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Karen T
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| Posted: Sept 12 2006 at 11:28pm | IP Logged
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My 6.5 yo ds makes many of his letters and numbers by starting at the bottom and going up, rather than top down. They (mostly) look OK when done, but it is a pretty inefficient way of writing. I would ignore it, thinking it would naturally straighten out on its own later as many writing "problems" do, but my oldest ds (13 now) has always done this, too and it never went away. Even my dh makes 3's and 5's from bottom up! I'd never seen anyone do this before meeting dh. Is this a hereditary thing? Dh has never instructed them in any writing and in fact, they rarely see him write anything, so it's not a conscious copying thing. All 3 of them also hold the pen/pencil incorrectly. dh ends up breaking pencils and crayons simply from his grip. Oldest ds was in public school through 5th grade and they refused to do anything about his horrible handwriting and grip ("but everyone just needs to be able to type - we don't worry about writing") so I used the rubber pencil grips and the Getty-Dubay books in 6th grade for him when he came home and now he has really nice writing, but still does numerals bottom up. I would really like to discourage this habit in younger ds now. he also holds his wrist sort of above the paper like a leftie might do, curving it around a bit. that, of course, makes it easier to start your letters or numerals at the bottom.
I do very little formal handwriting now, b/c I think small motor skills are a bit lagging, but when we do work on it, I show him where to start and the examples have arrows or dots at the beginning. Any ideas? Anyone seen this?
Karen T
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ALmom
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| Posted: Sept 13 2006 at 2:35am | IP Logged
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Yes, I have a son that does this. I think it is simply bad habit because fine motor lag with ideas and the way he gripped the pencil, etc. I have found that requiring him to do penmanship work for 10 minutes every day - and watching him and gently pointing out the error and focusing on just one incorrect habit at a time has helped. I get a handwriting book that has them trace at first and very clearly instructs where to start, etc. I don't make it a huge chore or big deal - and the reality is that I don't supervise every handwriting session, but only some. It helps that I can show this child how the wrong start point, affects the neatness of the final product (starting at the wrong place often has him doing a lot of extra retracing and of course it doesn't line up very well or is extra thick at his age).
Our dd did this also, and in print still does but as it is neat and she is high school age, I leave it alone.
I try to emphasize up-down, left-right. Some of mine had directionality problems so this may have factored in as well. Handwriting has been a real problem in our house and I have really come to believe in spending that 10 minutes to show them the correct formation and have them practice. The biggest thing to get across to my dc was that we were not interested in quantity here at all - I wanted 2 letters very neatly much more than a page of sloppy writing. My dc hated handwriting and initially tried to rush through the handwriting book at breathneck pace with the hopes that it would be done soon and then they could forget about it. They really did improve with very short, but consistent lessons.
Janet
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stefoodie
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| Posted: Sept 13 2006 at 6:19am | IP Logged
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My boys did this (7-yo still does). The 10-year old has mostly stopped doing it since he started doing cursive though. I just keep reminding, and show them why it makes sense to write from the top down. Don't know if it's hereditary though.
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stef
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hereinantwerp
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| Posted: Sept 13 2006 at 1:13pm | IP Logged
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you know no matter how much I watch and remind my 7 yo boy to start from the top, he still usually goes from the bottom. I have REALLY tried to watch him, too, from the beginning!
Not sure whether to throw in the towel or keep trying! But now he wants to learn the european style cursive (doesn't it seem like most cursive letters loop up from the bottom?) so maybe we'll just start anew.
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Angela Nelson
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hylabrook1
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| Posted: Sept 13 2006 at 2:48pm | IP Logged
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Several of my dc do this and always have. When I first taught them to write, maybe in KG, I showed them the "right" way and they did it my way for about 5 seconds. Then they started doing it the way you all are describing. They are all excellent readers and have been from an early age and don't seem to have any other motor eccentricities, so I've just thought maybe they write faster that way or something. Maybe I'm looking at this *all wrong*, but I took it to be a matter of their personal preference and just ignored it.
Is there anyone out there who has an education background or something like OT who knows whether this is a wrong outlook on my part? By the way, the dc who have done this are now 19, 17, 14 and 10 (I'm thinking too late with most of them to redirect their penmanship).
Peace,
Nancy
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Karen T
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| Posted: Sept 13 2006 at 9:05pm | IP Logged
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Well, I guess it's a relief to know my kids aren't the only ones, but I do think it's a bad habit to get into, b/c ds holds his wrist wrong to do this, and I think it will be harder when he gets to cursive, not to mention slowing him down and making even printing slow and frustrating. My dh is one of those men who only prints, and only in capital letters (very tiny though) - Andrew Pudewa talks about this in the TWSS videos; guess it's pretty common for men.
