For a variety of reasons, we did not do a full scale “war” on writing. I decided to start it early (in preschool) because I knew that it could be a frustration tolerance issue when he hit Kindergarten. I wanted time to teach this. There are a variety of programs you can use from Sensible Pencil to Handwriting Without Tears. We actually were able to convince our occupational therapist to use HWT. She went to a conference and recognized the name and then decided to use it. HWT teaches less strokes and has nice little sayings and poems and things to say with the writing of each letter. I think this helped Lukas enjoy handwriting.
Several mistakes can be made when teaching handwriting. You can overload a child by making them write letter after letter. Many children in ABA programs (not all) have fine motor issues and weak handstrength. This is why art programs and colouring programs are the least favourite among some kids- especially the boys! Do not do handwriting unless you are also doing programs to increase handstrength for children who have
HWT works well with us because it is very discrete trial. The mistake we made when first tackling handwriting was to start with the letter A and go through the alphabet. HWT does not do this. It targets letters by first targeting strokes. You can start with “frog jump” letters first and so on…
You can start with a chalkboard that has a smiley face to visually cue the child where to start. They can also do a “wet-dry” method where they dip their finger in water and erase the chalk lines and then dry the chalk lines.
HWT teaches with 4 strokes.
Here is a picture of Lukas’ handwriting before we started HWT and directly targeting writing.
I really suggest HWT. You can find their webpage at:
You can see other before/after pictures on their webpage.
