Preschooler Writing Help

[AnaKhouri]

My 4-year-old is very smart. I am not saying this because I am a 'special precious snowflake' parent, but because it's true. His preschool teacher says he is more than ready for kindergarten and hopes he will find it to be more of a challenge, academically (he has always needed more help socially, hence us sending him to preschool).

The one thing he absolutely will not 'get' is writing. His drawings are very sloppy and not particularly representative (mostly 'monsters' that are more or less blobs) and he hates writing. He refuses to hold his pencil/marker/crayon the correct way, which would give him more control over the tip and make it easier. I have showed him a million and one times, and he will hold it that way to form one letter and then go back to holding it with the tips of his fingers. It's incredibly frustrating because he is good at everything else, but is resistant to this one thing, and I know he can do it. I am thinking of setting up a sticker for the summer, making him practice a few minutes each day for stickers (he's a sticker whore) with the ultimate goal of writing his name legibly but it won't work if he won't hold his pencil correctly!

I know boys tend to have less fine motor control at a young age, but trust me, his motor control is GREAT (he can maneuver very small toys and is good at Jenga).

So how to convince him to hold his writing utensil the correct way?

[AnaKhouri]

Thanks for the advice. I know he's right-handed (t-ball confirmed this), but I don't think the way he is holding it IS working for him- and I think that's actually part of his problem. If he could write and draw the way he holds it, I would let it go. but he can't. He knows how to form the letters, they're just...all over the place. And then he cries because they don't look the way they should.

I am not an education professional though.

Maybe by making him work at it more I can better see if you are right or not.

[csquared]

I use to do that too. Don't remember how they broke me of that habit. I think it was learning cursive.

Training boils down to reward, punishment and repetition. Stickers for a reward is good. Do not make him do it again as a punishment. That makes writing a punishment. Then schedule 5 - 10 minutes(?) every day.

Something else to try is using a writing utensil that can not be held the way he is holding it. Not sure that you want to try a fountain or dip pen yet. Putting spiky objects on the tips of the pencils probably won't work either. How about teaching him to write with a brush? Water colors can clean up pretty easily. Maybe dry erase markers?

If all else fails, maybe he is looking to go to Med school?

[fireheart]

I am currently teaching kindergarteners as part of my prac.

A few of them are still not holding their pencil the right way and they do not have special needs that I'm aware of. Some of them were using a fist grip at the start of the year, but have since moved on to using a regular grip. So it's not uncommon.

Maybe have a look at setting up some "tracing cards" for him to get the feel of using a pencil/texta. These cards may have a number or letter (or both!) that can be traced with a marker/texta. They can also have things like curly lines or zig zAg lines or similar...basically stuff that helps shift the grip from fist to pencil.

[AnaKhouri]

We've tried tracing so many times. We have probably 10 tracing books and I've tried writing things in highlighter for him to trace. He will trace if he has to but he never seems to get any better. That's why I'm thinking of using the sticker system- a reward for doing something he dislikes. I wouldn't go over 5 minutes a day because of that.

I have never heard of dysgraphia. I will keep it in mind if nothing improves in the next couple years.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

[NecessaryCatharsis]

My son experienced the same frustration when he would try to copy what he saw was written in front of him vs the result of what he had written (the same as his pictures, which are often of the blob variety) and at 4 decided he was never writing again. So I started having him trace my printing, first with a highlighter (buy cheap ones, they get pushed really hard into the paper), then with him with a pen on my highlighter printing. It was very exciting for him to be able to write things that others could read, he started writing cards to grandma, notes for babysitters etc. He would practice his writing (then get bored and colour) when I was doing paperwork, so it just seemed like a natural part of the day.

His printing now (6) is excellent.

[Seshat]

I struggled with writing. I could sew (crookedly, but still sew), and play dexterity games and do other things that signalled/improved fine motor control, but I could not write.

I didn't develop neat handwriting until very late teens/early adulthood. Now I'm the neatest of the three of us (Toth, Bast and I). Which probably isn't saying much, but at least I'm legible.

Those finger-cradling pens patiokitty suggested might help. Getting a specialist involved might help.

