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riotgrrrlzrock
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03 Jul 2004, 7:32 pm

My son can write upper and lower case letters, but he refuses to write lower case. he is going into 3rd grade and will not even TRY cursive writing, he says that his hands won't let him. I know that he is capable physically of this task, but I know he has a good reason for not doing it. Did any of you face this same challenge and what did you do about it?

Crystal



Scoots5012
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03 Jul 2004, 8:12 pm

When I was your sons age, my cursive handwriting could have been best described as "ramdom scribling". I truely was that bad, even to this day I avoid cursive if I have too. I also have many, many repressed memories of getting yelled at by my parents about my handwriting, and spending many hours practicing outside of school, my dad yelling, and accusing me of not trying when ever my penmanship and speed didn't meet to his statisfaction.

My advice to you: Go slow, be patient, eventually he'll learn to write out the letters, even if he takes a while.



riotgrrrlzrock
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03 Jul 2004, 8:27 pm

Thank you so much for responding. His teachers have been very understanding and have not pushed him. I am trying to get him to practice a little bit this summer, but he doesn't seem to want to try. If he is not comfortable with it by the end of the summer I will put writing in upper case in his IEP. As long as he is writing in any case, I am proud and accepting.

Crystal



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04 Jul 2004, 6:53 pm

My handwriting was very bad from when I started writing in kindergarten until fifth grade. It was poor, large handwriting in general, not limited too cursive. I had so much difficulty with writing in the beginning that I visited with an occupational therapist for a time in kindergarten, and I was forced to rewrite assignments many times. In fifth grade, my handwriting improved dramatically without any additional practice. I realized that as long as I used a mechanical pencil, I could write in very small letters that were well formed. I remember that my fourth grade teacher saw my fifth grade teacher grading my homework, and could not believe whose it actually was since my handwriting had been much larger the previous year. I have been diagnosed with disgraphia, but this is because it can take me a very long time to write anything, as I try to make sure my handwriting looks as best as possible.



V111
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09 Jul 2004, 8:37 pm

School are so 1890's still making ppl write with pens/pencil yes they need to know how but there's typewriters and computers now :-)



Torley_Wong
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09 Jul 2004, 9:01 pm

Yeah, I'd like to fast forward into the future too with a Tablet PC for every student, but there's that pesky $$$ funding issue. Like they say, once they put a standard into place, it's a real pain to overhaul everything and shift to the next step in the evolutionary logistics chain. It's why, as I like to cite commonly, we are still stuck on the computer Desktop GUI metaphor.

Proper penmanship is important in case you ever find yourself far from technology, but typing speed is extremely important -- otherwise, you spend a loooooong time writing emails, and posting here! :)

Actually Crystal aka riotgrrrlzrock, IIRC... there was a time when I was nine (that rhymes), and I had problems writing in lowercase as well. All of my early schoolbooks up to Grade 4 or 5 are filled with uppercase, block letters. I liked to print that way and I was sounded out for it by my teachers. I also HATED cursive writing, no thanks in part to a dumbass substitute teacher who was ignorant and intolerant and cruel about my efforts to learn, but nevertheless discouraged me. Eventually out of my own self-interest, I grew to adapt. The writing I have now is a hybrid between print and cursive (I like e's and stuff).

Is cursive really faster? I find for some people, they can do print more effectively. Reasons for exclusively using cursive are antiquated and archaic. It's good to learn it though, sort of like a different hand-font. Give your son some more time but maybe make it a fun game with him: ask him if he can try to copy the cursive letters you make, or the ones in an instructional text. Give him all the time he needs to interlink those letters, and as you know, a little positive encouragement goes a long way.



Taineyah
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09 Jul 2004, 9:19 pm

My grandmother taught me to handwrite when I was very small and I enjoyed learning, but for some reason my brain can't understand that cursive is the same thing as printing. I print all the time. I can handwrite, and my handwriting is very pretty, but I'm so terrifyingly slow for me that it's useless. It's like my brain thinks of it as drawing instead of writing? I don't know if that makes sense, but I know how hard it can be to be the only one in a class who can't FUNCTIONALLY handwrite. My grade 7&8 music teacher insisted that all of us use cursive. I spent a lot of time in his classroom after hours finishing notes. Please speak to your child's teachers about not forcing him to use cursive! It will save him a lot of frustration and ridicule!

Tainz


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Tom_FL_MA
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09 Jul 2004, 11:53 pm

I don't like writing in cursive. My handwriting isn't the best, especially since I don't have to really write much, (anymore). I am a fast typer and really enjoy going online to access message boards, IMing and sometimes e-mail.



ilster
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15 Jul 2004, 4:30 am

As an adult, I much prefer to use title case when leaving notes for other people. Sometimes I can't read my own cursive - let alone let the others have a go. I used to 'mirror write' in cursive in my teens - can still do it if I really concentrate. I think upper case is easier than lower, because you set a definite top and bottom height, and you move your fingers a regular distance without the additional strain of judging midlines, baselines etc, and shifting finger position. I'm only guessing - I'm no occupational therapist. I can barely write in lower case. Interestingly however, I have fabulous line and brush control when painting or illustrating.... cross hatching used to be a favourite - in fact I am trying to teach myself to loosen up and not be so rigorous about forms when I paint. I did sign-writing for a while, and with dedication and perseverance, could form letters with perfectly even widths using a single brush stroke. Wierd isn't it!



