How are all the children who struggle with writing getting along?

[foxinsocks]

I'm specifically thinking of the older ones (juniors, so y3+) where it starts to make a difference.

We said we'd give dd till Christmas before we sought outside help. Her writing did improve temporarily and we were very pleased but it seems to have taken another massive dive and she's gone back to not joining her letters, forgetting how to form them correctly . I don't know why that has happened tbh. It did take an almost inhuman effort to get it to improve at all tbh.

Now all the good writers are starting to get given handwriting pens and rather than this inspiring her to do better (which it's supposed to do), it's put her off writing all together.

So how are all the others getting along? I'm sticking this here so I remember post Christmas to think about what our next step should be!

[Reallytired]

Poor thing. I hope your lo can get outside help. In our area children don't get Occupational theraphy on the NHS for handwriting if they are over 8 years old, with the exception if they are really struggling when starting senior school.

My son is nearly six years old. He saw the occupational theraphist at school a few weeks ago. Apparently his problem is that he has very weak wrists. We now have a sheet of exercises to help him. Today he was playing with salad servers.

What I don't understand is that his school seems more concerned about the fact that he cannot use sissors than the fact he can't form his letters. My son complains it physically hurts to hold a pencil.

We have another OP appointment in January.

[coppertop]

Ds1 is in Yr3. He has always had problems with fine motor skills and this has affected his writing.

He now remembers to put his letters the right way around most of the time as he had a lot of extra practice with this in Yr2. He still writes a lot more slowly than other children but he no longer has to keep stopping to rest after every few letters.

The help he has had over the past few years has been done within the school rather than under the supervision of an OT. Using a sloped writing board has really helped him. Working on his general posture has helped a lot too.

He's not yet able to manage joined-up writing. AFAIK the rest of the class (mixed Yr3 and Yr4) are all still using pencils to write with. I think if using a pen was offered as an 'award' for good writing then ds1 would probably be put off too. It would be a constant reminder to him that he wasn't as good as everyone else (in his opinion).

[foxinsocks]

yes, this is how dd feels copper (she is also yr3). Her class is heavy with older girls and I'm not joking when I say that a large proportion of these girls have the most incredibly neat and perfect writing I have ever seen! One of dd's friends wrote her a note and I honestly thought her mother must have written it!

It's so hard to know what to do. She just will not practise - I asked her to write a letter to MIL and to MIL's sister to thank them for her Christmas presents (hoping this would get her to write) and got her these smelly pens (which she loves) and she wrote,

Dear Granny, thankyou for the present, love dd.

And err that's it. Even at school, they find it virtually impossible to get her to write any more than a sentence. She just won't do it and her problem is that she doesn't get any better because she isn't practising.

We've been doing softly softly with her and I wonder if it's time to get tough. I just don't know.

[foxinsocks]

I mean both mine have fine motor skills problems. Neither can eat 100% properly with knives and forks yet (and still find it easier not to use them but are getting better) but ds likes writing and writes out things like football tables and scores etc. and you can SEE his writing is improving iyswim.

[nodder]

DS aged 8, writes from the right to the left and each letter is about two inches high. He can't write his name and it is three letters long.