<p>As someone who went through 12 years of Catholic school and the Palmer method of handwriting, browbeaten (literally) by nuns, I have pretty nice handwriting. But given all the typing I do on various devices, my handwriting has definitely suffered.</p>
<p>My son is a lefty who has always struggled with handwriting. With the exception of his English class, he is having to do a lot of handwritten work this semester… chem lab notes etc. and has lost a lot of credit because the TA can’t read his writing. </p>
<p>Not sure what he can do other than practice and slow down. (he writes very strangely… makes the number 5 from the bottom up, writes checkmarks backwards, etc.). </p>
<p>Is this something any of your kids struggle with, in the age of keyboards and texting?</p>
<p>My sons handwriting is horrible too. It’s literally chicken scratch. But so is mine and my husbands. I’m surprised that your son is doing so much handwritten assignments. Even in high school everything is word processed- he never has to hand write anything.</p>
<p>Maybe he should see if there is a calligraphy course offered at Tulane or Loyola, or somewhere in New Orleans. I hear that can have a positive effect on handwriting.</p>
<p>FC, it’s funny because I was a professional calligrapher (freelance) at one point in my life. That’s a good idea, but I’m not sure he’ll be into it. It turns writing into ART, and his dad was a painter so he may actually be good at it. It also forces you to slow down.</p>
<p>I’ll suggest it.</p>
<p>dolphnlvr6, I was surprised as well but it’s the chemistry work that seems to be handwritten (and of course Calculus). He actually got a zero on one quiz because the TA couldn’t read his writing!</p>
<p>Yeah, I have no idea if learning calligraphy actually helps normal handwriting, I just heard that somewhere and it made some sense intuitively. But even in this age of almost all communication being typed, handwriting does need to be at least legible.</p>
<p>Why worry about handing writing??? It might be a lost art but everything is word processed these days. I am a HS teacher and everything is either submitted electronically or printed. The only time it can become a concern is when a college student needs to write in blue books for exams.</p>
<p>Well, for school that is largely true. But people still leave hand written notes at home, work, etc. and important communication can get lost. And as you point out, there are critical exams that still require hand written essays. That alone means a person needs to be understood in that format.</p>
<p>You said he’s a lefty. My husband writes “backwards” too - it’s a lefty thing. He also gets frustrated because the ink gets all smeared up when he draws his hand across what he has just written. For that reason I keep mechanical pencils in my bible so he can use a pencil that doesn’t get smudged. See if your son can write his lab notes in pencil - it will at least eliminate the smudging. And don’t try to get a lefty to change how they write - it can be part of their inante creativity. Messing with that is messing with their soul.</p>
<p>Many young people in my extended family have awkward handwriting, I think because they mainly use it for handwritten thank you notes on the rare occasions they write them. The letters are legible but remind me of writing from grade school because sizes are uneven and for many of them very small. I guess I should count my blessings they write legibly. None so far have been interested in calligraphy, except when a few of them spent a month in Taiwan and took a brief course in it.</p>
<p>Oh yea, if he’s smudging his ink because he’s a lefty, maybe a lefty tutor can show him how to not test his hand on the paper when he writes. I’m a lefty too and hated the smudges (a lot in my day), until I finally learned NOT to rest my hand on the paper. It takes more work.</p>
<p>Pen smudging can be easily fixed by changing the way you position your hand in relation to your paper while you write. </p>
<p>My handwriting is nice, legible, and pretty darn aesthetically pleasing. Everyone can write well and legible. It’s whether or not they have the desire to improve their handwriting that sets them apart. I’m able to change my handwriting. Every semester in school growing up I’d have a new “font”. I do, however, have a natural handwriting that comes without effort.</p>
<p>I was ambidextrous growing up also. I grew out of it around middle school when I started doing more things with my left hand. Can’t everyone write with their non dominant hand with enough concentration and thought?</p>
<p>I took a calligraphy course during my undergrad. While it was fun and interesting, it did nothing to improve my admittedly horrid handwriting. Nor did attending Catholic elementary school for six years.</p>
<p>I have an extra variable because I have dysgraphia due to a nerve issue in my hands-- it hurts me to hold a pen, or really do anything fine motor-- buttons, zippers, etc. Typing doesn’t hurt, I think because my hand is more open. It’s not unbearable pain but it’s bad enough that I will never write more than a couple paragraphs by hand semi-legibly. </p>
<p>However, I have noticed even if I am just writing a couple words-- not enough to hurt-- my handwriting is completely indistinguishable from my elementary school assignments. My letters have stayed identical. And I have had to write by hand a TON, prior to college I had very few classes where all assignments could be typed. That kind of surprises me. Makes me wonder if I’d have flawless handwriting if only my nerves were normal, since apparently my scrawl had no maturing to do! ;)</p>
<p>I was just reading a futuristic sci fi book in which a college student is asked to sign her name, and is terrified because she actually has not written anything by hand since kindergarten! It made me think that in a few generations, maybe that is where our great-great grandkids will be…</p>
<p>Try to get him to focus on the person reading it, not on himself or his struggles. If the TA can’t read it, he loses credit. If whoever is trying to read it struggles, your son is failing in his half of the communication process. We told DS it was a matter of respect for his teachers that he needed to slow down and write legibly. Penmanship isn’t easy for him, but focusing on the reader helps.</p>
<p>Another thing that’s lost is cursive. I hand write things quite a bit in college, but to be blatantly honest, I’m not sure I even COULD write things in cursive. That’s probably true for a lot of college students. </p>
<p>We learned it in like 4th grade, but after that, we never had to use it again. Some kids in my classes use it (maybe they went to a Catholic school?), but it truly is a rarity. </p>
<p>This is all saying something about us gen Zers, huh?</p>
<p>Those of you on the “word processing is used for everything” train are forgetting about much more than exam essays written in blue books.</p>
<p>At the collegiate level, there is a wealth of math and science being done that cannot be expressed by garden variety word processing. There are specialist word-processing tools for word-processing math/science such as Lyx/TeX/LaTeX, or even the equation editing feature in MS Word. But few even know that the latter exists, let alone how to use it.</p>
<p>Until we start teaching scientific word processing in HS to prep students for college, a college student (with the exception of a student in a college with no science requirements) is simply going to need legible handwriting.</p>
<p>And even if we did have a legion of LaTeX-savvy HS seniors, I’m still an advocate for handwriting.</p>
<p>Just ask yourself, how sexy is a word-processed, laser-printed love note? :)</p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niccolo_de_Niccoli_italic_handwriting.jpg]File:Niccolo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Niccolo_de_Niccoli_italic_handwriting.jpg%5DFile:Niccolo){kind=link}
