If you are anything like me, your experience of learning to write
will be a distant memory.
I don’t remember a time when I could not work out which way around a
‘b’ went -- athough there must have been such a time -- as letter
reversals are quite common for children up to age seven.
Handwriting is actually a complex task that involves a multitude of
skills.
FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS FOR GOOD HANDWRITING
Core strength
Good core strength and posture form the ‘anchors’ on which your
child’s hand skills can develop. It is very hard to control your
hand if you are finding it hard to stay upright in your chair.
Suggestions: Play games outside that encourage your child
to climb, swing, jump and balance. When inside, play activities
in a variety of positions e.g. getting your child to lie on
their tummy on the floor while supporting their weight on their
forearms and lifting their chest off the ground or working
against the wall whilst kneeling on a pillow.
Hand skills
This includes having a well-developed hand dominance, enough
strength in the hand to hold the pencil in the first three fingers
(called a tripod grasp) and dextrous finger muscles to allow the
fingers to move the pencil in a controlled way.
Suggestions: The internet has millions of creative and fun
activity ideas to develop “fine motor skills” but daily practice
and repetition is a wonderful way to strengthen your child's
abilities. Encourage them to use their hands during dressing,
tidying up, washing and food preparation activities.
Eye skills
This includes the ability to switch focus between near and far, to
look between a whiteboard and a desk, using one's eyes (together)
to focus on what is in front of you and the ability to scan a page
from left to right.
Suggestions: Move away from 2-dimensional screens and
play games that encourage your child to follow moving objects
such as balls, marbles, balloons, dice, cars etc. in three
dimensions.
Have your child’s vision checked by an Optometrist to ensure
that they have proper vision.
Perceptual skills
Visual perception is the ability to make sense of what you are
seeing. The ability to recognise similarities and differences, to
find things in a busy background or manipulate objects in our
mind.
Suggestions: Play 3-dimensional games that encourage your
child to “figure out” a visually presented problem. These include
puzzles, construction activities, matching activities and board
games.
Motor skills
You need to be able to plan where to place your pencil to “start”
the letter, which direction to move in and where to “end”. This
involves moving your eyes and hands together, at the same time and
in a controlled manner, to position letters on or within the lines
provided.
Suggestions: Pre-writing skills such as cutting, colouring,
tracing, tearing and sticking help to develop good motor control.
Encourage your child to be creative: drawing the things that they
see in their environment or in their imagination and building or
constructing items with recycled materials.
Attention
Children need to have good attention to be able to remain still in
their chairs, concentrate on instructions from the teachers, as
well as to visually focus on the work in front of them.
Suggestions: If you know that your child is finding
handwriting or tabletop tasks challenging, allow more frequent
breaks during the time that they engage in these tasks. Make the
tasks as fun as possible and praise them for their efforts.
For some children, difficulties in one or many of the abovementioned
areas can result in handwriting that is slow, difficult to read or
even painful to produce .... but thankfully all is not lost ...
An Occupational Therapist will be able to assess your child, to
identify the areas of difficulty that are affecting their handwriting.
Typically, the Occupational Therapist will then be able to work with
you to improve your child’s handwriting - ultimately leading to
greater success at school.
