The Full Story
We help with Handwriting
Did you know that your child's handwriting abilities have a strong correlation with their academic confidence? When a child can write their letters and numbers and their writing becomes automatic, they become more cognitively available for other types of learning.
Mya has over 12 years of experience helping reluctant and resistant writers from very young ones to teenagers. She has many tricks and tools to help make it a fun, rewarding experience. Every child has the potential to improve their handwriting skills. Rooted OT can help!
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Before: "This a story about when a planet dies, it makes a new planet." JJ, 9 years old
Difficulty with: line use, mixed casing and letter size, illegible letters, poor erasures, poor spacing, heavy pressure indicating stress.
After: "Bobcats are chordates. why, because every mammal has a skin. it lives in North America. its habitat is mountain and snow biomes..." JJ, 9 year old
Improved: line use, more consistent casing and letter size, legible letters, cleaner erasures, appropriate spacing, eased pencil pressure indicating a more confident handwriter!
At Rooted, Mya uses a multi-sensory and visual-perceptual approach to help kids learn how to shape their letters and develop strong handwriting skills. Once she assesses the child's preferred learning style, Mya can help the child understand how to form clearer & more consistent letters which will help the child develop handwriting endurance and confidence.
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Handwriting is a more complicated task than just bringing pencil to paper. This is what's involved, you:
1. Choose what to write with a mental picture (thought initiation).
2. Holds onto the picture in your mind (working memory).
3. Grasp an instrument in your hand to make strokes (fine motor control).
4. Move your hand from left to right and top to bottom shaping the letters (line orientation).
5. Focus with your eyes on the letters, words & the movement (visual-perceptual skills).
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Handwriting is one of the most important fine motor skills that every child needs to develop! But your school-aged kids actually started developing their skills even before they started putting a pencil in their hand! Everything they've manipulated and played with in their hands can all be considered pre-writing skills: finger feeding, eating with utensils, mudpie-making, turning pages of a book, coloring, building with Legos, opening & closing containers, dressing themselves, etc.. - So make sure that they're given a wide variety of in-hand manipulation tasks and chores at home to get their hands strong and ready for having solid handwriting skills!
