Handwriting help for my NON-LD kid!

Easy answer, but you’ll have to fight your school over it: Forget rubber grips which are a non-solution to the wrong problem; the rubber-grip assumption is that the student is holding the pencil incorrectly, while my experience is that the pencil itself is the problem.

The problem is that to write with a pencil you have to press down quite hard on the paper. This is fatiguing anyway. For a child whose hands are so much smaller than an adult’s, it is a lot of stress. Then, while forcing down too hard in one direction, you are trying to make very fine controlled motions in other directions and the muscles are fighting each other and causing pain.

Throw out the yellow pencils (literally) and get tools that require no pressure at all on the paper. I find cheap rolling writers from the office supply store quite effective, being sure to throw them out as soon as they start to dry. Super-fine markers are also excellent, and the top of the line is a fountain pen (can still get the Scheaffer’s under ten dollars, although you often have to order the ink unfortunately)

Then you have to re-train your daughter to write without grinding the tool into the paper. This takes some time unlearning, but once she gets the idea she will feel much better. Practice large loose circles and swooping lines without even putting the hand downon the paper. Watch her posture and stop her using the left elbow as a prop under the chest and leaning her weight into the pencil point. (Yes, I saw her in my crystal ball. No, actually, it’s a natural physical adaptation to a demand beyond the kid;s strength and all my students do it uinfortunately)

Now the hard part. Your school teachers are no doubt convinced that there are Eleventh and Twelfth Commandments “Thou must write all numbers and all elementary school work in pencil” and “Thou must erase.” I promise you these comandments are not written anywhere, but you’ll have a hard fight against such a deeply held religious faith.

Even practicing in pen a few hours a week at home can undo some of the damage, but for best results try to get into her IEP that she is allowed to write — yes *including math* — in pen.

Thanks victoria! I do remember you posting on this topic in the past now that you mention it. I’ll work on this at home. This is my kid with no IEP (she has no learning issues) so we’ll see what we can “undo” over the summer and worry about next year in the fall. Thanks![/code]

I like Victoria’s comments on erasing and so on.

I think many schools do not teach handwriting any more. They are expected to learn it like they do reading, well just guess around and maybe they’ll get it.

I think Handwriting without tears (www.hwtears.com) will work great with a normal kid. The beauty of it is that it is fun (well maybe not like video games and skatingboarding :-)) but the kids usually like it, and takes only 5-15 min a day (and it is not recommended for longer). It teaches good habits and letter formation. The manuscript is much better than the cursive however both would be ok, esp for a normal kid.

Also it is inexpensive. you don’t need any of the little extras, and if it is an older kid I would suggest you do not use the workbooks.

—des

karen,

I tried Handwriting without Tears last summer with my then 6 year old who has some letter formation issues. It is a very good program and easy to use. I don’t know if it would help grip issues.

My eldest, who also is not LD, has had handwriting issues. She does not hold a pencil correctly and by 6th grade typed everything. I was totally unsuccessful at getting her to change. In the end, it hasn’t mattered.

When I looked around at my family, I am the only one who holds a pencil correctly. None except my middle child are LD.

Beth

As far as holding a pencil. there’s “correctly” as generations of teachers have tried (and failed) to enforce, there is functionally, and there is non-functionally.

The grip that we are all told was “correct” is between the index finger and thumb. This is a grip I could never manage in my life and neither could my daughter, although we both manage to do calligraphy. The index finger and thumb grip is very stressful on the joints and immensely fatiguing for many of us.
The triangular rubber oencil grips are meant to force a finger-and-thumb grip and if you have a stress problem already, they’ll be even more uncomfortable.

A *functional* grip is one that allows you to sit in a relaxed vertical position, allows you to move your whole arm freely so you are not damaging your wrist and finger joints, and allows you to see what you are writing. By the way, read any good text on calligraphy or painting and it will suggest the same thing.
Personally I hold the pen against my middle finger for more support, half in-between the index and middle, and held in place by the thumb. A few nit-picking teachers (including one when I was an adult and a teacher myself, believe it or not!) notice this “incorrect” grip and rip the pen out of my hand, but most people don’t even see it and just compliment my nice copperplate. Mrs. Ross who taught the copperplate tried to get me to use just finger and thumb but didn’t get all uptight about it, which is why I can write today.

A *non-functional* grip is one that is impossible to write with any control or at any speed or to see what you are writing. Unfortunately, we all love our habits and are determined to keep them even if they don’t help us (all procrastinators, poor dieters, math-anxious, or smokers, you know what I mean) so if your kid has developed this in kindergarten and Grade 1 it is a job to unteach it, and longer and harder the more he practices the inefficient method.
I am seeing a lot of kids recently who apparently were just handed crayons and told to get on the floor and write, with no instruction. They develop a grip that works for a tiny hand and a hard crayon in a prone position, a fist grip and hard pressure with the eye directly over the point to give visual control since kinesthetic feedback is impossible in this situation. When they get to pencils and desks, they maintain some sort of fist grip, the hard pressure, and the eye right over the point. To make this work they lean the left arm on the desk, often get up on their knees on the chair to get more leverage, pivot the chest over the left arm, and often “hook” the hand like a left-hander (BTW lefties do NOT have to do this, it’s more lack of teaching); the eye is right over the pencil point and the whole affair is a huge physical effort.
Worse yet, I have some studentwho started out OK and have learned this inefficient and counterproductive habit in their classrooms, one finishing Grade 2 right now who just started crawling up on the desk and tying herself in knots to write a month or two ago.
The problem with this approach is the gambler’s fallacy — you win a couple of times at the beginning so you think you have a winning system, but in the long run you lose and lose and lose. Little kids don’t know how things will work out in the future and that’s why parents and teachers have responsibilities to prevent counterproductive methods, whether the kids like them or not.
Slow, fatiguing, painful writing is going to lead to less and less writing and continue in a vicious circle.

When I am tutoring kids at first they resist change like crazy. I tell them I’m going to teach them an easier way and they don’t want to try it. They sometimes deliberately do badly so, they hope, I’ll let them do things the way they always have. I keep stressing that we want to do things easily and smoothly and I keep at it, and as long as the parents will go along over the hump of difficulty, in a couple of months things turn around.

>I tried Handwriting without Tears last summer with my then 6 year old who has some letter formation issues. It is a very good program and easy to use. I don’t know if it would help grip issues.
Beth[/quote]

It does deal with them (also with posture and the death grip on the pencil). I think they are more in the teacher’s guide though, so you should get that if you want to do this. She has some great “tricks” to picking up a pencil and getting the grasp right each and every time. WIth the two students I used it with , I think I spent a week or two just on the grasp and posture.

—des

I know it isn’t “proper” but it works for me..having my middle finger balance it. I am also an artist so I guess it doesn’t matter how one holds the utensil as long as you can get the results you want.

Putting use of pen instead of pencil into the IEP modifications, sounds good. Unfortunately the special ed director feels I have too many modifications, and a teacher won’t want to read them. Maybe I can sneak it in next to Co-writer and other assistive technology.

Patti — “As long as you get the results you want” is a can of worms in handwriting, just as it is in reading.

Very few people actually define the results they want.
And what the kids want (escape from class, generally) is different from what the teacher wants, which is very different from what the parents want.

So the very worst reading and writing (and math) habits can be accepted as “successes” as long as they approach the bare minimum required for the primary grades. When the student can’t get beyond primary level with the counterproductive habits, nobody owns the problem and the kid is left holding the bag for the rest of his life.

Somehow or other we need to get a long-term view back into the whole setup. Until we do, I’d say to be very cautious of any “good enough” methods.