All About Handwriting
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My gal in P2 but still writes horribly. During the Dec holidays, I will probably make her do lots of writing.
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Well, first, you must be firm. Get him/her to copy a passage. If the handwriting is not up to your standard, tear it in front of him/her. You cannot have a soft spot. Ask him to copy it again. Again, see if it is up to your standard. If not, do it again. Next time, if you see any handwriting not up to your standard again, you know what to do.
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Well, first, you must be firm. Get him/her to copy a passage. If the handwriting is not up to your standard, tear it in front of him/her. You cannot have a soft spot. Ask him to copy it again. Again, see if it is up to your standard. If not, do it again. Next time, if you see any handwriting not up to your standard again, you know what to do.
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Perhaps I am having a different idea on handwriting… We rather focus on the thought process than the handwriting… Unless we want to go serious to learn calligraphy, or we don’t mind so much!
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chantuan_lim:
Perhaps I am having a different idea on handwriting.. We rather focus on the thought process than the handwriting.. Unless we want to go serious to learn calligraphy, or we don't mind so much!
ah...chantuan_lim,
i had this very same thinking when my 9yr old was in preschool. i did most of his 'fill in the blanks' exercises (he just need to shout out the answer) as we tried to cover as many 'thought processes' exercises. i didn't concentrate on correcting his handwriting or provide additional writing; colouring was a waste of time to us as we did not see any use in it; his preschool did not provide weekly writing activities too. in short, i didn't know that writing/colouring is one of the ways to build up motorskills/finger strength (whatever you call them). i didn't know that motorskills development will have such long term effects. we did not introduce other finger-based manipulatives too like playdoh. we did not know a lot of stuff back then, and focused mainly on 'thought process'. it is a pain to see his handwriting now and his carelessness stems mainly from his handwriting (spelling error, numeric number written illegibly etc). it is impossible to turn back the clock now, so i am not repeating the same mistake with my younger one.
it is not wrong to focus on thought process, but we have to know that the window to develop motorskills is during preschooling stage. -
jedamum:
Never too late. In fact, think it's better late than never.chantuan_lim:
Perhaps I am having a different idea on handwriting.. We rather focus on the thought process than the handwriting.. Unless we want to go serious to learn calligraphy, or we don't mind so much!
ah...chantuan_lim,
i had this very same thinking when my 9yr old was in preschool. i did most of his 'fill in the blanks' exercises (he just need to shout out the answer) as we tried to cover as many 'thought processes' exercises. i didn't concentrate on correcting his handwriting or provide additional writing; colouring was a waste of time to us as we did not see any use in it; his preschool did not provide weekly writing activities too. in short, i didn't know that writing/colouring is one of the ways to build up motorskills/finger strength (whatever you call them). i didn't know that motorskills development will have such long term effects. we did not introduce other finger-based manipulatives too like playdoh. we did not know a lot of stuff back then, and focused mainly on 'thought process'. it is a pain to see his handwriting now and his carelessness stems mainly from his handwriting (spelling error, numeric number written illegibly etc). it is impossible to turn back the clock now, so i am not repeating the same mistake with my younger one.
it is not wrong to focus on thought process, but we have to know that the window to develop motorskills is during preschooling stage.
For older kids, we can get them to play with 5 stones, draw cartoons. And if playdoh is too \"kiddy\" for older kids, then sign up for pottery classes. Alternatively, I buy those sculpture clay from Popular (about $4.50) and get my kids to play with them.
In fact, recently, they moulded/ sculptured an angry bird figurine for grandpa (my dad) as his birthday present as he loves birds. These activities require fine motor skills and work on the muscle dexterity.
For hand-eye coordination activities, get a small ball (abt 5cm diameter?) and get the child to bounce the ball. Another activity is to throw the ball in the air and catch it. First, try with left hand, and then right hand. When the child is more confident, find a partner to throw ball to each other. This helps with copying answers from the whiteboard or what they read to paper. -
Daisyflowers:
If it doesn't bother your son I would just leave it, especially if it doesn't impede his writing. For your daughter it is a good idea to retrain the grip because it is hindering her. Both my kids are also left-handers and I am currently retraining the elder's pencil grip as his hand gets sore. I bought yoropen - an angled pencil with built in grip - for them and their feedback was positive. There is a very good video online on writing tips for left-handers, including the recommended writing tools and writing position. I go through all their pens and pencils and discard any that do not move well across the page. Color pencils should also be soft textured or it will be very frustrating for them to use.Hi parents,
My 2 children are left handed and I never noticed any problems with the way they hold their pencils until they started primary school and their teachers feedback to me. Since then (5 years on..), my oldest is still gripping the pen in a fist-like way and my daughter is holding her pencil so tightly that her knuckles are sometimes white from the strain. As a result, she hates to write. I tried buying her some of those grips you can attach on the pens but did not succeed. Unfortunately, my boy is already 12 this year. It doesn't bother him but I want him to hold his pen the right way. Do you think it is too late for him to make the change?
