My first grader hates writing. Hand writing? Only if I want tears and a fit. Filling out a math work sheet? No way! (He crossed off the last 3 lines of the pretest I gave him and only did 2 lines.) Hand writing w/o tears made him cry................. Seriously it was the worst thing ever! Explode the Code is asking for more writing and he HATES it and refuses to do it. I've held his hand this year and scribed some for him because he was my only at home. But next year my youngest starts kinder and I won't be able to give him the attention. White boards and markers help, but I can't do everything on a white board. I'm required to have work samples and it is hard to tell them well he does spelling with letter cards. Any advice? Tips? I thought he would out grow this........
I always handled stuff like this with having screen time connected to how well school went. I had clearly defined rules that we created together. bad school day meant no screen time. Mine always got over the problem pretty quickly. If not I had a clue that it might be more than an attitude problem and would then look further for reasons. Just explain that school is important and that it is actually against the law for you to keep him home and let him get away with not doing his school work. Explain that if he had this problem at school he would get punished or sent to the principal and that after a while they would send to special doctors to find out what was wrong. Explain that you have to give him so help knowing what is important, and that if he cannot do school in however many hours, you will take away his movie and tv, and computer time so he can have more school time to get it finished. And to be fair, if he is good at a certain type of math drill problem, cut some out so he is not stuck with a lot of busy work. Seeing you cross through a line or two of problems at the outset, or having you say pick 10 of these to do today might help with attitude or feeling overwhelmed.
Something isn't working. What you're describing sounds horrible...for both of you. If I were in your shoes I'd try these two activities: Printing letters in various substances. Kids love to get gross and messy. Let him draw letters in shaving cream with his finger. Let him draw them in the dirt. Let him draw them in frosting. Give him a piece of paper, draw a word on it with glue and let him decorate it with beans/corn/sequins/beads/whatever you have. Try thinking out of the box. ANY activity where he prints letters...is great. Take photos of him doing these things to fulfill your requirement. First graders should NOT be doing cursive writing. Their fine motor skills are not up to the task. There's the occasional kid who develops early or who can master a few letters/numbers, but MOST first graders physically cannot coordinate their muscles with their brain to do it. It is a physical developmental limitation....forcing the issue would be extremely cruel. WAIT on cursive for second or third grade (if you choose to do it at all...I taught keyboarding instead). Another exercise that is really helpful for thinking about how to print letters is a game where you have the child stand with his back to you, and you draw a letter on his back and ask him to tell you identify the letters. Personally...for first grade...I think you're pushing too hard. These dudes are still waiting for their fingers to catch up with their brains. Let him read. Let him spell simple words with cards. Don't sweat the writing. Sounds like he needs some help developing his fine-motor skills so he CAN write without feeling overwhelmed. Get him some fine motor games....like stringing beads, doing sewing cards...even playing video games. I know that sounds crazy, but really think about how it helps to make brain/muscle connections. Anything you can get him to do with his hands that requires precise movement and control will really help. Coloring inside the lines is a HUGE prerequisite for printing. Work on coloring. Work on holding a brush and painting letters. Slow down and breathe. LOL. Good luck!
You are correct, he doesn't seem to be able to color in the lines. He is a great artist though. He can draw animals and pictures no problem. We have rules about screen time and he sticks to them. If he can just answer aloud, or use cards, he is great. He seems to get overwelmed looking at a whole page of empty spaces. When we had to turn in a Math sample, I covered up all but the problem he was working on and said we would work until he was "tired". He did the whole page 1 at a time.
