My son will be 5 in July. There is a good chance that I will have to put them in public school next year, so I'm trying to prepare him. His math skills and reading are on par for his age, but I'm worried about his handwriting. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to not press down so hard on the pencil, and how to correctly hold the pencil. He also has an awful time trying to actually write letters the right way. No matter how many times we go over it he can't remember how to correctly form the letters...he'll just make them however he wants to. He can't even write his name yet. If I knew for sure I could still HS him this fall I wouldn't be worried at all. I'm just freaking out that he will go to school and feel dumb or stupid, or even fall behind.
Most schools, around here, do not start teaching cursive until 3rd grade. I think your son will be fine. But being that you are his Momma, I can understand your concern. He is still young and with practice he will become stronger in his writing but even at five years old, he is still developing his motorskills. Does he like to write on windows? Get him a dark dry erase marker and draw lines for him to guide him, then let him go to town. This will give him practice and he will probably enjoy it too. Get him a small stick and draw lines in the dirt, let him practice writing on the ground or even with sidewalk chalk on concrete. Again, I think he will be just fine!
I would recommend encouraging things that encourage fine motor skills that ARE NOT WRITING. For example, playing with playdough, doing legos or k'nex, drawing/coloring smaller patterns, cutting pictures from a magazine,etc. ALSO, you might want to just print out pages for him to TRACE, vs. writing on his own. I found with my son (and I think this is true for a lot of boys) "writing" is difficult b/c they don't do as much fine motor skills like girls - girls seem naturally drawn to coloring, etc. THIS IS A GENERALIZATION, I REALIZE... With my son, for both first and second grade, i did not expect him to write on his own (handwriting), it was ALL TRACING. I used www.edhelper.com to create handwriting pages for him. GRADUALLY, I made them smaller and smaller. (if the handwriting generator on edhelper is not part of the freebie section - try www.worksheetworks.com OR www.handwritingforkids.com ) His writing is MUCH BETTER this year because of it. He still writes less sophisticated than his sister did at this age, but it's coming along.
I feel your concerns - but I bet he'll be ahead of others. In VA they don't to go Kinder until age 6 and they are still learning letters and holding pencils correctly.
I understand your concerns. My son had issues with his handwriting/printing and fine motor skills when he was 5/6. I second the suggestion of doing other things to strengthen his fine motor skills. Playing and making things with modeling clay, cutting up play-doh or clay with scissors, other scissor exercises, playing the game Perfection or Pick Up Sticks, playing puzzles with those small pegs on top and other such things work well. I also heard drawing, painting and practicing writing on an easel will help. Another game is to put shaving cream or whip cream on a cookie sheet and help your son write the correct formations of the letters with his finger. At least it's something different than a paper and pencil. When my son was younger we played a game with a tweezers and cotton balls. He had to pick up one cotton ball at a time with a tweezers and then hold it long enough to drop it into a jar or a bowl. He loved that game because he was able to count out all the cotton balls as he was doing it. If I were you I would still help your son practice printing his name though, because he probably will need that on day one of kindergarten (at least in my area he would). The public elementary schools around here are all about printing D'nealian correctly and neatly and reading in kindergarten. Cursive writing begins the 2nd semester of 2nd grade in the district I live in. I highly recommend teaching your son how to erase with a pencil eraser and separate eraser too. For some reason I never thought about teaching that to my son before he went to kindergarten. My son didn't realize how to erase properly (fully) on his own, so he just wrote over his mistakes. His teacher thought that he had a visual perception problem. I observed him doing a worksheet for 5 minutes that year and I realized that the problem was not knowing how to erase. I taught him and he improved. I hope some of this helps!
Just as a side thought - currclick's freebie this week is a Pet Animals handwriting book you can print out. My kids personally BOTH love these books and enjoy the sentences... http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=14780&it=1 It has D'Nalien and he block style - plus cursive...
My stepdaughter HATED handwriting and still does. We got her to improve by having her draw a lot. We got tracing paper and she learned how to trace pictures. She loved that she could lift up the tracing paper and her drawing looked really good! We had her draw/trace every day. The second gradient was tracing letters and following the arrows. We got a write-on, wipe off placemat at Target for $1 and she practiced on that. I think your 5-year old will be fine! My stepdaughter graduated public school first grade and her handwriting was horrible.
Thanks for the help! We do have several wipe-off mats, but it's like he doesn't even see the arrows, even if we just did it together a thousand times. I'll try not to worry for now and just keep practicing. I'd like to think that he will be ahead in other areas, but don't we all think that about our kids? He's working in Phonics Pathways and starting to sound out CVC words, and we started on Saxon 1 math after Easter. He loves, loves, loves math. He also likes to work in the million workbooks we have. Of course I never make him sit down and work; we do these things together when he asks for school. It's nice outside today. Maybe I'll give him a cookie sheet and some pudding and let him write. I bet he'll love that!
My son did not (and unfortunatly still) write well. The teacher recomended a "fat" pencil...those great big old kinder pencils. I do think that helped. it is definitly a developmental thing...and you can't teach it...(although you can help as it develops)
Get him a pencil gripper. And he does not have to know how to write his name before kindergarten. I took my son to the public school kinder interview, and turns out, most of the boys do not know how to write their names.
Those fat pencils are awesome. We have used both those and the pencil grips that help them learn where there fingers should go. I prefer the fat pencils. My 3rd grader still uses them at times. She likes to fist grasp her pencil. She likes them a lot better than the grips as well. Angela
