive approach or the difficulties will most likely persist into adulthood.

Please note that poor handwriting skills do not mean that your child will receive a diagnosis. It is true that many children with Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism or other Developmental Disorders have poor handwriting skills, but handwriting difficulties can also occur on their own.

 

Assessing Handwriting Difficulties:

If you have decided to get your child assessed, here might be some useful information about what we will be looking at. All the following are depending on the age of your child. We cater for school readiness assessments to adult handwriting assessments.

 

Your child will be asked to write from memory, copy from a text in front of his and copy something from a distance

 

The Pencil Grasp:

A child develops its pencil grasp gradually from the least mature “radial palmar grasp” to the most mature “lateral or dynamic tripod grasp”. The development can continue until the child is approx. 10.5 years of age.

Still, research has shown that it might be contra productive to change a child’s grasp at a later stage in life and even if the child uses a better grasp, it does not necessarily fix the handwriting problems.

 

Pencil Pressure:

Children with handwriting difficulties often apply incorrect pressure to the pencil. There is either no pressure applied or exaggerated pressure which can exhaust the child’s ability to write longer pieces of work.

 

Paper Positioning:

It is known that children with handwriting difficulties have inferior paper positioning and repeat changing the angling of the paper as well as trying to stabilise it causing constant disruption to the writing process.

 

Cursive Writing:

Cursive writing is a speedier way of writing as opposed to the print. A speedier writing progress is essential later in life when taking notes etc

 

Handwriting Speed:

Adequate speed is required for the child to take notes in school, university and later on in the work place. The inability to keep pace with their peers can lead to frustration, decreased motivation and could also affect their grades.

 

Memory:

Is the child remembering all the letters and able to write them down?

 

Orientation:

Are all letters and numbers facing in the correct direction

 

Placement:

Is the child able to place letters correctly on the baseline

 

Size:

How big or small the child chooses to write

 

Start:

Where each letter begins

 

Sequence:

Order and stroke direction of the letter parts. Poor start and/or sequencing of letters often progress to lack of fluency.

 

Control:

Neatness and proportion of the letter parts

 

Spacing:

Amount of spaces between letters in words and words in sentences

 

Handwriting Without Tears®

We love the Handwriting without tears programme and often choose to work with it. However we will incorporate different programmes and teaching styles if needed.

The Handwriting without tears programme is a developmentally based and very child friendly approach to improve your child’s handwriting skills.

The programme uses fun, entertaining and educational methods to teach handwriting to students.

 

Let’s get ready for school

This programme introduces school readiness activities to young children of all abilities. Through music, movement, colouring and many more multisensory activities your child will have great fun while developing important skills, such as colour and shape awareness, letter and number recognition, fine and gross motor control, social skills, language proficiency and counting abilities.

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Little Stars
Kindergarten
A Unique Preschool in the Southeast