If he likes to draw... that would be a PERFECT practice exercise for his fine motor. It's totally ok if he can only do one problem at a time, for now. Make a goal of doing five problems at a time and work your way up to it. If he can concentrate on spelling with cards for ten minutes at a time, or stay focused on taking turns reading for a longer period of time...the problem might simply be with the fine motor. If you've ever seen someone in rehab trying to concentrate on re-learning to print...it can take a massive effort to get those characters on the page. Lot of thought processes going on. It can be exhausting. If he prefers pictures, try to get him to work on copying a simple picture. Draw something in steps, and see if you can get him to do the same steps. It will help him to make those connections. If it turns out to be a dog or a truck, it might be more fun, and will take the pressure off learning other skills while maturing those connections. Do lots and lots of tactile stuff. Do a lot of finding differences in pictures. Have him sort things with his fingers. Let him sort a snack sized bag of M&Ms into colors, then let him count the piles and write down the numbers. He gets to eat them after the numbers are on the page. Computer games where he has to think and press the right button combines cognitive skills with dexterity in a less demanding way. It's good practice for those connections and is less frustrating. Do TONS of connect-the-dot pictures. Get him a pair of shoes that tie, and have him practice tying shoe laces. Have him work zippers and snaps. Put him in the bathtub and let him practice measuring water with measuring cups. Get him leggos! It'll come in time. Try to be patient. He will outgrow it By the way...Does he have trouble doing connect-the-dots pictures? Does he have problems using silverware? (I mean...like gripping his spoon/fork with his fist...or having a tough time getting a full spoon to his mouth without dripping/dropping food)
This is an interesting article that you might want to have a look at... http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/CraftDocs/Writing.asp It's called "Smart Kids Who Hate To Write" Has some really specific advice. I was so intrigued, I did the test for eye/hand dominance...turns out I'm right hand, right eye dominant. Apparently when you're mixed left eye/right hand or right eye/left hand....you can have more problems processing writing.
CrazyMom, 1) HWT doesn't only do cursive. It does printing too. Martablack never said which they do. 2) Many curricula start with cursive first, continuing a tradition which only got changed in the early 1900s with the beginning of the "dumbing down" and the look-say method of teaching reading, so that what the kids wrote would look more like what they read. And 5-year olds are capable of starting with cursive. 3) I'm lefthanded/right eyed and never had the first bit of difficulty processing writing. Martablack, my son also got overwhelmed when faced with a whole page of math problems. I divided the page into rows and challenged him to get one row done before the timer went off. I chose times that I knew he could do, mostly, just a few seconds longer than it took him to say the answers out loud. He got a tiny "break" while I checked for accuracy, then we went on to the next row, until the whole page was finished. Later it was two rows, then half a page. Finally one day he said he thought he could do it without the timer. And he did. My grandson is very like my son in many ways. His handwriting looks very like his dad's. But cursive isn't as difficult for him to do neatly as printing is. Many parents have been surprised to find that their kids thought cursive was easier, and cursive came out neater than printing. You'll need to determine whether it's a motor problem or a heart/obedience problem. Only you'll know that. It seems to me that if he can draw, he can probably write. Maybe he would respond to Draw Write Now? You follow the steps to draw a given picture, then color it, and copy two or three short sentences at the bottom of the page.
I read the article, and I think their method of making a hole in a paper might not work as well as they think... You're standing behind them to cover one eye, so how do you know they can hold the paper still enough at arm's length? When I worked in PS, our OTs would hand the child a cardboard roll from a roll of paper towels, and tell them to look through the "telescope". They'll choose their dominant eye. They'll tell them to draw a cup "the way it would be for you to pick it up and drink" - they'll put the handle toward their dominant hand, even if they've been taught to draw with the other hand. Then they ask them to kick a ball, or step up a step, or step over a sheet of paper on the floor - they'll kick or step with their dominant foot. I'm left handed and left footed, but right-eyed. I agree that playdoh, clay, legos, lacing cards, stringing beads, and such fine motor activities can be a whole lot more interesting than handwriting practice for little boys. Putting small screws into things with a screwdriver (and unscrewing them) and putting small nuts onto bolts and taking them off again can be more fun for boys than cards and beads.
Lindina - Thanks for the other suggestions in testing dominance. I intend to try some of them with my son. The physical act of writing is a chore for him. I've tried several things but have never checked for eye, hand, and foot dominance.
Thanks! I'm so frustrated. The kid does play dough, Legos, lacing cards, ect...... He can use a mouse. He plays video games with a controller. He knows the answers, but won't write them. But coloring in the lines is something he still struggles with. I've been considering trying HWOT again. I'm thinking he wasn't ready for it when we used it. I know I had trouble with writing (physical writing) when I was young. I had big issues with copy work. I could read it but it fumbled when I tried write it down. I thought it has to do with my eye dominance ( I'm left handed but my left eye needs glasses, so I had to learn and use my right eye.) maybe there is more to it than I thought. (Ds #3 has dysgraphia)
He is young enough that he could still grow out of it. Also, have him evaluated by an OT. If he is holding his pencil wrong, then it can make his hand hurt.
