What's new

Is it possible to improve illegible handwriting?

I've had awful handwriting all of my life, and I sometimes wonder if there is anything that I can do to improve it. I'm not interested in learning beautiful calligraphy, or anything like that, I just want my everyday writing to look less like what doctors scribble on prescription pads. Lol.

Any thoughts?
 
As a long-time 5th grade teacher the simple answer is yes. Usually when I see very poor handwriting it is an outcome of poor habits - unless of course there are fine-motor skills deficiencies. Finding a good writing source that takes you back to the basics - whether it be cursive or italic or block lettering - is a good way to start. Don't try to redo your penmanship from top to bottom, just try to identify your worst parts and try to improve on those at first because your writing may not be as bad as you think ;-)

There are books and online sources that some of the experts here can point you to if you want (I'm still a noob to The Nib)
You'd be surprised what a little bit of daily practice can accomplish.

Good luck and kudos for wanting to improve.
:thumbup1:
 
One thing calligraphy has taught me is that writing is a type of drawing. Each letter is a pictograph, if you will, arbitrarily assign tI represent something, a sound in the case of the written word. If you were to draw a picture of something as a form of communicating with another person, you would take your time in placing the lines and shapes so that the other person could reasonably know that it is a tree, fish, house, or whatever. Invest that same care into your letter formation and don't worry about speed (or spelling).
I agree with Mr. Eleven that a return to basics, with some form of instruction (a text or class) to accompany you is the place to start. I would add that you consider that you are drawing each letter while in "basic training" and take your time. After taking a calligraphy course at a local community college (nothing for credit, just enrichment, lifelong learning stuff) I noticed my everyday penmanship improve, even more so over time. If you approach your handwriting as I imagine you approach your wet shaving (as an art form which requires focus and practice), you should see continual gains.
Check out any city or community college or adult-school for their lifelong learning, non-credit, or art classes and have fun. There might be more offered over the summer than usual. But whatever you choose to do to improve your writing, try to enjoy it; you'll learn it faster and better if you do.
 
Check out the Getty-Dubay handwriting method. I use it to improve my middle school students' handwriting. Getty-Dubay concentrates on legibility. It's an easy system to learn and use.

Step 2 - Slow down!

Step 3 - Slow down!!

Once you achieve legibility you can start looking towards finesse! :001_smile
 
My writing was horrible. I slowed down. And write my ex wife a love letter every night. It helped a lot. Then I got a stub italic then a flex nib. And now I need to get back into it.
 
Yes, with patience and practice your writing can get a lot better.

Below are two samples of my handwriting. While I still have a ways to go before I'm happy (e.g., more consistent character formation, maintaining a straight line, etc.), I can honestly say it is better than when I started down the Nib path.

Before
$writing_before.jpg

After
$writing_after.jpg
 
Yes, with patience and practice your writing can get a lot better.

Below are two samples of my handwriting. While I still have a ways to go before I'm happy (e.g., more consistent character formation, maintaining a straight line, etc.), I can honestly say it is better than when I started down the Nib path.

Before

After

That's quite an improvement. Very nice work!

My average handwriting looks like this. Lots of things to fix up. I'm sure that somewhere, an elementary school teacher is deeply offended at my lack of penmanship. Lol.

proxy.php

I looked at Kate Gladstone's website, and it looks quite interesting. I might have to do a bit of reading.
 
That's quite an improvement. Very nice work!

My average handwriting looks like this. Lots of things to fix up. I'm sure that somewhere, an elementary school teacher is deeply offended at my lack of penmanship. Lol.

proxy.php

I looked at Kate Gladstone's website, and it looks quite interesting. I might have to do a bit of reading.

Based on that could you improve? Yes. Do you need an overhaul? I don't think so. This was written relatively fast wasn't it? Slow down. A better example of your handwriting might be something with fewer formulas and more writing for a sample. What I saw was fairly legible. (have seen much worse)

I do agree it takes just writing. Try to slow down a bit if you always write really fast. But you will have to spend time on a regular basis practicing like anything else.
 
Based on that could you improve? Yes. Do you need an overhaul? I don't think so. This was written relatively fast wasn't it? Slow down. A better example of your handwriting might be something with fewer formulas and more writing for a sample. What I saw was fairly legible. (have seen much worse)

I do agree it takes just writing. Try to slow down a bit if you always write really fast. But you will have to spend time on a regular basis practicing like anything else.

Here's a proper sample. I took a few sentences from a random book, and wrote them down in three different ways. First is my "fast" writing. (How I write if I am desperately scrambling to get something written down quickly.) Second is normal writing. (I wrote at my usual pace and didn't give it much thought.) Third is an attempt at writing slowly and neatly. It doesn't look all that much better than the normal writing.

proxy.php
 
Yes! Noticeable improvement for me after only 1 week of retraining myself to write. That process includes re-inventing a simpler form of cursive.
 
I bought the Spencerian Copy Books and Theory Book in hopes of cleaning up my penmanship. I can't say that I have used them once. I was looking for just some penmanship b ooks but the people at the Barns & Noble...Books-A-Million just pointed me to 3rd grade workbooks for students. So I went with the Spencerian Copy Books because I thought something was better than nothing.
 
I bought the Spencerian Copy Books and Theory Book in hopes of cleaning up my penmanship. I can't say that I have used them once. I was looking for just some penmanship b ooks but the people at the Barns & Noble...Books-A-Million just pointed me to 3rd grade workbooks for students. So I went with the Spencerian Copy Books because I thought something was better than nothing.


I got the Spencerian set myself, but returned it after first look. As a teacher I just don't see the need for copying line after line of text. I understand this can teach good form and small motor muscle control, but just copying something is not my style. I much prefer to use warm-ups and lettering exercises combined with sentence/text writing. In this way I believe bad habits are minimized, and new control/precision is rewarded.

I've used 2 online resources with good success and plan on incorporating them into my classroom next year:

http://moodle.fct.unl.pt/pluginfile.php/146531/mod_resource/content/0/Handwriting_repair.pdf
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...vbWFpbnxiaGFnZXJ0eXxneDozODI4YjQ3NTAyY2Q3OGI4

:sailor:
 
I got the Spencerian set myself, but returned it after first look. As a teacher I just don't see the need for copying line after line of text. I understand this can teach good form and small motor muscle control, but just copying something is not my style. I much prefer to use warm-ups and lettering exercises combined with sentence/text writing. In this way I believe bad habits are minimized, and new control/precision is rewarded.

I've used 2 online resources with good success and plan on incorporating them into my classroom next year:

http://moodle.fct.unl.pt/pluginfile.php/146531/mod_resource/content/0/Handwriting_repair.pdf
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...vbWFpbnxiaGFnZXJ0eXxneDozODI4YjQ3NTAyY2Q3OGI4

:sailor:
Thanks the information. I'll check them out.

Sent from the Danger Phone
 
Top Bottom