Poor Handwriting is a Symptom of Dyslexia

My family comes from a long line of people with poor handwriting. My family laughs about how we have all had poor handwriting for generations. We also have said with pride that we come from a long line of “math people”. So it was no surprise when my son at 5 years old figured out the concept of multiplication while asking questions in the car. However, he could not write a sentence using proper spacing. It would just be a long line of letters and the reader had to figure out were to separate them.

Fast forward to second grade and his handwriting is still terrible. But now we are moving on to cursive. Wait! What is this! The letters are sitting on the line and the short letters lightly touch the dotted line! The tall letters go all the way to the top line!! It is a master piece. I show this to my mom who says in shock, “he wrote that?” My answer was (after I double checked), “it has his name on it”

Of course now I am confused and need to do some research. I like to understand the reason behind things. I don’t want to only know that poor handwriting is a symptom of dyslexia, but I want to know why.

So I still have more research to do, but so far I have found that it has something to do with the continuousness of cursive. The less he has to pick up his pencil and then put it back down in the correct place the better. If anyone can explain it in a more professional way, I would love to hear it!!!

Three cheers for cursive!