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Anyone had success with improving a kid's handwriting? My son's writing is 2/10. I myself am only 3/10. With reading and math I am able to help him. I h

Anyone had success with improving a kid's handwriting? My son's writing is 2/10. I myself am only 3/10. With reading and math I am able to help him. I have not found anything effective for penmanship.

gorango 3y ago
Just have to use the pen(cil) more. Make it fun: drawing, lettering, doodling - it all translates to handwriting itself.
wccrawford 3y ago
A teacher and my parents both tried to improve my penmanship by forcing me to write page and pages of letters. My handwriting got worse each time. So I don't recommend that. I think you have to want it to improve, and to value it. And then you have to practice with that in mind. At that age, I was unable to see a reason to improve it, and it was a lot of work, so I didn't put any actual effort into it beyond that torture they were putting me through. (It hurts my hand to write.) Lately, though, I've considered finally improving it. I think improving it will involve re-learning how to hold a pen and move my arm/hand while writing. They way I do it is basically guaranteed to produce bad results, and I should approach it more like art than utility. That all said... I still haven't found the energy or resolve for it. Good luck!
- lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
  > A teacher and my parents both tried to improve my penmanship by forcing me to write page and pages of letters. This is a decent tactic if, like you said, you want to improve your handwriting. You have to want it. You have to go slow and form the letters perfectly every time so you develop that muscle memory. I printed pages of a single letter in the font I wanted to imitate and traced the letters. It's a great activity to do while you're sitting in front of the TV. edit to clarify: the decent tactic is to re-learn how to form your letters IF you want to improve your handwriting. DO NOT force your kids to do so. It will be counter-productive because they won't focus on forming the letters. They'll speed through it to get it done and wind up with worse handwriting than before. As wccrawford and I both said: You have to want it.
  - screenoridesagb 3y ago
    [dead]
foxyv 3y ago
I used to write horribly until I took an engineering drawing/drafting course. Mostly it's just slowing down. Write a little slower and pay more attention to how your words line up and spacing of letters. Read over what you have written and see which letters are hard to read. For letters and numbers that are ambiguous try adding something like a slash through zeroes and a dash through sevens. If you write a lot this way people will start thinking that you had a computer fill out forms. It also helps a lot if you buy a good pen like a G-2. I find bigger nibs like a 1.6 keep my lines more even.
al_borland 3y ago
Slow down to do it well, then as the muscle memory improves, the speed can increase. There are a lot of penmanship videos on YouTube. I fell down that hole one day. They talked about picking a font a training to write in that font. But the kid would have to find the idea of picking the font they will write in compelling enough to train it.
zafka 3y ago
I have always had horrible "Penmanship". When I was in 9th grade - the last year of my parochial school, my home room teacher made me retake second grad penmanship. It did not help much. I do think my poor writing style is connected to my ADHD symptoms. Anyhow, a few years back- here on HN people were discussing fountain pens as a way to improve writing. Hee, I now have a bunch of Lamy fountain pens. I think because I spent 70 dollars on a pen, I sometimes slow down a bit and write better. Even if it does not help your kid's writing ability, I think he will enjoy having a cool pen.
aidenn0 3y ago
I remember hearing "back in the day" that boy's cursive was neater than print because they learned it later, and had developed better fine motor skills by that point (and it's easier to learn a new script than unlearn bad habits with an already known script). So maybe wait until he has better fine motor skills and teach him a different writing style? If he doesn't want to learn the Palmer method (what you probably learned if you grew up in the US), then perhaps Getty-Dubay?

gorango 3y ago

Just have to use the pen(cil) more. Make it fun: drawing, lettering, doodling - it all translates to handwriting itself.

wccrawford 3y ago

A teacher and my parents both tried to improve my penmanship by forcing me to write page and pages of letters. My handwriting got worse each time. So I don't recommend that. I think you have to want it to improve, and to value it. And then you have to practice with that in mind. At that age, I was unable to see a reason to improve it, and it was a lot of work, so I didn't put any actual effort into it beyond that torture they were putting me through. (It hurts my hand to write.) Lately, though, I've considered finally improving it. I think improving it will involve re-learning how to hold a pen and move my arm/hand while writing. They way I do it is basically guaranteed to produce bad results, and I should approach it more like art than utility. That all said... I still haven't found the energy or resolve for it. Good luck!

lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
> A teacher and my parents both tried to improve my penmanship by forcing me to write page and pages of letters. This is a decent tactic if, like you said, you want to improve your handwriting. You have to want it. You have to go slow and form the letters perfectly every time so you develop that muscle memory. I printed pages of a single letter in the font I wanted to imitate and traced the letters. It's a great activity to do while you're sitting in front of the TV. edit to clarify: the decent tactic is to re-learn how to form your letters IF you want to improve your handwriting. DO NOT force your kids to do so. It will be counter-productive because they won't focus on forming the letters. They'll speed through it to get it done and wind up with worse handwriting than before. As wccrawford and I both said: You have to want it.
- screenoridesagb 3y ago
  [dead]

foxyv 3y ago

I used to write horribly until I took an engineering drawing/drafting course. Mostly it's just slowing down. Write a little slower and pay more attention to how your words line up and spacing of letters. Read over what you have written and see which letters are hard to read. For letters and numbers that are ambiguous try adding something like a slash through zeroes and a dash through sevens. If you write a lot this way people will start thinking that you had a computer fill out forms. It also helps a lot if you buy a good pen like a G-2. I find bigger nibs like a 1.6 keep my lines more even.

al_borland 3y ago

Slow down to do it well, then as the muscle memory improves, the speed can increase. There are a lot of penmanship videos on YouTube. I fell down that hole one day. They talked about picking a font a training to write in that font. But the kid would have to find the idea of picking the font they will write in compelling enough to train it.

zafka 3y ago

I have always had horrible "Penmanship". When I was in 9th grade - the last year of my parochial school, my home room teacher made me retake second grad penmanship. It did not help much. I do think my poor writing style is connected to my ADHD symptoms. Anyhow, a few years back- here on HN people were discussing fountain pens as a way to improve writing. Hee, I now have a bunch of Lamy fountain pens. I think because I spent 70 dollars on a pen, I sometimes slow down a bit and write better. Even if it does not help your kid's writing ability, I think he will enjoy having a cool pen.

aidenn0 3y ago

I remember hearing "back in the day" that boy's cursive was neater than print because they learned it later, and had developed better fine motor skills by that point (and it's easier to learn a new script than unlearn bad habits with an already known script). So maybe wait until he has better fine motor skills and teach him a different writing style? If he doesn't want to learn the Palmer method (what you probably learned if you grew up in the US), then perhaps Getty-Dubay?