My son is 5 and left handed. Any tips for improving his writing as it's not great!?

Question

He doesn't like to use the special grips you can get and he gets really frustrated when I do homework with him. He's behind at the rest of his class at school. Any suggestions on how to make practising writing fun?

Answer 1

Don't worry children do not develop the fine motor skills needed to hold a pencil until they are seven. He is frustrated because he has not had chance to develop these skills. You could try jolly phonics books they work on speech and letter formation.
They work but schools are starting to faze them out in preference of THRAS or sounds right, you can get all of these from the Early Learning Centre.
If you really want to help him work on his fine motor skills, try cutting shapes spirals, zig zags and wavy lines. Try threading needles and sowing, shaving foam/ flour on a table and letting him form shapes with his fingers. (All more fun than writing!)
The early stages of writing is not about holding a pencil correctly its all about letter shapes, if he enjoys the above better writing is sure to follow.
I hope this helps, good luck!

Answer 2

My daughter (now 17) is also left handed and she too struggled with neatness for a while when she was around five. Lay off him a bit, most kids of 5 are messy hand writers, practise makes perfect and believe me by the time he's 17 he shall have beautiful handwriting just like any other boy. Those handwriting pens by Berol are really good for all kids , but they are a bit chunkier and easier to hold without looking odd. They sell them in Tesco. He's just getting the hang of being at school all day, don't make him hate it because of something he physically can't change.

Answer 3

I'm a leftie but I've never neaded a special grip, whatever that is. He shouldn't be forced at all. My handwriting was the neatest when I was a kid and other parents were saying that it is a pleasure to read my exercise books as the handwriting was so neat and organised. What happened? Well, I just got lazy, so I think your boy is not really disadvantaged because he is a lefty but a little bit lazy when it comes to schoolwork. Sorry but I don't think there's any fun way of practicing something that you haven't aquired yet. You can either practice or not. Me, I enjoy practicing something I don't know because I love to see the improvement with each practice session.

Answer 4

Give him something to write so he'll practice.

Find something he'll be interested in. Maybe get him to make lists--things he wants to do, his favorite whatevers, funny stories, etc. Just get him to write whatever you think will keep his interest for ten or twenty minutes. Also, trying to draw will give him better motor skills for writing--encourage this too.

Also, he might not have learned that leftys have special requirements. Some desks are made for right-handed people. Also, sitting on the left side of the class lets you twist your seat so you can have your left hand in a good writing position while still facing the teacher. And, of course, scissors are made backward for leftys.

Answer 5

When I was five years old I remember practicing writing and found it exceptionally difficult, uncomfortable and shaky... and I was a "leftie". I practiced writing on a huge memo-board and on a lined notebook with my mother almost every evening for months and months. It wasn't the funnest but it worked. I remember distinctly, being told by a teacher that there is no difference in the amount of effort I must put into writing to get it to come out pretty/easily as my right-handed counterparts. I guess what I'm trying to say is though it is hard for you to see your son frustrated, you must remember to not point out he is different-handed and therefore it will be more difficult to learn for him than others. Just encourage repetition and praise good efforts. Don't worry about perfect penmanship, just make sure he is good with grammar and word usage!!! He's of a digital generation, anyway!

Answer 6

Put some sand on a tray and get him to write in that. Fill a tub with water, food colour and bubbles swish till it bubbles up and write in that. Drawing, colouring in etc helps build hand muscles too. Writing in the air with great big letters also helps, it can be hard for young ones to have fine motor control to do small neat writing but knowing how to write the letters - entry and exit points etc - is a big help, with time he will be able to refine it.

Also dont let him know you are worried or think he is not doing well. He will be learning for the rest of his life - dont turn him off it now. Many children my own included start school life in a less then spectacular way - but they get there in their own time - with encouragement, praise, lots of love and good humour.

Answer 7

I wouldn't worry too much about it just yet..... he's still learning, and it'll get better over time with practise.... if you've got any old exercise books from when you were at school or anything else you scribbled on when you were around 5 - 10yrs old laying about, you'll see what I mean if you compare it to something you wrote more recently.

I strongly recommend you don't bug him about it either, as I know from my Dad doing it all the time right through until I was in the 6th form that it's highly annoying (especially since his handwriting doesn't resemble any character used in English language, like when he does a C it looks more like < ) - and it's impossible to concentrate on learning anything when you've got people winding you up by nagging at you.

Answer 8

It's perfectly natural to worry about your childs progress but don't panic. By all means encourage him to practise and reward success but don't push so hard that he feels he is letting you down. My grandson is a left hander, his writing at five was not that good nor was he exeptional in his other work. He is now at 23 a teacher with a BSc Hons in economics, a very talented guitarist, and coaches a basketball team in the national league. Just enjoy watching him grow up and progress, you really don't know what he can achieve. Good Luck.

Answer 9

Just do normal teaching and learning like any children do everyday. About the left or right handed it does not matter actually. Its normal. And people can accept either left handed or rifht handed. For me, left handed people is a special people and unique. Rare I found left handed people can write, draw and doing work with left handed which many I found that right handed people use right hand. Even I want to practice how to use my left handed so..... much.

Doing poem, A - Z coloring and story is much better to make writing fun.

Answer 10

Im left handed and when i was younger i had the same problem. get some activity books that are fun and it will make him use his left hand and creativity. It said the the left handed people are in their right minds. I had very bad hand writing now my mom asks me to write a lot of her important letters because it's so nice. He will be ok, he might be behind but he will catch up.