thoughts on handwritting -- delay academics and immature boy

[Momma Aimee]

our oldest is 5 (turned 5 in Nov) and will be kindy age in the fall.  we do not push academics and are not unschool but pretty easy going.

I know his fine motor is behind, he is in OT.  I know that over all he is immature.

I had no plans to start handwritting till maybe 7.

but he is starting to write on his own.  He can write his name and is starting to sound out words -- like STOP yesterday, not in the correct order (written right to left not left to right) but he got it!!  he is starting the very basics of reading.

he know how to -- I'll say draw -- all his letters ... though we've done no handwriting.

so here is my delimia

option one:  start a little hand writting with him and worry he is going to be fustrated.

option two:  let him go on his own (wrote i love you  the other day) and worry about him falling in to bad habits that we re going to have to unlearn.  so much of handwritting is muscle memory and I do not vant him to learn incorrect and start really bad habits.

neither sounds good to me --

thoughts

I am clueless to the best choice

[Googy]

I would start some handwriting with him, but in a really, really relaxed, fun manner.  Like pick a letter each week and have him practice tracing sandpaper letters, writing the letter in sand and/or shaving cream, make the letter out of his lunch foods, etc.  Then if he wants to write the letter on paper then great, if not, fine, wait until he's older.  If he wants to write on paper, start really big then slowly work your way toward smaller letters.  You can take advantage of the really big pencils and such too.  Either way he will be well-practiced in forming the letters properly without the pressure of the fine motor demands of a more formal handwriting program. 

[moominmamma]

He's interested in learning to print ... so support him and help him learn! Meet him where he's at and encourage him to move forward and refine and extend his learning a little. Don't push it, don't slot him into some sort of unyielding structured approach, don't make him stick with it if he discovers it's too frustrating, but if he's interested, by all means, help him by showing him approaches and strategies that are likely to make it easier and more enjoyable for him. 

Just like when he was learning to walk ... you helped him, cheered him on, provided opportunties, cleared obstacles out of the way, but you didn't suddenly insist he stop crawling and spend 20 minutes twice a day doing walking exercises to learn it correctly.

It may not go anywhere much, or he may take right off. Who's to say? If you keep it fun and pay attention to his signals in case it's becoming too much, there's absolutely no harm, and there may be a lot of good come out of it.

Miranda

[Momma Aimee]

thanks, I am going to copy for him a "look at page" of the letter and encourage him to 'look at it' and encourage (not demand) he look at it when he starts his lists or messages.

i don't know -- he doesn't vant to learn, LOL he wants to do -- roll eyes -- so maybe that will allow him to "do" but not learn too many bad habits

[LuxPerpetua]

Originally Posted by Momma Aimee 

thanks, I am going to copy for him a "look at page" of the letter and encourage him to 'look at it' and encourage (not demand) he look at it when he starts his lists or messages.

i don't know -- he doesn't vant to learn, LOL he wants to do -- roll eyes -- so maybe that will allow him to "do" but not learn too many bad habits

I think how you approach this is very important because, like Mary Poppins makes clear, the tone and manner in which you do something makes all the difference (remember, Just a Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down?).  I think anything that is not fun and gamelike will be a bust and will cause harm.

My dd is almost the same age as your son.  In the last few months she's just recently gotten more into writing.  She sees me write lists and letters all the time and she's gotten interested in writing, so I definitely think that making sure *you* are writing a lot in his presence is important.  My dd does not form all her letters correctly (they are all written properly but some she'll write from the bottom-up instead of top-down).  I'm not worried about it and won't until she's 6.5 and we start letters in 1st grade, but that's the relaxed Waldorfer in me.  I'm just really saying that this is very common and I wouldn't worry about it because I do think it will self-correct if you focus on it later when he's more interested.  If you do want to try some things right now you could try a game where he watches you draw a letter on a chalkboard and then with a wet paintbrush he "erases" your letter and redraws it himself.  I remember when I was in kindy we had workbooks for learning to write letters in which there were 3 lines, all different colors (red on top, yellow in the middle, and green on bottom) and there was an example letter written at the start of the lines that had a red dot marking where you started making that letter.  You could make up some sheets like that for him to use.  You could also get some letter "stamps" for him to just have fun with but at the same time he'd be exposed to how the letters look. You could make up some bread dough or buy some breadstick dough and form the shapes of the letters and eat them for lunch.  You could put a layer of shaving cream or flour on a pan and take turns drawing letters on it.

 I honestly think that bad habits aren't much of an issue at this age--by age 7 or 8, yes, but not at age 5, especially if he isn't doing much writing.  I think there is a greater risk at this age of him feeling upset by you knowing that he isn't doing it "correctly" than that he'll always make his "s's sideways or something. 

Blessings!