Motor Skills

Helping Children Develop Handwriting Skills
by Susan Orloff, OTR/L

Handwriting is an everyday activity. As children, we learn to write in school, and everyone just “does it,” albeit in their own style and manner.

Or, maybe they don’t.

For most of us handwriting is “automatic” —writing flows from our hands, keeping pace with our thoughts. For others, however, handwriting skills must be taught. The positive news is that, with support and appropriate intervention, children who are struggling can acquire the handwriting skills they need.

The Importance of Handwriting

With today’s dependence on computers, some people might think that handwriting is less important than it used to be. Computers, however, cannot replace handwriting. The Scholastic Aptitude Test now requires an essay in the test taker’s handwriting. Job and medical forms often require writing and cannot be transferred to computer. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 44 million Americans in 2003 were unable to fill out any kind of application or form by hand. In addition, more than 70 percent of school dropouts, according to WrightsLaw.com, site poor handwriting and reading skills as their reason for discontinuing their education.

Perhaps an even more important reason to emphasize good handwriting skills is deeply rooted in a child’s self-esteem. Because writing is a more visible, permanent form of communication than spoken language, it can be risky for children to put something on paper when they know their representation does not match what they see their peers produce.

Addressing Underlying Deficits

Initially, the use of any writing implement to remediate handwriting is the wrong way to go. Instead, for children with handwriting challenges, discovering the root causes and treating them with graded activities can turn the feared activity into fun and create facility from failure.

Common underlying problems for a child with poor handwriting include an incorrect pencil grip, which can be wrapped and intense or floppy with poor control, and decreased strength, tone or motor coordination. A child might also have visual perceptual deficits. In addition, mastering in-hand manipulation abilities—moving a single object in your hand while moving your arm across a page—is a complex task and is often difficult for children who struggle with handwriting skills.

Getting children to use the sensory skills necessary to address these underlying deficits often can be done in games and alternative activities, including:

• Playing pick-up sticks for creating and strengthening pincer grasp as well as five-finger coordination;
• Practicing ball and jacks for facilitating eye-hand coordination and increasing hand strength and dexterity. If jacks are too difficult, consider catching balls in scoops made from empty laundry detergent plastic bottles with the bottoms cut out or in wiffle ball scoops or fishing nets;
• Adapting games such as Connect-Four and checkers by using wooden clothespins for picking up the pieces and placing them in the slots. In addition to fostering strategy skills, this is a grasp release activity needed for holding and controlling pencils while writing;
• Using maze books with wide to medium “avenues” for stimulating the writing/tracking connection;
• Tracing from a coloring book with old-fashioned tracing paper and then coloring the traced picture with short colored pencils for fostering better control; and,
• Shuffling cards for increasing hand strength and dexterity.

All of these activities should be done in a fun, game-like atmosphere and should not be treated like homework.  If parents become anxious during these activities, children will pick up on that emotion and reject the activity, making it almost impossible to re-engage them in similar situations.

So take a deep breath, do a few deep knee bends and plop down on the floor with your child for an old-fashioned round of jacks. Most importantly, make sure both of you have fun!

Handwriting Programs: PART OF YOUR ARSENAL

Most experts agree that identifying and addressing underlying deficits should be the cornerstone of helping children develop good handwriting skills. Once that plan is in place, a structured handwriting program might prove to be a valuable tool. Parents might want to consult their child’s occupational therapist for advice before purchasing such a program.

Two of the popular programs occupational therapists use that are available for home use are Handwriting Without Tears and Loops and Other Groups.

Handwriting Without Tears (www.hwtears.com; materials range from $1 to $49.95) teaches letters in a developmental sequence, beginning with strokes that are easy for children and then building on what they have mastered. The program, which teaches both printing and cursive, uses multi-sensory teaching aids and methods. 

Loops and Other Groups (available at www.pfot.com; $54 for a complete set) is designed to teach cursive handwriting to students in second grade through high school. The program, which teaches letters in groups that share common movement patterns, uses auditory and motor cues to help simplify the cursive writing process.