Handwriting Ideas for Reluctant Writers

My oldest has always been somewhat of a reluctant writer. She had zero interest in learning letter formation and did not love her handwriting course books. When she was younger, I decided to not push her into doing it. I knew it would be a fight and that it would come when she was ready. 

Eventually she began to write stories on her own in her notebooks. The letter formation, spacing, capitalization, spelling and punctuation wasn’t correct but that didn’t matter to me! I loved that she was writing and enjoying it. She wrote many great stories by her own choice! 

One Sunday, she brought her notebook to write in at church. A lady sitting behind us asked me afterwards how old she was. When I replied that she was 6 years old, she was so surprised and said that she is a fourth grade teacher and that the students in her class don’t write that well.

We have since started using a handwriting course book but only about once a week. I feel it is more important for her to do writing in other ways. 

I am sharing six creative handwriting ideas that are fun for her while also helping her practice.

1. Narration notebook- As part of our history lessons, we do narration notebooks. After learning about a famous person or place, she tells me something she learned in her own words and I write it down for her. She then copies it into her notebook and we print pictures to go along with it. 

   

   
   

2. Salt writing- I got a cheap pencil box and filled it with salt. She practices writing letters and words that I either orally dictate for her or ones she copies from a book. This has been her favorite technique by far because she is a kinesthetic learner!

   

   
   

3. Whiteboard- We have a large classroom size whiteboard that she loves to use! We also use our small boards too. There’s something about dry erase markers that is so fun for kids :) 

   

   
   

4. Personal journal- I let each of my girls pick a personal journal (they have so many prints for boys and girls!) Once or twice a week, I write the date and a journal prompt on the board. My oldest answers it and then draws a picture to go along with it. My four year old loves to be included so she draws a picture and I write her answer.

   
   
   

   
   
   

5. Magnetic handwriting board- This has helped SO much with letter formation! The pen is magnetic and as they write the letter it pops the magnetic dots up. It is very satisfying- even for me haha! I love that it shows them the proper stroke order for each letter. I love that one side has lowercase and the opposite has uppercase too.

   

   
   

6. Lists- My oldest is always eager to help with things! She loves to make lists (check lists, to-do lists etc.) This last week I was meal planning and asked her if she wanted to write our week’s meal plan for us. She was very excited about that! Other great writing project ideas are letters, research papers, short stories etc.

   

   I hope that you are able to use some of these ideas in case your learner is reluctant too! Happy homeschooling!

   
   

   Cassie

   
   

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