Handwriting Update

I've mentioned before how having low-muscle tone affects Kayla's fine motor skills; especially tracing and writing.

She still struggles with tracing letters - how to stop and start again and lift up her pencil instead of making continuous lines or loops. Sometimes the tracing she does over a letter looks nothing like the letter she was tracing; other times it looks pretty darn good.

The special ed teacher works with Kayla on tracing, but she is using the 'dotted/dittoed' letters and in the parent-teacher conference I mentioned to the regular ed teacher that I didn't think that was the best way for Kayla to trace/learn. I think the dittoed letters are too 'busy' and not easy for Kayla to follow along, and she agreed, so hopefully they won't be using that anymore.

While the OT is still using Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) worksheets with Kayla it hasn't quite been incorporated for Kayla in the general classroom setting yet; so I'll be sending some info to her teacher so she can start using that with Kayla too.

The school district uses D'Nealian style handwriting. The instructions for forming some of those letters are so long! Example for a lowercase 'd': Middle start; around down, touch, up high, down, and a monkey tail. Uppercase "B": Top start; slant down, up, around halfway, close, around again, and close. Kayla is supposed to memorize these little ditties for each and every letter so she knows how to form them correctly? I wouldn't even be able to remember these every time I was working on making letters with her!

For contrast here is how you would verbally cue writing those letters with HWT; lowercase 'd': Big line down, little curve. Uppercase "B": Big line down, jump to the top (to remind her to lift her pencil and bring it back to the top), little curve, little curve.

The other style has too many instructions on forming each letter; Kayla needs something short, concise, clear, and to the point...not all of that 'extra' wording.

Despite using HWT with the OT, dittoed letters with the special ed teacher, and D'Nealian style with the regular teacher, Kayla IS making progress! It's been very exciting these past few months watching her get closer to writing her own name.

This paper was done at the beginning of June, near the end of the last school year. The note says this was done free hand, by herself, with only verbal prompts from the teacher. This was the first time she wrote out letters that closely resembled her name.


Last week she wrote her name on this drawing (after much gnashing of the teeth and stubbornness on her part - ie when I told her to make an 'a' she just drew a line down - so numerous erases and 'try agains' she finally completed this). The letters aren't so big as in the example above, so she's starting to get the size and spacing down.


I was so encouraged to see in just a few months how far she's come in writing her name independently. Now she doesn't do it like this on a consistent basis yet, but it's coming along - and showing progress is what matters!

I know she has a ways to go still, but I'm excited to think of the time when she's writing sentences and stories and letters...and once again I'm reminded that she'll do it, in her own time.