How to Help Improve Your Child’s Handwriting

Handwriting styles differ from child to child. Some children have exceptional skills, while others don’t care how they write and just want to finish the task. If you’re concerned about how your child’s handwriting might hold him or her back in the classroom, these activities can help.

Why Handwriting Matters

Handwriting is an essential skill. Children need to be able to write to do homework, take tests, and complete assignments. Mastering handwriting allows children to be better, more creative writers, because their thoughts and ideas are able to flow when handwriting is automatic. It’s also the primary way teachers evaluate what your child has learned.

Activities to Improve Handwriting Skills

Get the Basics Down First

• Hold the pen or pencil the right way. Let it rest next to the base of the thumb and hold it in place with the thumb, index and middle finger. Pencil grips can help your child keep the right pencil grip.
• Lined paper can help children create letters that are the right size and proportion. Lines can also help keep the writing straight (instead of slanted uphill or downhill).
• Remind your child to slow down so they have more control over their writing.
• Emphasize the correct directions of letters and help distinguish similar letters (like b and d).
• Work on spacing words.
• Work on tracing.
• Practice, practice, practice!

Work on Specific Skills

• Visual-Motor Integration: Allows hands to copy what eyes see and helps guide the pencil within the lines.
• In early childhood before letters are even introduced, provide opportunities to trace, match shapes, and draw.
• Draw shapes on large surfaces like blackboards, sand pits, or even shaving cream on a large cookie sheet. Have your child use their finger to trace over your shapes and designs.
• Use rhymes and verbal cues to help kids remember where to start and how to form the shape or letter.
• Bean bag games, playing catch, swatting a balloon, and bat and ball games all help to encourage eye-hand coordination.
• Activities like lacing beads encourage the eyes to stay focused, guide the hands, and complete the task.
• Worksheets, books, and toys that have mazes or follow the path games utilize visual tracking to help develop hand-eye coordination skills.

• Fine Motor Skills: Helps the hand hold the pencil properly
• Having good core and shoulder muscles allow the fingers and hands to move more freely and accurately. It also helps your child sit well at a desk and provides a stable base for gross and fine motor tasks.
• Climbing on a jungle gym or exercising with a ball increase coordination and strength.
• Hand and finger skills should be taught at an early age. Cutting paper with scissors, playing with legos, pegboards, and using playdough or putty, all help to encourage fine motor skills.

• Hand Strength: Lets your child hold the pencil and write without getting tired
• Have your child work their fingers by playing with therapy putty
• Ask your child to pick up pom-poms and small objects using tweezers and drop them in a jar or sort them on a tray
• Beat the heat and play outside with spray bottles and squirt guns
• Pop bubble wrap to work on finger strength

• Visual Perception: Helps child with the correct sizing and spacing of letters
• Playing with toys like building blocks, Tinkertoys, geometric shapes and building 3D structures all help to encourage visual perception.
• Play “I Spy” games. Ask them about an object in the house by saying, “I spy something that is square, has four legs and is where you sit to eat dinner.” They should guess the kitchen chair.

• Directionality: Helps prevent writing letters backwards or starting on the wrong side of the page
• Games like “The Hokey Pokey” helps to distinguish left and right while “Simon Says” helps with additional directionality terms such as top, bottom, above, below, beside, under, around, over, between, through, and behind.
• A game like “Drill Sergeant,” where you give your child directions by using terms like “right turn” and “left turn” is a great exercise.
• Try having your child hold a bean bag in their right hand during the games above to help the brain register that the right side is different to the left in a sensory way. Fun worksheets that show three different animals and ask “What animal is facing to the left?” or “What animal is to the right of the dog?” also teach directionality.

• Sensory Feedback: Helps your child figure out how tightly to hold the pencil and how much pressure to apply when writing
• You can also place some common objects or small toys in a cloth bag and have your child feel around and identify the object by touch.
• Playing with putty gives the hands a good workout. Encourage them to pound, roll, squeeze and pull off pieces of the putty.
• Vibrating pens give the hands tons of feedback, especially for kids who are craving that sensation.

Practice is key! Try to include a few of these activities everyday to help your child improve skills that affect their handwriting. Better handwriting means less frustration and an easier time writing at school. Talk to an occupational therapist if you think your child needs more specialized help.

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