WHAT CAUSES HANDWRITING TO BE A STRUGGLE FOR MY CHILD?
There are two common reasons that children struggle with handwriting.
The first, and most common reason, is fine motor skill deficiency. There are 15 specific fine motor skills that lay the foundation for a child’s hand to write with a pencil.
If these skills are not developed not only does it affect their legibility, it can cause a child to hold the pencil incorrectly, write with heavy or light pencil pressure, have hand fatigue or cramping and they may struggle with shoe tying or using utensils properly.
The second reason can be found with poor visual-motor skills; meaning that your eyes need to work together with their hands as a team.
Their eyes lead the hands and need to have the ability to easily and accurately follow a moving target, change focus from near to far (ex: copying off of the board), and work together for near and distance activities.
Without these skills your child may show a decreased attention span, skip words when copying or reading, have difficulty writing within a given boundary or lean on the table when writing.
WILL THIS CURE ITSELF OVER TIME?
Unfortunately, this is not something that your child will grow out of and it could be a costly mistake to take the “wait and see” approach.
Both fine motor and ocular motor skills mature throughout the normal course of development. If your child did not develop these skills fully they are most likely demonstrating one or more of the signs and symptoms listed above.
It is important to get them targeted intervention as soon as possible because these skills will not develop on their own, if they haven’t already,and your child will continue to struggle.
WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP MY CHILD?
The first and most important step you can take is to identify the “why” behind your child’s challenges.
We help you identify challenges your child is facing with our extensive evaluation process at Scribble 2 Script.
Once we have a clear understanding of why your child is struggling we can develop a specific plan of action to help your child achieve legible handwriting and have fun while they are doing it!
