What to do when you can't read their handwriting?

[Anonymous]

I teach seniors in an AP class that involves a lot of writing, but for which it's not practical to have students type their responses.
I usually have one kid a year out of 100+ whose handwriting is essentially illegible. This year it's an epidemic.
Time to look for another line of work?

[Anonymous]

How many kids?

[Anonymous]

Give them handwriting books and links. Seriously. This is a lost skill and they haven't practiced. In my home country, if it was illegible, you got a 0 and grammar counted.

[Anonymous]

Because they stop teaching it in elementary school. Then pandemic. Seriously. My kid is a freshman and he has an IEP and his hand writing was an is very hard to read. We begged for OT help. Begged repeatedly. We’re always told - they use computers in middle and high and he doesn’t need to know how to write. Seriously. They were so wrong and he has many hand written assignments in high school. It is sad how wrong the got this. School online for over a year didn’t help. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Tell them that they need to redo it.

[Anonymous]

OP, is this student writing in cursive? Would you have a problem if he printed his work? Sorry, is this is a dumb question. I am older with young adult kids who can write. I don’t understand the trend to quit teaching cursive. School district administrators have a lot to answer to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach seniors in an AP class that involves a lot of writing, but for which it's not practical to have students type their responses.
I usually have one kid a year out of 100+ whose handwriting is essentially illegible. This year it's an epidemic.
Time to look for another line of work?

Give them an F. Not being able to decipher is the same as not being able to understand because it was written in a foreign language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they stop teaching it in elementary school. Then pandemic. Seriously. My kid is a freshman and he has an IEP and his hand writing was an is very hard to read. We begged for OT help. Begged repeatedly. We’re always told - they use computers in middle and high and he doesn’t need to know how to write. Seriously. They were so wrong and he has many hand written assignments in high school. It is sad how wrong the got this. School online for over a year didn’t help. Sorry.

Hmm, maybe you could have taught them at home like many parents do. And before you spout some blah blah blah, many of the people who have the best handwriting in English are foreign learners who use an entirely different alphabet and/or character than English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I teach seniors in an AP class that involves a lot of writing, but for which it's not practical to have students type their responses.
I usually have one kid a year out of 100+ whose handwriting is essentially illegible. This year it's an epidemic.
Time to look for another line of work?

Why isn't typing practical? My DS has dysgraphia and his handwriting is totally illegible, even to himself. If he concentrates on the handwriting to make it semi-legible, it's much harder to concentrate on the content. He types everything (he has a 504 in case teachers resist, but really there's no reason anyone for whom handwriting is hard can't type).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach seniors in an AP class that involves a lot of writing, but for which it's not practical to have students type their responses.
I usually have one kid a year out of 100+ whose handwriting is essentially illegible. This year it's an epidemic.
Time to look for another line of work?

Why isn't typing practical? My DS has dysgraphia and his handwriting is totally illegible, even to himself. If he concentrates on the handwriting to make it semi-legible, it's much harder to concentrate on the content. He types everything (he has a 504 in case teachers resist, but really there's no reason anyone for whom handwriting is hard can't type).

This was true for my now college age son. He NEEDED to type. And my current senior has dyspraxia so learning to write was hard. Both of my boys take pride in doing their best work but it is illegible. Both had years and years of OT at my own expense. Please be kind. You don’t always know someone else’s struggles.

[Anonymous]

Same. One son with illegible handwriting, one son with beautiful handwriting. Both FCPS students and I tried the same supplemental writing (handwriting without tears) at home with them. We also didn't diagnose dysgraphia because of two reasons. One, our insurance wouldn't pay for it. Two, the school said - they type everything in middle and high school, it will be fine.

It's not necessarily laziness. Why can't they just type essays? Seems more time efficient anyway.

[Anonymous]

I mark it wrong, but tell them I will give them credit if they come in at lunch to tell me what they wrote. For the ones who are just lazy, that will usually make them write more carefully next time. For the ones who truly can’t write neatly, I either allow typing or I will scribe for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they stop teaching it in elementary school. Then pandemic. Seriously. My kid is a freshman and he has an IEP and his hand writing was an is very hard to read. We begged for OT help. Begged repeatedly. We’re always told - they use computers in middle and high and he doesn’t need to know how to write. Seriously. They were so wrong and he has many hand written assignments in high school. It is sad how wrong the got this. School online for over a year didn’t help. Sorry.

Hmm, maybe you could have taught them at home like many parents do. And before you spout some blah blah blah, many of the people who have the best handwriting in English are foreign learners who use an entirely different alphabet and/or character than English.

OF COURSE I work with him. Made him learn cursive too because they don't that either. But HE needed a professional.

[Anonymous]

There has always been students with bad handwriting. Don’t blame it on “screens”. My son in high school prints like a second grader because of an OP issue.

One kid out of 100 with unreadable handwriting is extremely unlikely.

In the early 90s I worked at night with other new mothers putting doctor and nurse’s notes into the computer system. I would say 25% of them had extremely poor handwriting. We would have to send them back circling the unreadable words.

Soon after they had a system where the health providers input their own notes. No more reading bad handwriting.

This is hardly a new problem. Computers have helped more students who would otherwise struggle with getting words out on paper. Also AP is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mark it wrong, but tell them I will give them credit if they come in at lunch to tell me what they wrote. For the ones who are just lazy, that will usually make them write more carefully next time. For the ones who truly can’t write neatly, I either allow typing or I will scribe for them.

My son had a scribe in 4th grade for creative writing. He is creative with a big vocabulary so the scribe let him focus on his stories. If he didn’t have that scribe he wouldn’t be able to do half of the work.