Slipping.

 Halfway through third grade, Oscar's cursive handwriting was reasonably tidy, well-formed, and compact.  I put away the handwriting workbooks and told him he was done with handwriting as a separate subject; all he needed to do from now on was try to write legibly and smoothly whenever he had a writing assignment, and his handwriting would get better and better without special handwriting practice.

But he resisted writing in cursive, and unless I explicitly ordered him to he would tend to print.  So when we began the school year and he started displaying comparatively atrocious handwriting, I made a mental note to pick up some fourth-grade handwriting practice books.  Clearly he needed to re-learn some skills.

Today, though, prompted by a fairly stressful day in which Hannah's Ben and my Oscar reacted off one another in ever-increasing mood swings, and after a post-schooling cup of tea venting and self-analyzing session in which Hannah and I wondered aloud to each other if we'd done the right thing by each other's children, we both took a closer look at some of the writing Oscar had produced over the last few weeks.

We noticed a pattern.

Some pieces:  fairly neat writing with well-formed letters, (usually printing but sometimes cursive), correct spelling or reasonable guesses, thoughtful composition.

Other pieces:  scrawly writing, unreasonable guesses at spelling, careless sentences ("Yep, I think so" as the third of an assigned three-sentence summary).

Good writing, good spelling, and good composition went together.  Bad writing, bad spelling, and bad composition also went together.

Diagnosis:  Not a handwriting problem.  A sometimes-I-go-too-fast problem.  Developing under my radar.

Clearly it's ME who needed to re-learn some skills, namely (a) setting clear standards and (b) following up by checking and correcting.

I brought the subject up in the car on the way home, stressing that I wasn't angry but that I thought the two of us had fallen into some bad habits.  We talked about it and he agreed that he had been trying to get his work done and over with quickly.  The "Yep I think so" sentence?  "I wrote that in bed," he admitted.  "I just wanted to go to sleep."  I promised I would tell him exactly how I wanted a piece finished:  in cursive or printing, with careful spelling attempts or with checked and corrected spelling, and ask detailed questions, and explain the purpose of each assignment.   He promised he would be more careful and try to meet the standards I set, and also asked if I would get him a handwriting practice book so he could get faster at writing in cursive, a request I agreed to fulfill.

It was one of those days where somebody learned a lot.  It seems to have been me, mostly.

Comments

[Mrs Marcos]

An unsolicited comment, though bear in mind I don't have children (yet) or home school my children (the lack of children would lead you to that conclusion). I do have an elementary education degree from St. Kate's but have not taught in a classroom other than student teaching experiences.

ANYWAY, I remember working on handwriting consistently through elementary years. I don't think it is a skill that can be 'checked off' as being learned (consider the improvement of fine motor skills from age 5 to age 12, fairly significant).

(Just wanting to be clear so you don't think I'm being critical of your methods - I'm not implying that you 'checked off' handwriting on your lesson plans and never planned to revisit the skill, just making a general comment regarding the development of handwriting skills)

[bearing]

I appreciate the input, actually.

I know he knows how to form letters, because when I asked him to write something slowly and carefully he was able to write well-shaped letters. It's more a matter of the habit of taking it slow, I think. But your point is well taken.

[Mrs Marcos]

I love that he asked you to get him a handwriting practice book! Very mature of him (and a little cute too)! I'm sure he'll get back on track quickly!