Common Handwriting Struggles That Children Face and Tips to Solve Them

Handwriting can be a complex skill to master, so it’s not surprising to know that a lot of kids have a tough time mastering this skill. Poor handwriting skills could make your kid feel anxious and stresses, can cause problems with his/her schoolwork, and could keep him/her from even wanting to write. Here are what children tend to struggle with primarily when it all comes to handwriting, along with some tips to help with those struggles:

Incorrect grip

There numerous developmental stages that children would go through before they learn to hold their pencil or pen correctly. As a toddler, your child would start off by holding the pen or pencil in closed fist, which would cause most of his/her scribbling motion to come from their shoulders, suggests a teacher at the best school in Santacruz. As your child’s control over arm and hand improve over time, they would start holding their pencil and pen, eventually, with their fingers, and most of the movement would start coming from the wrist. By the age of six, most kids tend to master the correct, trip-style of handwriting grip. However, as it is true for most developmental stages, it would vary from one child to another. Tripod-style grips are considered the most efficient in enabling your child to master handwriting skill. It enables your child to write more neatly without their hands tiring easily.

Sizing & spatial concepts

When it comes to gaps in the individual letters and huge letters, many children may face spatial difficulties when they are learning to write. For instance, your kid may write the alphabet "p" in two parts – a line followed by a circle – leaving space in between those two parts. In addition to this, his/her letters may vary in size, and may range from very small to large.

To help your child keep his/her letters consistent, try using slope sheets, suggest the teachers at the schools in Santacruz. Some sheets have third dotted line as well, that goes through the middle, in order to help children with proper sizing of upper- and lower-case alphabets. Keep reminding your child that all the parts of the letters need to touch, so that there’s no gap in between. Practice is vital to master handwriting skill. So, find time each and everyday to have your kid practice his/her letters, but also make sure to keep this exercise short as well as fun so that he/she doesn’t get frustrated or burned out.

Number or letter reversals

Writing numbers and letters backwards is not something that parents need to be concerned about, overly, in younger kids – a lot of kids tend to struggle with such problem, as they haven’t even developed spatial consistency yet, and this is why they don’t really understand that when letters are reversed, it could represent some other letter (or perhaps none at all). All it would take, to learn the correct way of writing numbers and letters, is practice and persistence, and over time number and letter reversals wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

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