Handwriting problems using Handwriting Without Tears

When my son came home from his summer school when he was 5.6 years old, he gave this card to me.

Ice at 5.6

With 2 years of pre-school before that 2-week summer play school, his teachers were telling me about the huge problem on his handwriting, pencil grip, reversals of letters, and left/right handwriting confusion. I thought, this was not a big deal.

A few days after summer school, I went to the school and saw a bulletin board with works of some 3-4 year olds, I saw my son's work and that alarmed me - my almost 6 year old's handwriting is awful.

I asked the teachers on how we could brush up his skills. They advised us to do lots of copywork, after-school tutorials, use pencil grippers or check if he was left-handed (he uses his right hand to write) - importantly, just make him WRITE. But, my son just hated to write! Just asking him to write his first name makes him so stressed and doesn't know how to copy anything. My son was frustrated and so was I.

The Lord told me that I need to stop comparing and being frustrated with my son.  Education is not who finishes first or being the best on one or two things, but what one learns through the process. God showed me, that he made me a mother and am the only physical being to really help and teach my son more effectively. So, he opened my heart for the very first time to homeschool.

When I began homeschooling, that meant, giving up my beloved 9-12 hour work and be a work-at-home mom. It was hard to give up something you love, but my son and kids were all worth it.

At 5, this is the way he colors the trees and monkeys.
The strokes on his letters are like of a 3 year old.

I've met with veteran homeschoolers when I shared my heart to them about homeschooling. One mom, shared to me about Sonlight. I bought an entire curriculum P4/5 with K readers, Singapore Math and most importantly, Handwriting Without Tears set.

They have other handwriting sets but I chose this because it was meant to correct reversals and does not follow the "dot to dot" letter practice.  If you will get the Teacher's guide, you will get more tips on how to use their 2-lined paper, priper letter strokes, Mat Man activities and many others. 

I learned that dot to dot letter formation won't make the child focus on the stroke of the letter because it will just make them focus on the dots that they follow.  

HWOT (Handwriting Without Tears) focuses on each letters stroke, even if your child has no issues on handwriting, using this as a handwriting curriculum will help them control their letter reversals which is very common to preschoolers to 1st grade.  I am also using this to my 5 year old twin girls and though, the other twin shows very strong tripod grip (as I have already started them with lots of fine motor by 12 months), HWOT still helped her with her letter reversals, letter formations and spacing of words and letters.  This is also very helpful with my left handed child who had severe letter reversals and was writing in complete mirror image of words. This was all corrected with HWOT.

Before going into Handwriting without Tears, my son had lots of trouble with the way he traces the letters.  Handwriting is a skill that has to follow a certain kind of stroke per each letter to prevent reversals. Which my son so struggled with.  This style above was a copywork activity without any strokes taught to a child.  This style won't work all the time esp. for kids struggling with handwriting.

We began homeschooling using Sonlight - P4/5.  I have researched about handwriting problems with children and Handwriting Without Tears (http://www.hwtears.com) was my choice.  I included the 4 volume books of Developing the Early Learner (http://www.sonlight.com/PR01.html)  on our curriculum as well, which made a big significance on my son's interest in puzzles yet having to master Motor-skills, Visual, Problem-solving and Auditory skills.

For a year, I focused on my 5 year old's reading and handwriting.  I saw big improvements just doing 1 year of Handwriting without tears. From a non-writer to an avid story writer (I was still his scribe, during that time).

This was one of our 1st activities.  He was already in K, yet I needed to do "letter of the week" for him.  I let him practice strokes and lines and we only did 1 letter per week for this.  We did not exceed for more than 15 minutes otherwise he just gets tired.

Our first few activities was to focus on pencil grip and mastering the tripod grip.  We sang a song from HWOT CD "Where do you start your letter? On the top!" (from the Handwriting Without Tears book) and a lot of gripping and holding activities.  We did that for 2 weeks then moved on to worksheets.

After an activity, I would let him check his work by putting a circle on the best-looking letter/s he made.

He knows how to write but only up to his nickname (ICE), beyond that, he would scribble and doodle. I did not allow him to do copy work yet, even though we had to, if we follow the curriculum.  I never rush on things, just letting him flow through it and we only moved when he is ready for the next.

Below are some activities we did during the year and you can see how he has improved a lot in that year alone.

This is the beauty of homeschooling. If I let him go to Prep (K) that time, we will just be as frustrated as a mother in waiting for labor. Even if we had to write 1 letter a week (he actually, got the hang of it, and in just 3 months- we were already writing an entire paragraph). 

 would put markings and honestly tell him parts that fell over the lines that he needed to correct next time.  The orange dots were his only guide on where to begin his letter stroke.