I've been very pleased with how the older ds's cursive has improved so dramatically once I worked on his pencil grip and used Getty-Dubay. I was hoping to start the younger one off right from the beginning.
He also reverses several letters and numbers which I'm ignoring for now, since it's pretty common at this age. But he had speech delays when younger (apraxia) which supposedly makes him a bit more likely to be dyslexic; hence the reason for being vigilant at this age.
karen T
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KellyJ
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| Posted: Sept 14 2006 at 4:45pm | IP Logged
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I have son who does this too. We tried time and again to instill the habit of writing the "correct" way. He has persisted in this way for years though, and I don't know where he ever got the idea to write this way. By the end of last year, we decided that we will no longer push the issue. His handwriting is generally neat; but it is a process I don't personally understand.
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Elizabeth
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This is habit that needs to be changed. Handwriting Without Tears (which was designed by an OT) teaches children to always start at the top (there is smiley face at the top to remind young children). I remind mine to pull the letters and not push them. It becomes ridiculously difficult to connect letters or to write quickly if they are starting at the bottom. Some children will self-correct and begin doing it the right way, but others really do need to be taught. And that means that when you work on handwriting you have to sit right beside the child and watch every stroke.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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KellyJ
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| Posted: Sept 15 2006 at 11:44am | IP Logged
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Elizabeth wrote:
| This is habit that needs to be changed. |
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Elizabeth, you seem to have strong feelings on this habit. Would you please elaborate on the necessity of changing this way of writing?
We used various methods over time, including HWT throughout all of last year. We have sat and monitored the writing, correcting as necessary. However, I do admit to not watching 100% of the time, as it is simply not feasible to spend every moment watching every stroke from his pencil while he writes his regular (non-handwriting) work out and does writing in his free-time.
Despite several years of effort, nothing has been effective in changing this habit, not even for one day. The most and best change we've seen is in spacing between words, which was also a problem.
I'm interested in your thoughts and insights. As I mentioned before, we've resigned ourselves to the matter that this is the way he writes. This child's bottom-up printing is neat, and his cursive isn't a problem by and large. Thanks. 
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ElisabethGrace
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| Posted: Sept 16 2006 at 10:24pm | IP Logged
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Both my almost 12yo son and 9yo daughter printed from the bottom up. It used to drive me crazy because I had taught them the "correct way" to print. Neither one had any problem learning cursive and both now have beautiful handwriting.
IMHO, I would not worry about printing from the bottom up unless there were other developmental concerns you noticed.
Blessings,
Angela
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Erin
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Elizabeth wrote:
| Some children will self-correct and begin doing it the right way, but others really do need to be taught. And that means that when you work on handwriting you have to sit right beside the child and watch every stroke. |
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All my boys have sloppy handwriting due to incorrect starting positions. I know that I need to take time out to correct this. I am going to have to sit and watch every stoke, ds11 is the worst. Funnily enough his cursive writing is much better than his printing. This ds still holds his fork and knife in a most aggravating manner.
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ALmom
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Sometimes these kinds of things are common and not easily corrected when there is a vision problem. With some of ours we had to correct the vision problem first, then go back and re-teach printing. Spacing was my biggest complaint - but there were a bunch of other things too including bottom up, starting from the right instead of the left, weird ways of holding the pencil (or pen), lots of tension in the hand and even reversal of letters. Until the vision problem was corrected, tons of practice was not effective at all for us.
I will say that with one child we didn't really go back to the printing but went forward to the cursive - and I chose not to worry too much since the cursive is what she uses and it is fine. However, I will mention something when I see it and she tends to self-correct more now. The others: I got the eyes corrected and make them learn correctly the first time (we delay handwriting till eyes corrected ) and insist on a short time each day which I try to observe and then focus. I keep a handy cheat sheet for me so if I miss handwriting, I might see if he is still starting his a at the bottom or has this improved. One letter at a time, we are getting there.
Janet
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graciefaith
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I do Cursive First with my daughter and they teach to always start at the baseline. It makes it easier since they dont have to remember where each letter starts at. I dont know if your son knows how to write in cursive, but this could be an option since he always starts at the bottom. My handwriting has gotten much better now that im teaching my girls. Just a suggestion.
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Topic: Writing from bottom to top
