Handwriting With (I mean) Without Tears

Yesterday we had an appointment with our Occupational Therapist again.  I learned so much from this experience it is amazing.  Like most teachers, we assign handwriting worksheets to our little kindergarteners and have them finish them up.  We see the final or end result and think, great!  Not bad!  Then we move on from there.  Little did I know, Lil G was writing his letters incorrectly.  His handwriting progressively got worse and I didn’t understand what was going on.  I’d ask my sweetie what his thoughts were and he’d say, “He’s doing fine, what are you so worried about? He’s reading/doing math and more in such a higher level, he’s bound to have trouble in one of the areas.”  Makes sense right?  So we just kept going and since he knew his letters, knew how to write them, I never worried about maintaining or incorporating a handwriting curriculum.

Moving on forward, this year, we started cursive.  I glanced over at Lil G and he had tears rolling down his face while trying to polish off his cursive page.   I could tell that he was really trying but it was so difficult for him.  I knew then that I needed to take action.

I called a local occupational therapist who also is certified with the HWT curriculum.  She came over and completed a thorough evaluation on Lil G. The assessment results stated that Lil G's overall score was at a 69% level.  He had scored very low in letter and number size as his letters were too large for his grade level.  This is a result of his start and sequence of each letter. Most of his letters start incorrectly and it takes a long time to form each one of his letters.  This made total sense to me!  My lil G hated writing.  I thought he hated writing because of the actual work but it was because of the actual handwriting process.  This began to bleed into his math work as well because he was having trouble completing his worksheets. 

The OT provided me with a great remediation plan and a thorough tutoring session on how I could help Lil G meet his new handwriting goals.  I am so psyched! We start his new handwriting booklet on Monday.  I wish I could come through this computer screen and hug you.  What a blessing it is to know this information!

I also purchased the HWT booklet for Lil Dude to start on too.  Will keep you posted on the progress!