How to Improve 4th Grader's Handwriting

[Anonymous]

I’d move to cursive, teach him slowly and correctly and consistently.

[Anonymous]

I also have a 4th grader with terrible handwriting! It's the one real COVID downside that he experienced (our school is very focused on handwriting in K and 1st).

He's about to go to a school that relies heavily on writing and doesn't use screens, so I'm hoping it will improve out of necessity. Maybe we should consider OT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask your ped for a referral to an OT. This may get you some insurance coverage. It did some writing, but more fine motor skills. Also worked on core and posture. Sitting flipped across the desk does not make writing easier.

My child was in 2nd grade when I asked for the referral.

Later taught my child cursive during Covid using handwriting without tears books. These book are great because it is not just a bunch of letters, it groups by stroke.

Model building, though out of style, is another more “boy” fine motor activity.
Get a referral and good luck! There is still time!

+1. If OT eval says fine motor deficit exists then that probably is the root problem to fix, and insurance likely will pay part or all of the cost. The OT likely starts with improving basic fine motor skills and then can move on specifically to handwriting. Made a big difference for our DC, but took months.

[Anonymous]

I agree with everyone who suggested OT. My son did 2 x week OT for two years for this and his handwriting has greatly improved. It was covered by insurance.

[Anonymous]

I think bad handwriting is the biggest COVID school issue with my 5th grader. I can barely read it! The worst part are his numbers, it's one thing to spell wrong, but another to get marked wrong on a math problem because the teacher can't tell if it's a 4 or a 9. At home I make him rewrite things, but that doesn't happen at school.

[Anonymous]

I could have written this post a few months ago. I even bought Handwriting Without Tears workooks and tried to get my kid to do them over the summer last year (which he did, but they didn't help at all). Like others here, we ended up asking our ped for an OT recommendation. The OT eval found stuff to work on (including core and posture, as mentioned above). Have been doing OT 1x/week since January and handwriting is slowly improving. Still need to remind him to use his "OT" handwriting on schoolwork, since it isn't second nature yet, but there is hope!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:H He just doesn't care enough to make it look neat....

There's your answer.

If he doesn't care, he won't be motivated to improve his handwriting.

[Anonymous]

Please make sure you fix their hand posture, No one corrected me and my horrible hand posture persists after decades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:H He just doesn't care enough to make it look neat....

There's your answer.

If he doesn't care, he won't be motivated to improve his handwriting.

Making him re-do homework might help, but the problem is if the school doesn't mark him down for poor handwriting it's hard to enforce at home.

I have 2 kids whose teachers have cared about handwriting and 1 kid whose teachers never have. Guess which kid has the incredibly poor handwriting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Send him to Catholic school. Lol. Mine went from public to Catholic school in 6th grade. It took as about 2-3 days of missing recess for him to start writing legibly.

Ha! I think this would fix it for my kid. He’s perfectly capable of good handwriting but there’s no incentive to do it well.

+1 Catholic schools don't mess around.
Another thing that motivates some kids is teaching a younger sibling/cousin. My kids' cousins live overseas and speak English fluently but can't write it. My kids made a big production of teaching them how to write using their best handwriting that I NEVER see at home! I saved samples to remind them in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone successfully helped their 4th grader improve their handwriting? My 4th grade (boy, if it matters) has always had hard to read handwriting. He just doesn't care enough to make it look neat and rushes to be done so he can read (which is what he is allowed to do at school when he's completed his work). Through last year when I would ask his teachers they would all tell me to be patient, his muscles would develop, it would improve. This fall his 4th grade teacher told me it would have been resolved but for COVID, and suggested I wait until the summer and have him do handwriting sheets.

My 4th grader’s (boy) handwriting is atrocious. We had him in OT, went through 3 Handwriting Without Tears workbooks and he wrote on special notepaper for entire years in school. It just did. not. work. Eventually, his teacher and the OT just said “this is just how he’s going to write”, and sort of…moved on.

If it’s any consolation, my kid is in a gifted program and consistently scores super high on reading and maths, turns in all of his homework, gets excellent grades and is very respectful to his teachers. He just does not write neatly at all.

It's going to hurt him as he gets into harder math and needs to be able to read his own notes.
For language and social studies he might get away with typing.

[Anonymous]

Get the Handwriting Without Tears program and start from the beginning.

[Anonymous]

Oh sorry. Just saw you tried HWT

[Anonymous]

I have a 5th grader with atrocious handwriting. I realized it was having a serious impact at school. He finds handwriting so much work that he has no motivation to do school work that involves writing. It started impacting his grades so I took him to Canyon Kids in Bethesda for an assessment. They figured out the problem and he is now in OT once a week. It is finally making a difference!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh sorry. Just saw you tried HWT

Some kids hate HWT. My kids vastly prefer Zaner Bloser style cursive, which is what they do at (public, surprisingly) school.