After some time, I slowly introduced how to write his name.  You can see that though, some lines were still  a bit crooked as he was still mastering a stronger grip, his name looks a lot better in just a month and a half.

When I introduce a new lesson to him.  I would use a highlighter and would show him how to do the strokes.  After which, he would write over the highlighted letters and finished it.  Then, I would give him a space to do without the highlighted letter by just giving him a highlighted point on the starting stroke of the 1st letter of the word.

We did sentence case for his name.  I had a hard time asking him to finish just this page, but with encouragement and lots of praises, he was able to finish it.  It took him like 3 minutes per name and he got really tired doing so but, bravely, he did.

Since then, I have always asked him to write his first name (and not just writing his 3 letter nickname) on all his worksheets.  I was so proud of him seeing his improvement on this.  This was just after 3 months.

Since, he loves math and we do Singapore Math, t was easier to introduce him to number writing.  This was the time, he had more patience finishing an entire page.  He finished this in about 30 minutes, after that.  We took a break right away after an entire page of activity.

Getting there...

Now, without any number templates.  This was introduced after 5 months and he has quickly picked it up in 3 weeks.

Introduced, sentences and simple copy work which he found terribly boring.  But, lots of praises were his drive to finish this task.  So, from 30 minutes a page.  We were now cut to 15 minutes doing this.

6 months prior to this, my son had no interest whatsoever in drawing or writing. He would never go get a pen or even draw.  I never experienced seeing any drawings on any wall of our house (that was clear, he had no interest in writing). But, just after those 6 months he has learned to be more confident in writing.  He made drawings everyday, every hour of the day.  He grabs a paper and gave me cards.  In a span of just 3 months, he finished a ream of recycled paper I bought for him.  It was just like a light bulb just switched "on" him.

One of our story elaboration activity.  I asked him to draw while I become his scribe.

Just 6 months doing Handwriting without Tears and Developing the Early Learner - I suddenly have a very artistic son.

We finished his curriculum and I was confident of his writing skills more than ever in just a year of focusing on my son.  When he turned 6, we enrolled him in a Montessori-based school.  

I had to work again full-time and so after praying for a school that will best suit his learning style, God showed us the school for him.

We enrolled him to K (or Prep), and he was 6 that time.  We went school hopping and the school where he is now was the one we peacefully have chosen.  But, when I got in the classroom during a school tour I saw a Calligraphy board and asked if they will teach that to kids in pre-school.  The teacher said, yes.  They start at K (Prep) and it is called the Monstessori Style of Calligraphy (not cursive).  They said, they follow Maria Montessori's belief that Calligraphy is the most natural way of writing.  I was so worried!  I pulled-out my child to teach a year on his writing and then... calligraphy for a 6 year old?  Even then, we let it a try.

My son wrote that?!

After 1-2 quarters of the school year, I saw more improvement with my son's handwriting.  At first, he got too overwhelmed but since he loves his school - he was able to do more than expected.

Just 4 months, he was writing really well. More comfortably and a better grip.  But, it was evident that the style we learned in a year of homeschool was still evident in his strokes.

His drawing was not so bad as well for someone who used to struggle in handwriting.
He was 6.5 at this time. 

Then, another setback came on him.  His Calligraphy was pulling him down because it was a totally different stroke that he has never mastered.  But, because I told him the history of Calligraphy, he got excited.  Since, I used to write Calligraphy during my college days and love typography art as well.  I showed him great works of people who write really good. That nailed it and gave him a reason to write beautifully.

For his entire Grade 1, his handwriting uing calligraphy was just as horrible as when we started handwriting! But, rather than feeling so depressed on this again, I praised him and practiced using HWOT 2-lined paper and showed him proper strokes based on it.

His grades were still wonderful inspite the trouble with his writing.

Now, my son is 8 and in Grade 2. He once showed me his notes and told me "Mom, teacher placed a note on my notebook and said 'Very nice calligraphy'." I said, "can I see it?".  When I saw his handwriting, I almost cried.  My son is now free.

Defeating his dragon!

Each child is unique and have a different set of timing in his way to learn things.  Some are early learners while some needs more time.  There are some who are good in 10 things and weak in 1 or the other way around.  If we are there in that 1 or 10 things, we will give them everything they will ever need.

By the way, my son has LD (Learning Disability) in Reading, Writing and Spelling.  It was a tough one for my little man, but slowly and little by little we are defeating these dragons in his life together.

Your thoughts? Do share! I would love to help.