How to improve your child’s handwriting?

Over a cuppa at Sanjana’s house (who organised a get together of a whatsapp mom’s group of her daughter’s classmates), moms shared the common pain point – handwriting issues: “My daughter has a real messy handwriting, even though she tries really hard to be neat in her notebooks,” exclaimed Sanjana, mother to a 7-year-old girl. “I can’t read what my son writes,” shared Sunaina, mother to an 8-year-old boy. “My 6-year-old is still struggling to get her pencil grip right,” grimaced another mom.

Well, they all strained hard to recognise the alphabets and words penned down by their children! Handwriting becomes crucial since it does affect grades, that too in a big way and that’s why it becomes all the more important for a parent’s intervention to improve the child’s handwriting. To add to the woes, most children are averse to writing to begin with, but if you can make it fun, your child will take to it like bees to honey!

So here are 6 ways to cut out writing woes of your children, and show off their notebooks to fellow parents too!

1. Get your child’s pencil grasp right: The most efficient way to hold a pencil is the dynamic tripod grasp where a pencil is positioned between the thumb and the index finger with the pencil resting on the middle finger. There are many ways to promote tripod grasp such as popping up bubble wraps; writing with smaller tools such as crayons, small sized pencils, breaking chalks into halves; let them get artsy by indulging in messy finger painting; use tongs or tweezers to transfer beads from one bowl to another; tearing and crushing paper into balls; writing on vertical surfaces such as easels, chalkboards which build strength and stability in arms and shoulders.

2. Make your child practice writing on different textures: Shaving cream smeared on the table, a foggy mirror, patch of mud, leftover sauce makes great surfaces. Let them experiment with sand, play dough or clay to refine their fine motor skills. This makes it fun and your child will shed any fears he might have regarding the written word, so easily and effortlessly.

3. Give her the ‘write’ environment: You may give that environment by giving her a good chair and a table at the right height – this is important for posture as well as good writing skill. Maintaining right posture is quite essential by resting your arms on the table and keeping your torso in the right position.

4. Get the lined paper be your child’s guide: Get four lined notebooks for writing in English and five lined notebooks for writing in Hindi. These lines help them create letters that are right in size and proportion. They also keep writing straight instead of uphill or downhill.

5. Slow and steady solves the problem: Slowing down a bit keeps the child’s body and mind in control and helps her match the speed between her thoughts and putting it on paper which means fewer mistakes. So don’t try to hasten up the process. Give your child time and space to do her best. Keep checking and encouraging as she makes a little progress every day.

6. Break down the task into smaller parts: Writing too much at one go can result in fatigue and frustration too, which leads to bad handwriting and redoing, all of which can be avoided if small steps are taken at a time – if one page is too much, settle for half a page. Be flexible in your approach so that your child enjoys the process. Divide the work into smaller chunks so that child is willing and not dreading the time you spend with her to improve her handwriting.

Remember, writing is more than doing homework or doing well at school! It is a life skill too, that will stay with your child for all years to come. Cut out the boredom by motivating her to write a one-line birthday greeting card for her friend or take notes of her dance class or sports event, whatever interests her. Linking the handwriting process with things that your child naturally enjoys will do wonders. Maintaining a diary and writing one page everyday also acts as a good outlet for venting feelings and at the same time ‘making her practice’. You may also suggest that they make lists of things they want to do (which will also help them get more organised) or encourage your child to copy her favourite poems and quotations.

How have you been dealing with it? If you have tried something that helped your child improve his or her handwriting, please share with us and help other moms in this journey. Your feedback and comments are valuable to our readers and parentune team.