by Colette Georgii

Created on: July 12, 2009

A guide to better penmanship for kids with learning disabilities

Kids with learning disabilities depending on the type of learning disability may have problems with fine motor skills and/or eye-hand coordination. Fine motor skills are skills that are used by the small muscles like those in the fingers or the hand. Eye-hand coordination requires the brain to give the correct signal to the hand that the eye sees. Brain coordination with the small muscles in the hands and the eyes may be different in every child; and due to these coordination differences the child may have difficulty making the hand do what the eye sees or what the brain tells them.

Fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination are important for maintaining penmanship, therefore any exercise that uses the small muscles over and over again can help to train these small muscles to work better. Here are some of the best exercises that can help with fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination:

1. Art classes

If you can find an art school or art center that teaches drawing and painting to children, this will be the best way to help a child with penmanship problems. (If you can not find a good art class that teaches line drawing techniques, devise them yourself. Draw the shapes discussed below and help your child to draw them by copying what you draw).

In this type of art class the child will be drawing shapes. Learning to draw shapes is important for achieving control of the small muscles that the child will use in penmanship. The child should be taught to draw

* squares

* triangles

* rectangles

* straight lines

* circles

The learning disabled child should also be taught drawing techniques

* hatching

* curved hatching

* cross hatching

* stippling or stubbing

2. Tracing

Tracing is an excellent exercise for the learning disabled child. Have the child trace pictures in magazines or draw a picture and have the child trace the picture. This is also a technique studied in commercial art classes to improve the drawing ability of art students, so it sure could help the learning disabled child improve the small muscle ability in his fingers and hands; and also eye-hand coordination is used here also. You can also have the child trace pictures in coloring books.

You can find tracing paper in an arts and crafts store or in a children's toy store close to the section that carries coloring and activity books.

3. Coloring

Buy your child lots of coloring books. Give him lots of crayons

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