One thing that really helped me - though I had to be older than your son before I understood it - was the knowledge/understanding of so-called 'muscle memory'.
I used to expect to learn physical-knowledge as quickly as I learn mental-knowledge, so learning to do anything physical (catch a ball, do a dance step, draw a neat curve) frustrated me. Once I learned about 'muscle memory' - that if you repeat a movement enough, your nerve ganglia and spinal column 'remember' it - I developed more patience for repetition-learning of physical things.

If you can tell him about muscle memory in a way he can understand, it might help him. If you have a dog, and he's helped you teach the dog tricks, maybe you can explain to him that you're trying to teach his hand tricks. And that he has to be as patient with his hand as he does with the dog.

Later on, you can explain nerve ganglia as 'mini-brains', mini-brains that are stupider than the dog, but that can be taught tricks. And once he's old enough for the anatomy and physiology books in the teen section of the library, there'll be books that actually explain nerve ganglia. (Yes, he'll probably be pre-teen when he's ready for them.)

[MoonCat]

Waaaay back in the Dark Ages when I was little, we had these really fat pencils in school. They were easier to hold. Maybe something like that would help. If you can't find thicker pencils you could try putting something on a regular pencil to make it bigger (foam curlers work, or those padded grippers they sell for people with arthritis).

Just be patient, too. It might just be that this is one skill that will suddenly "click" for him one day, and then there'll be no stopping him!

[wolfie]

A bit of a high-tech solution, but a pen-and-tablet input device for a computer drawing program, as opposed to physical pencil and paper, might help, if you got one where the pen had a button that fell naturally under the finger when held in the correct position and which needed to be pressed in order for it to "write". Hold with fingertips? No output. Hold properly? He can draw/write.

[AnaKhouri]

He uses everything from markers to regular pencils, so we've tried all sizes. As for the tablet...while it sounds like a good idea, we deliberately limit the amount of technology available in our household (if it's not there, you can't whine every 5 minutes about playing Plants vs, Zombies, see? ).

It's just going to be practice, practice. And hope that seeing other kids in kindergarten do it might help him understand. Seshat is right in that he seems to get frustrated with physical challenges far more easily than mental ones. I think he picks up things so easily in his head that he doesn't understand why he can't do physical things as quickl.

[KiaKat]

I have dysgraphia. What finally helped me was calligraphy- learning to make very precise strokes to form a letter, because the pen literally wouldn't let me do it any other way. Even now, I use a fountain pen, because otherwise my writing is unreadable.

As a result, I'm the official note and gift certificate writer at work. I find this hilarious.

[Seshat]

Seshat is right in that he seems to get frustrated with physical challenges far more easily than mental ones. I think he picks up things so easily in his head that he doesn't understand why he can't do physical things as quickl.

That's very much the case for me.

And yes, KiaKat. I had to learn to 'artistically draw' letters to write neatly. I don't 'write', I 'calligraph' or 'artistically draw'. If I'm writing to try to get my thoughts down, it's a scrawl - I think soooo much faster than I am capable of writing, or even typing.

I swear, one of these days I'm going to learn shorthand, just to get my thoughts down fast enough.

[KiaKat]

I swear, one of these days I'm going to learn shorthand, just to get my thoughts down fast enough.

I use a form of shorthand- a phrase or word, which I then go back and flesh out. It's actually easier to do that as a memory trigger, to be used later. The only time it doesn't work is if my initial thought isn't clear enough. I learned that from my boss. His handwriting is illegible, his organization is crap, but his memory is epic. I'm seriously envious.

[mjr]

To the original poster: Look online for pencil grips and "claw" grips.

Here's an Amazon page to get you started. We had a very similar situation with our son, and we bought these. It took some work, but he did start writing the "correct" way (i.e. non-shovel grip).

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_2wpwa89p0l_e

[MaggieTheCat]

It could just be something that he'll get on his own later, in his own time. When I was little, I had both a speech "impairment", and I was terrible at spelling (seriously, I would spell 'the' as 'teh', 'dog' as 'god' etc.) My parents and teachers tried everything for both "problems": remedial classes weekly, drills/extra homework at home, special assignments, etc. Nothing worked. They finally gave up, convinced that I was just "mentally challenged" in certain areas compared to my peers. A couple of years later, both areas became non-issues for me. I was the best speller in my class and my speech "impairment" disappeared practically overnight.