How can you improve your handwriting?

[benbt]

A while back when I had my dyslexia test the psychologist said it is very probable I also have dysgraphia alongside dyslexia and dyspraxia. I have had several people at work tell me they can’t read my handwriting. I often don’t have enough time at work to write neat notes. I work in a care home and most of the paper work is by hand. A while back I bought teach yourself improve your handwriting. But honestly find it hard to find the motivation to practice by myself. Any ideas on finding support? Or practical advice you find helpful. Below is an example of my handwriting. The top is my normal writing. Below is my slow handwriting.

[ClareLou]

The best thing I ever did was ignore all my teachers when they told me I had to use joined up writing.... my thoughts were if I can’t read what I’ve written how can a teacher or examiner. I am 37 now and still use print

[Aloysia]

The typical way to improve handwriting when you have dysgraphia is to see an Occupational Therapist for treatment. My 9 year old daughter has been seeing one for about 9 months (once a week) and has made huge strides in her handwriting.

If you're not able to afford that, here are some other ideas:

- look online for examples of tasks that an Occupational Therapist would give and then do them on your own. Motivation might also be a problem here.

- Improve your core muscles. Pilates would help with that. Again, motivation could be a factor.

- Use special paper. Typically the Occupational Therapist would help you figure out the best paper for you right now, and then move towards standard paper as your therapy progresses. However, you could experiment on your own. There is paper with smaller or larger spacing, paper with a dotted line in the middle, paper with a slight raised mark so you can feel it, etc. Google it.

- You could experiment with different pencil grips (available online).

- You could try using the thick kindergarten pencils. If that helps, there are also pens with thicker bases.

- You could try using cursive instead of print, print instead of cursive, block letters instead of regular, all capital letters, etc.

- Improve your motivation. Put a recurring meeting in your calendar to do a task. Find a friend who will help - make a commitment to spend x minutes a day on y task, then have the friend check in with you to make sure you met the commitment. Reward yourself. Etc.

- Find some hobbies that use your hands and will therefore improve your hand and arm strength: knitting, cross-stitch, crochet, pottery throwing, sculpting, whittling, etc.

- When working on your letter formation, focus on 2 to 4 letters at a time. Pick the letters that are hardest for your friends to read. When a friend feels those letters have improved significantly, move on to another small group of letters.

Good luck!!

[wittsend0]

I gave up on my handwriting, frankly yours is better. Mine has always been described as a Doctors hand writing. which when you think about it is a little freighting since, there is a question as to why , doctors have such bad handwriting as a segment of the population.

[Kwenda]

I also gave up on handwriting. A long time ago I purchased a portable typewriter, then one of the early computers so that people could read what I wrote. School was a disaster of course, and I was given special lessons which failed. The uneducated school masters just said I was lazy. But now EVERYTHING is typed. I still have erratic walking and some other minor issues. So for me I do not believe that my handwriting would ever improve. The technical term is Dysgraphia and the University of Illinois did have people doing research on this some years ago.