Really need advice re: Penmanship! Please help!

[Canada_Mom]

Hi! I need to vent for 2 secs.- I'm big & pregnant and highly irritated about this!! :mad:

DD6 has awesome penmanship- can form beautiful letters and spaces her words nicely. Problem is, she's been getting very very sloppy (or lazy?) about forming her letters lately. If I'm not sitting in front of her as she writes, her writing is unacceptable- and I can't sit and watch her all the time! Honestly- you should see her printing from last year & even the beginning of this year- it is beautiful... and now.... I thought penmanship was supposed to get nicer as kids go older, not worse. :(

What do I do? I saw that the MP copybook II has lines underneath each sentence for the kids to copy directly below each word- would this encourage her to print nicer??? :confused:
Currently when we do copywork, she copies my sentences from off of the blackboard. She's very good at it so I considered the MP level II to be "too easy" and tried to save some money by not buying it.

I've made her write lines as correction but then got scared that she'll see printing as punishment so I backed off. I also thought her printing was getting sloppy because she was writing too much each day, but I do not feel this is the case. She writes 20 spelling words (req'd by WRTR) and usually around 5-7 simple sentences. I do most of the printing for the other subjects.

Someone, please have some advice! This is driving me crazy!!

[Rhonda in TX]

How old is she? I think that will determine what to expect.

[Claire]

If you're saying she is 6yo and writing 20 words plus 5-7 sentences per day, I think the problem may be too much writing. Try explaining to her that you are giving her only half of her usual writing assignments, with the expectation that every word will be neat and beautiful. (Perhaps give her a sample of her earlier handwriting so she has an idea of the standard.)

[Canada_Mom]

Too much writing? Really? I never really considered what she did to be too much... I'll try and see if cutting back a bit helps. Maybe she's overwhelmed?

WRTR has them write 10 new words in notebook each day and do daily 10 word spelling quiz, so I can't cut down there. Also, she's supposed to do daily creative writing as a requisite for the school board here. Gr. 1 expects them to be able to write 5-7 sentences about one topic so we've been practicing almost daily using Evan Moor Giant Write Daily for topic ideas. She seems to enjoy it.

She does not enjoy me harping on her about her printing. I've brought out old samples of her K work to show her what I know she's capable of.... hmmm

[Chris in VA]

[QUOTE=Canada_Mom;18414]Too much writing? Really? I never really considered what she did to be too much... I'll try and see if cutting back a bit helps. Maybe she's overwhelmed?

WRTR has them write 10 new words in notebook each day and do daily 10 word spelling quiz, so I can't cut down there. Also, she's supposed to do daily creative writing as a requisite for the school board here. Gr. 1 expects them to be able to write 5-7 sentences about one topic so we've been practicing almost daily using Evan Moor Giant Write Daily for topic ideas. She seems to enjoy it.


Personally, I don't think it's too much. A couple of ideas/thoughts--
Remember that Grade 1 expectations are to be met by the end of the year. If she can already do it, great. Maybe cut back here to twice a week.

What I've found with dd (who is also getting sloppier) is that, before, her handwriting was beautiful because she was so focused on making the letters. Now she is focused on using the letters to communicate her ideas. As her ability to quickly make the letters increased, her ability to use those letters to do their job also increased, and took precedence.

Just yesterday, I encouraged her to write more neatly. As she focused on that, her *use* of the letters declined. One day, she'll be able to both write very neatly *and* communicate clearly. It just takes a while.

I'm just going to occasionally remind her to write beautifully. Too much hovering and interfering only makes her anxious. Then her perfectionist tendencies come out. Not good!

Take a breath and relax. She'll be ok.

[Lorna]

I would try Callirobics. It increases the care taken over the writing whilst encouraging fluency. It only takes ten minutes a day and she won't need to decrease the amount of writing she does. Consider it a warm-up (she'll consider it fun I promise!). A six year old's hand doesn't have the strength of an adult's and you may just find it is a physical issue (compleletely normal in my experience).

[Mekanamom]

...And tell the kids to re-do the whole thing in neater writing. I'll praise them on the content if it's correct, tell them it's a good first draft, and then tell them I expect neat work to be handed in.

Usually, their writing gets a lot better for a while after that.

My oldest is getting sloppy again... I've had to hand back a couple pages lately that needed to be re-done. I'm hoping that they'll realize it's less work to just write neatly the first time.