Writing Woes

My near 8 yo HATES writing anything school related. At first I thought this was just an obedience issue, but after I read some things (Ruth Beechick?) I wonder. There are certain things this child will write on her own, such as a letter or a story that is her own idea. But she would rather do any school subject orally than write answers in her workbooks, even math! 

So what I learned is this: if your child makes his letter O's clockwise instead of counter-clockwise, or makes his lower case r's backwards (hump before stick, right to left), he needs retraining. I asked my daughter to write the alphabet while I watched. Sure enough, she makes her O's and r's backwards. The article also recommended some small muscle exercises to strengthen the fingers, such as using the writing hand to crinkle an opened sheet of newspaper into a ball. So this morning I had this child do just that.  You know how it is when your children are encouraged to destroy something, right?  They really get into it!  Soon I had four girls crushing newspapers into balls, and shortly thereafter, our own desert "snowball" fight!  We'll do this daily until the junk mail runs out, and I'm sure the weak little third grade fingers will become burly, strong, experienced, happy writers.