Jacksons Handwriting

[CaptainFunderpants]

Yeah, I have tremors in my arms in my hands. So I can't really comment, but I do wonder when it was written, Jessa stated she found it. Doesn't really give a time frame.

I test in the 5th percentile for dexterity and have pretty severe shaking, but my handwriting is just fine in regard to both cursive and print:

http://postimg.org/image/oew7k87yz/

That was done quickly in a practical, sloppy, every day writing manner. Obviously for ceremonial things, my cursive is much better. Lacking dexterity and/or having neurological problems isn't an excuse; practice makes pretty good progress, eh?

[txmommyof4]

It's so funny this thread came back. I spent about an hour and a half last night at the dining table making my son write. I was literally begging to at least have the first letter of his first and last name recognizable. He's 17. And brilliant. I kept showing him his 4 y/o brother's writing practice saying see, like this! It's insane. He uses electronic devices 99% of the time and just doesn't care to write decent. I can't read the notes he takes in class at all. Oh well, I guess I will keep him, anyway. :D

[sockinshoe]

I was taught penmanship and handwriting in both print and cursive from an early age (we had to use fountain pens for everything-- even math!), but when I was 10 or so, I'd make intentional spelling/punctuation/penmanship errors to be cutesy (writing "luv" instead of "love", and substituting numbers for words).

[bluebird]

I have 2 adult son's who have handwriting worse than that. Outside of a occasional translation needed it really has not impacted their adult lives at all. They use computers at home and on the job. Jacksons handwriting looks childish but it is legible. Nobody knows for sure what age he was when he wrote that. I do not think there is a connection between intellect and poor penmanship, if so then we need to question the competence of plenty of professionals out there that we all deal with on a day to day basis.

[txmommyof4]

I have 2 adult son's who have handwriting worse than that. Outside of a occasional translation needed it really has not impacted their adult lives at all. They use computers at home and on the job. Jacksons handwriting looks childish but it is legible. Nobody knows for sure what age he was when he wrote that. I do not think there is a connection between intellect and poor penmanship, if so then we need to question the competence of plenty of professionals out there that we all deal with on a day to day basis.

I have actually heard that sloppy handwriting can be a sign of intelligence.

[bluebird]

I have worked with intellectually disabled individuals who have had beautiful handwriting. Certainly fine motor issues can be a result of brain damage however in itself it is not a sign of anything more than poor fine motor skills. If handwriting is a indicator of intelligence then mark me down as being a genius, I have nice handwriting.

[zz22zz]

I have seen a lot of handwriting

1. My mom taught high school English when everything was handwritten. I read many high school papers of her students that had much worse handwriting.

2. I teach First and have taught Fourth grades in public school. Some kids have beautiful handwriting in First, most do NOT. (I just calculated based on today's spelling test, where my students try hard to write nicely, 12% have handwriting that I would say is really neat and well formed.) To say this is average First grade handwriting is laughable. It is closer to Fourth grade and still not the worst. About 30% of First and 10-15% of Fourth takes full concentration, context clues, and rereading to understand (even with my mom's high school students this applied to about 5%). This is not the case here, it is easy to read. I had a Fourth grader who couldn't even write his own name, all his writing was lines and crosses. I have first grader now who only writes in vowels, even if I spell the words for him.

3. My daughter is also exactly in between Jackson and Hannie, she does the cross out thing like crazy. (which dries me nuts) She does use proper capitalization though. At least he fixed "friend". BTW my daughter has had at least 5-6 outfits shown on the show in common with Hannie over the years which makes her beyond happy (though she thinks they are "too religious Mama, I really need to go visit them and show them what life is about" lol)

edited to add: I just showed my daughter the picture and asked what she thought of the handwriting and she said 'not good' and I said 'compared to the boys in your class?' and she said "oh no....way, way, way better than that, like 100 times better than they write!" She goes to a school that does teach handwriting and they do a lot of writing. They have technology class several times a week instead of using computers all the time.

[Ofglen]

When I start writing, my handwriting looks pretty good, but after a sentence or two things go downhill really quickly and I can't read most things I write, especially if I'm trying to pay attention to the information I'm receiving at the same time as well. When that happens, there tends to be a disconnect between my brain and hand and i'll miss whole chunks of words or put letters in the wrong order. Things are a lot easier when I'm typing because I can't handwrite as fast as I can type.

W/r/t the college professor not allowing laptops- that's a big problem of accessibility. My impression is that the majority of disabled people at my school (many of whom could benefit from laptop use in class) aren't registered with Disability Services (who can provide accommodations like overriding the professors rule on laptops) because it's a huge hastle and really really anxiety inducing to talk to someone about your disability/ies and produce paperwork proving it. That's the reason I put off registering for two years. So, having the ban on laptops in the classroom in the first place is a big problem.

