Handwriting progress

We did a lot of activities (literacy, numeracy, fine motor, self care) at home today, but I do not have time to write about them. Instead, I’ll do a quick update tonight based on a photo I took earlier this week.

There’s been progress in his handwriting skill and I’m very happy about it.

I opened the page he was to work on, placed it on his kid sized table, took out his pencil with the pencil grip attached, told him I needed to take a shower and left him to it. When I got back to him, I was so happy to see that he completed the entire page by himself!

He’s come a long way. When he started school this year, I had to hold his hand and move it for him. I had to use chunky pencils. Sometimes I had to use the chunky rainbow coloured one given by his music teacher or the chunky crazy coloured one I bought, just to entice him to write. Teacher had to write out the word for him to trace over, and would write on alternate lines so that it’s not so intimidating for him. He’d get tired after just a few letters and gag. He’d drool as he wrote.


Recently, I let him write on his own. There’s a lot less drool and hardly any gagging. I just correct the positioning of the base of his hand, the wrist, and the third finger. There’s just two alphabets that are not so legible – letters x and y. Both of those require diagonal lines and accurate placing of the strokes. His 'x' looks like 't' and his 'y' sometimes looks like 't' or a funny 'v'.

In the photo above, he was able to keep the letters on a horizontal line. Sometimes, even with lined paper, the letters slant down steeply. The spacing between the letters was alright initially but as he wrote more, the spacing went awry.

Using the colour pencils to colour is a totally different matter. He still has a lot of trouble colouring. I have to hold my hand over his to colour. He gags if he colours by himself. He has not learnt to use the right muscles – he uses big arm movement and the placement of arm, wrist and hand are not suitable for colouring.

Overall, in terms of handwriting, I feel he’s progressed well. For that piece of work he did above, he did a very good job. I praised him lavishly. I’m very happy and so proud of him!

Since then, he tries harder to write nicer. He’ll erase those letters that weren’t formed nicely or erase those that were spaced too far apart. He’s taking pride in his handwriting! Great stuff!

Btw, there’s also progress in other areas but I’ve not had time to write about them.