It occurs to me to suggest maybe a pencil gripper could help him relax his hand while writing. Our OTs used to (probably still do) recommend this one that looked like a blob of clay. There are two sizes to fit the hand. At Rainbow, it's called Jumbo and I only see one size. Stetro is a good small one, and there's another one that's a lot like that only bigger and flatter, but the one I like the best is the Crossover. It has a thing on it for your thumb and forefinger to fit into, to keep either digit from crossing over the top, if that's a problem. Here are Rainbow's: http://www.rainbowresource.com/searchspring.php?q=pencil+grip You might be able to find different ones at teacher stores and office supply stores. Rainbow also has triangular shaped pencils that help.
He won't use a gripper at all. I've tried and he doesn't like it. We are almost done for the year. I plan on retrying HWOT and some other OT tips for coloring in the lines.
When mine were little I bought those little rubbery gel type of grips in assorted colors. I also bought the cap erasers in assorted colors. We put these on colored pencils and made neat neon colored custom pencils this way. Dark blue purple with orange cap and grip was my favorite. One of mine was late with handwriting and got frustrated. Part of the problem was perfectionism. She would want to avoid it because of that. She would have an attitude about it. She had to learn that it was part of school and it was a task that had to be worked at. We accomplished this by pegging it to screen time. Another thing that helped with my dd was that I would circle the 5 worst letter formations on each page, and put a little smiley or star over the 10 best. Getting this feedback was helpful for her. I would simply look over each page of handwriting and mark it while she was watching and explain what might have gone wrong with the least best letter formations and why the best ones were well done. I think that this interaction helped because handwriting was no longer a mystery that she felt she had no control over. She had feedback she understood with her own good examples she could look at before the next lesson. Edited to add: when mine were real little we used some mechanical crayons. They were a Crayola product if I recall correctly. They had a thick crayon type of lead the screwed up from the end. They were sort of a cross between a crayon and a colored pencil. these required less accuracy of fine motor skill to use when they are still making larger letters. And that is a consideration. what size paper lines are you using. If they are too large or two small, they can be frustrating. You can find writing practice print outs on line and try various sizes.
Mine does too! My 4th grader hates it as well. I have to make him write in cursive just so I can maybe read it. I had terrible writing until 4th grade and it was fine motor skills. I could not understand why I couldn't write neatly but it just clicked when I was about 9 or 10. For my 1st grader, I have conceded to letting him do part of the page orally and write the other part.(Learning should not bring so many tears.) I bought handwriting books for the boys for summer work. I am not teaching cursive to the younger one yet as he is still struggling reading print sometimes. I tell them that it is not an option to learn to write legibly. I realize they will use computers for many things in life but I insist they learn it. To me it is the same as leaning to spell and play outside. Oh and my 1st grader can write neatly when he is focused and wants to. That is more frustrating than not being able to do it at all.
I used to put a check mark on DS's best letters or words. I didn't mark anything on the worst ones. It did encourage him. He did get more legible, but when he was older and required to write in cursive, there was just no help for it! He can't even read his own writing after it gets cold. As an adult, he won't write much of anything if he can help it. I think that if he was specifically diagnosed, he would be called dysgraphic. His son's writing is crowded, varies in slant (even printing), doesn't sit on the line consistently, and tends to vary in shape -- but it's more legible than his dad's was! He's 9 and I still enforce paper position, pencil grasp, arm position, and he's getting it. His cursive is more legible than his print, because he is forced by the nature of cursive to put spaces between words. I think I didn't continue with his dad quite long enough. DS was the only person I ever saw who put B for D and D for B - capitals, in cursive! DGS still reverses b/d but only when printing and only lowercase.
Oh, martablack, my DGS doesn't like using a gripper at all either, but I insisted. Strongly. Now I only have to remind him to hold his pencil correctly and he does.
I got out some grippers today and made him use them. (He didn't complain too much.) He did his Math worksheets and ETC without complaining too much today. I had him use the word bank for those words he "knew" first and then wrote the words above the blanks for one he did not know. (He just started a new lesson). This worked pretty well. He worked through it while I was working with #5 on the computer. I'm rounding up the HWOT to start with him and #5. We finished up Right Start Math yesterday and have 2 lessons left in MBTP, so we will have some "extra" time to start new stuff.