Has any parent here ever faced the same situation? Would appreciate some sharing. Thanks!
If finger muscles are weak, do finger exercises with therapy balls and rubber bands. Working with dough or clay is also good as shweppes wrote. -
schweppes:
Never too late. In fact, think it's better late than never.jedamum:
[quote=\"chantuan_lim\"]Perhaps I am having a different idea on handwriting.. We rather focus on the thought process than the handwriting.. Unless we want to go serious to learn calligraphy, or we don't mind so much!
ah...chantuan_lim,
i had this very same thinking when my 9yr old was in preschool. i did most of his 'fill in the blanks' exercises (he just need to shout out the answer) as we tried to cover as many 'thought processes' exercises. i didn't concentrate on correcting his handwriting or provide additional writing; colouring was a waste of time to us as we did not see any use in it; his preschool did not provide weekly writing activities too. in short, i didn't know that writing/colouring is one of the ways to build up motorskills/finger strength (whatever you call them). i didn't know that motorskills development will have such long term effects. we did not introduce other finger-based manipulatives too like playdoh. we did not know a lot of stuff back then, and focused mainly on 'thought process'. it is a pain to see his handwriting now and his carelessness stems mainly from his handwriting (spelling error, numeric number written illegibly etc). it is impossible to turn back the clock now, so i am not repeating the same mistake with my younger one.
it is not wrong to focus on thought process, but we have to know that the window to develop motorskills is during preschooling stage.
For older kids, we can get them to play with 5 stones, draw cartoons. And if playdoh is too \"kiddy\" for older kids, then sign up for pottery classes. Alternatively, I buy those sculpture clay from Popular (about $4.50) and get my kids to play with them.
In fact, recently, they moulded/ sculptured an angry bird figurine for grandpa (my dad) as his birthday present as he loves birds. These activities require fine motor skills and work on the muscle dexterity.
For hand-eye coordination activities, get a small ball (abt 5cm diameter?) and get the child to bounce the ball. Another activity is to throw the ball in the air and catch it. First, try with left hand, and then right hand. When the child is more confident, find a partner to throw ball to each other. This helps with copying answers from the whiteboard or what they read to paper.[/quote]schweppes,
9yr old, not too late?
i gonna start this nov/dec!
(gonna continue badminton....hand-eye coordination...:faint:)
thanks!
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jedamum:
schweppes,
9yr old, not too late?
i gonna start this nov/dec!
(gonna continue badminton....hand-eye coordination...:faint:)
thanks!
I'm no psychologist but i believe our brain can be re-trained. Badminton and table tennis are good sports to partake in. Personally, I feel it works for adults too. I used to think I have poor hand-eye coordination too and problems with visual-spatial awareness. :faint: :oops: But after playing with my girls together, think I am less of a klutz now :imcool: -
Daisyflowers:
Hi DaisyFlowers,Hi parents,
My 2 children are left handed and I never noticed any problems with the way they hold their pencils until they started primary school and their teachers feedback to me. Since then (5 years on..), my oldest is still gripping the pen in a fist-like way and my daughter is holding her pencil so tightly that her knuckles are sometimes white from the strain. As a result, she hates to write. I tried buying her some of those grips you can attach on the pens but did not succeed. Unfortunately, my boy is already 12 this year. It doesn't bother him but I want him to hold his pen the right way. Do you think it is too late for him to make the change?
Has any parent here ever faced the same situation? Would appreciate some sharing. Thanks!
Personally, I think that it is important to hold the pen the right way. When he moves up the levels, the amount of writing would definitely increase. It would be very tiring and painful if he persists in using the fist-like grip.
It would be good if he can make use of this short break before sec 1 to work on his pencil grip. Btw, I have seen how a friend's teacher introduced cursive handwriting to an entire class of P6 pupils and within a period of 2 months, the entire class could write in neat cursive, regardless of how terrible their handwriting were previously and I understand that the teacher has done this for a few batches of pupils. U might want to try him in cursive. According to her, the teacher started at word level and moved on to sentence and then paragraphs. She used composition passages to get them to practise their handwriting.
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