Hello!
Handwriting can be a challenging skill to learn and apply. Sometimes, children experience difficulties or challenges with their handwriting. These difficulties and challenges can make handwriting difficult to read or, make handwriting a really tiring task. In the PowerPoint below, I have listed a few common handwriting difficulties that I see regularly, as well as some tips and tricks for supporting a child who may be experiencing these same difficulties.
Handwriting is actually quite a complex skill. It uses all types of our motor skills such as gross motor (the muscles in our core, our shoulders, our arms and our wrists), fine motor (our fingers) and our visual motor (our eyes). These motor processes all need to work together in order for handwriting to be functional and legible.
If you attempt any of these tips and tricks when supporting your child with handwriting, please try them for a period of time. This is because these changes might take a little getting used to. You may notice that your child is taking a little longer than usual to complete their writing task. This is because their motor processes are getting used to and adapting to the changes you have put in place.
🙂
Miss Bruns
(Occupational Therapist)
If you have a student/child that you notice has difficulty with mixing up similar looking letters when writing/reading e.g. (b/d , p/q, t/f) or is consistently writing some of their letters in reverse/backwards it could be due to a lack of understanding of direction e.g. left vs right. The below “Directionality & Visual Perception” activity is a good practice activity to practice “facing left” and “facing right” and can provide insight into how a child may visually perceive what this looks like to them.