I'm registered now, and I can tell that some of my professors don't love that I use my laptop in class (maybe they think i'm messing around on facebook), but they can't do anything about it. I have a learning disability, pain in my dominant hand (lefty! :D), and have Kurzweil software installed on my laptop with all my textbooks. Not gonna stop using technology just because the professor can't see the benefits. *sashays off into the sunset*

[Walking Cat Bed]

I have one class in which we're asked to use hard-copy readings and hand-write any notes -- the class itself is about studying reading and writing habits, so it's a reasonable request (mostly from literary/cultural perspectives; we just spent a class noticing the difference between self-recorded reading habits of the wealthy versus having to follow responses to mail-order advertisements in magazines focused on short/serial stories).

And I remember that, when I was in late elementary school (around 7-10), I played around with non-dominant-hand writing and backwards writing. Maybe Jackson was goofing around, and that's why the note is so sloppy. Or maybe he just has sloppy handwriting.

[Rescinded and Mended]

My mother had terrible handwriting. She would often write notes to my elementary and middle school teachers, and they would complain to me that they couldn't read her handwriting.

Now that I'm a mother, I always make it a point to print or write in cursive neatly (I usually print), because my handwriting is messy and I don't want to get the same complaints from my son's teachers. :lol:

[calimojo]

Handwriting is a pretty insignificant method of assessing developmental age, especially since kids get far less opportunity to practice handwriting now than in the past due to computers and such.

And I am an adult many times over, and have always had the habit of inserting capital letters when I print. Not sure why, sometimes I even do it when I am typing.

No need to snark about this or use this as evidence of a lacking education. It is fairly trivial compared to all of the other obvious ways their education is lacking.

And honestly, it is a sweet little note between a bro and sis, why feel the need to take that and tear into it? These are children. Tear into Michelle and JB all you want, but a 10 year old forced to be subjected to less than optimal learning opportunities is not responsible for his penmanship.

[DGayle]

Also, it really seems to me that handwriting is not valued much as a skill anymore. I've heard of many school districts that no longer teach cursive.

This is true, very. I wrote a cousin an actual paper letter, and she couldn't read it since I used cursive. She was 12. The focus is more on typing now.

Even spelling is becoming a casualty. http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/peop ... y/2619957/

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013 ... ng-matter/

http://www.ted.com/conversations/18019/ ... lling.html

People are seriously debating if spelling even matters. If THAT is the debate, why would handwriting matter? :(

[hapamama]

Only my 17 year old was taught cursive in school. The 15 and 12 year old were not... the 12 year old taught herself, and the 15 year old can read it, but not write it. My 9 year old 3rd grader has atrocious handwriting (he receives OT services) at writes about the same as that note of Jackson's.

The spacing of the writing on that note of Jackson's is pretty good, so I'll bet on lined paper, his print would look more age appropriate.

[Grimalkin]

My older kids were taught D'nealean writing it's between cursive and block writing. They don't have great writing at 16 and 13. My younger two are in Catholic school and they do it like I was taught. My 9 year olds writing changes with her mood. Just because she understands punctuation and grammar does not mean she uses it when not doing school work. The paper also has no lines on it which makes it harder for them. I do t think it's terrible.

[MatthewDuggar]

My older kids were taught D'nealean writing it's between cursive and block writing.

I looked this up. Very interesting and rather cool. Thanks for sharing!

I was super excited when I was a kid to learn cursive writing. I was in major anticipation in grade school, I could not wait to start. One day after recess, we came in and had the cursive alphabet on a sticker at the top of all of our desks and we started to learn. My joy was crushed when it turned out I was really bad at it. I had done some "practicing" before this, but in a formal setting, I was just incredibly sloppy. To this day my writing is horrendous. Now being afflicted with psoriatic arthritis doesn't help either. Thank God for typing and texting!

[SamE]

My daughter learned d'nealian and my son did traditional ball and stick. THey had different teachers.

Their cursive writing is actually very similar. I can't really tell it apart - other than you can tell he's a couple of years older so he's had more practice. To me, it didn't make a huge difference.

Just an aside. Her 3rd grade teacher makes them use cursive for everything. He's in 6th and has been under that rule since 4th grade.

[OneQuill]

Yeah, my penmanship isn't much better. I remember having an aunt with atrocious writing and I learned to read cursive from her letters. I was the only one that could figure it out! No wonder my handwriting sucks. I do know, I had teachers that tried, and so did my Mom, I don't know how much SOTDRT is working with that.

[CorruptionInc.]

I have very cursive writing, which I used to get in trouble at school for.

Now I continue to write the way I always have and a lot of people comment on my beautiful writing.

It's not beautiful when you write something down, look at it later and go: WTF did I write?

[SportsgalAnnie]

he could have the same thing I do, Dysgraphia, a glitch in fine tune motorskills, which means your brain thinks faster then your hand can write, it also effects Math.

It can be overcome for the most part but takes hours and hours of practice.

[Fiveredandblack]

I have very cursive writing, which I used to get in trouble at school for.

Now I continue to write the way I always have and a lot of people comment on my beautiful writing.

It's not beautiful when you write something down, look at it later and go: WTF did I write?

I get similar comments on my writing. But it was just awkward when I had to ask someone at work what they thought I had written in my phone notes because I couldn't read my own writing. Luckily, their writing was worse than mine, so they could make out what I had written. Saved me an embarrassing call to the client to repeat the discussion.