To increase your child’s fluency and willingness to write, try this: Have your child talk out an answer, and you write down the first sentence. As a result, homework takes hours to complete. Here are several ways to accomplish that:īe a scribe for your child. Almost every child I work with resists writing stories, book reports, or factual summaries. Sometimes more practice is not what kids need, but “the right practice.” In the early grades, parents can make the difference by improving their child’s handwriting at home. That’s akin to watching someone deftly use chopsticks, while you try to pick up a piece of food that keeps falling apart. Teachers tell students with ADHD that if they “just practice” and focus more on what they want to say, their writing will come together. I’m just going to mess it all up like everything else I do.'” When Handwriting Practice Makes Perfect He told his mother, ‘I don’t even want to try doing that. In his book, Brown writes about a young student who, at six, already felt that way: “Shortly before his evaluation for ADHD, a boy in kindergarten was asked by a teacher to try tracing the shape of the letter H. When a child encounters such classroom defeat frequently, especially in the early years of schooling, it doesn’t take long for him to get discouraged with academic work, and to develop a sense of inferiority that undermines his attempts to learn. When the physical act of writing is challenging, it interferes with being able to “show what you know.” It’s not surprising, then, that children with ADHD often hate to write, and resist doing so. To write one’s thoughts places much heavier demands on learned skills and executive functions.” Children with ADHD may also be developmentally delayed in their fine-motor skills - the small muscle movements required in writing. “Written expression is a more demanding task than talking, reading, or doing basic math computations. Brown, Ph.D., in Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults (#CommissionsEarned).

“The ability to put your thoughts into sentences and paragraphs that others will be able to read and understand is problematic for many children with ADHD,” says Thomas E. Does your child’s teacher say, “Michelle has great ideas, but she can’t get them down on paper” or, “Bill’s handwriting is all over the place - I’m pretty sure he knows the material, but I can’t read his answers”? Students who struggle with handwriting are called “messy,” “slow starters,” or “lazy.” And practice is not always the solution.

Ultimate cursive writing book