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20 Jul 2004, 12:19 pm

I always had trouble writing when I was a kid. I don't know why, I just did. In 1st grade, my teacher gave me extra help with my writing and I managed to do OK. In 2nd grade, my teacher wouldn't give me the extra help and often ignored me when I had a problem not just with writing, but with everything else. My parents complained to the principal about it and were promised something would be done, but nothing was.

My parents ended up transfering me to a new school during the year, and the teacher there saw I was behind in writing and other subjects and gave me extra help. She gave me a quick crash course in cursive writing every afternoon during recess for a couple of weeks. I learned the letters but never got good at them. In spite of this, I went from being behind academically to being one of the top students in class. The only low grade I had was you guessed it, penmanship.

Even today, my handwriting is terrible. I've always written big and never got the hang of small writing. My letters aren't well formed, but if I concentrate I can come up with something legible.

I had alot of problems in school in addition to this. The school that helped me put acadmic peformance above all else, had alot of structure, rules that made sense, etc., and I did well there. My parents later took me out of there and bounced me in and out of other private and public schools where this was not the case. I never understood how teachers could grade on anything other than the work the student produced, why sports was so important, pep rallys, school spirit(still don't quite understand that one), and the general disdain the general student population had for the kids who did well in school.

Everyone used to think I was just weird. Now that I know about AS, I wonder if there is an explanation for it after all.


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27 Jul 2004, 2:31 pm

My handwriting always changes. Sometimes it's print and sometimes it's cursive. I'll switch mid-sentence a lot of times. The style of my writing changes a lot, too. Sometimes it's neat, sometimes it's messy. Usually, however, it is somewhat big and I dot my i's with little circles:)



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30 Jul 2004, 3:41 am

My handwriting (my printing) has always been close to unreadable, unless I concentrate on what I am doing with my hand. I guess it could be called "chickenscratch." My friends have always told me that they thing my writing looks cool (formally), but that they can't read it.

Quote:
It's like my brain thinks of it as drawing instead of writing?


Yes, that's exactly how it is for me when I try to use cursive. I can't seem to use it in the same way that I use printing. I never use cursive anymore. It used to take me ages just to sign my name (on receipts or appointment slips or whatever), but now I've developed a "doctor's signature"- basically, I let my hand go through the motions it would when I sign my name, only much faster. It turns out looking nothing like my name, and I'm always afraid they will compare the signature and say "this looks nothing like this!" because it never comes out the same way.

Crystal,

Does your son have a proper pencil grip? I have always held my pencil the wrong way, and because I wasn't corrected until I was well into Jr. High, I was never able to fix it. It supposedly makes writing more difficult, and more of a physical strain. It's also harder to learn, because you can't mimic the teacher's actions if you aren't holding the pencil the same way. Perhaps he also has the "drawing" problem- that cursive and lowercase writing is more like drawing for him than writing. You should ask him about that, and see what he says.



UltimApe
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01 Aug 2004, 10:03 pm

ugh, penmanship is such a chore. I have some of the fastest typing skills in my school with the exception of some teachers (who've been doing it for a while). But my writing is either laboriously slow, or so fast that it is unreadable.

I never saw the point to cursive writing. The only people I've ever dseen using it were those old crabby substitute teachers that are the type whom are way too stuck in tradition for their own good. I don't think its a problem with me thinking its art, I see how there are shapes that represent symbols, and thus sounds, And I can read it quite well.

I think deep down I have dyslexia, but my mind has made up on the reading part using tricks (heh, I don't read words, I look at them). When I was little I would offten switch letters and numbers backwards. And unless you want me to spend 6 hours on a paragraph, don't try to ask for legible writing.

Not many people can read upside down or backwards as effectively as I do.

So I laeve you konw wtih tihs bit of ifno: I r teh suk



magic
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01 Aug 2004, 11:07 pm

UltimApe wrote:
I think deep down I have dyslexia, but my mind has made up on the reading part using tricks (heh, I don't read words, I look at them).

Isn't that the standard way people read, by looking at whole words? (That's actually the slowest of three methods of reading that I use.)



todayiamhuman
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03 Aug 2004, 6:03 am

handwriting is horrible! im no good at all those squiggly lines at all. they tried to teach me for years and years but it never stuck.
when i first started writing..i think when i was about 4-5 (is that slow learning?) i kept writing backwards lol none of the teachers could understand how i did it. it was also a welsh school aswell, so they didnt even teach in english. confusing times. but also very funny when i look back on it.



TenebraruM
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03 Aug 2004, 2:34 pm

Heh, Taz, that's probably why I remember you getting 12% in that German test - your paper was illegible :roll:


Back on topic - I brought up this in another post I beleive - it took me a long time to learn to read & write. My teachers and parents, as well as grandparents, made me practice a fair bit. Once it caught on, however, my handwriting became neat (probably due to my incessant writing down of all in-game speech, including Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Pokemon etc).

However, my writing has remained painfully slow (my hands start aching after a short time of writing, too). I've noticed other people seem to lift their hands up, reducing pressure between letters, while using joined up writing, I flow through - concentrate on every line. I beleive it's due to some sort of disorder that disallows the brain to learn the patterns of writing - similar to our social deficits. I read into it a while back, though I can't remember its name.

As an extra note, once I caught on reading and writing there was no stopping me. My vocabulary increased at an astounding rate, my reading age increased dramatically, & my spelling age increased to around 3-4 years greater than my choronological age.


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