Homeschooling a Child Who Struggles to Write

By Laura Lurns · Reviewed by Philip Weaver · Last reviewed 2026-09-30

Are you the writing teacher now?

If you teach your child at home, you are also the writing teacher. In our view, there are three parts to teach: handwriting, spelling and getting ideas down.

Some families also use a tutor or a class. In our view, someone still has to teach each of the three parts.

In our view, a parent can learn to teach these three parts. When your child forms a letter right, it is you they look up at.

Teaching your child is not a reason to go without a professional. The section on asking for help says when to reach out.

What should you teach?

Writing is several jobs at once. Three of them are forming letters, spelling words and getting ideas down.

Handwriting, spelling and getting ideas down each get better when taught.

• Handwriting. Santangelo and Graham (2016) pooled studies of teaching handwriting. Handwriting lessons made handwriting clearer and faster than other lessons or none.
• Spelling. In a 2014 review of 53 studies, Graham and Santangelo found that teaching spelling directly works. They also found gains in spelling while writing, not only on tests.
• Getting ideas down. Two reviews support teaching children how to plan and revise (Graham and Perin, 2007; Gillespie and Graham, 2014). The first covered grades 4 to 12. The second covered students with learning disabilities.

Work on handwriting, spelling and composing side by side.

Handwriting improves when it is taught and practiced.

Keep any hand or finger exercise alongside handwriting practice, not in place of it. Handwriting improves most consistently with handwriting practice; motor work alone has not been shown to improve it.

How do you teach it?

Handwriting

In our view, teaching a letter means three things. Show where it starts. Show which way it goes. Show the order of the strokes. Then your child writes it.

Do it while your child watches. Say each step out loud as you write. Then watch your child write it. If a letter goes wrong, show it again. In our view, fix one thing at a time.

One review looked at help for school-age children with handwriting trouble (Hoy and colleagues, 2011). Help that left out handwriting practice did not work. Neither did help with too few practice sessions. The review does not say how much practice is enough.

Our position is that short, frequent practice does more than long, rare sessions. That is for practice. A short practice does not replace the teaching. In our experience, handwriting gets worse as a child tires. Stop before it falls apart.

Spelling

Spelling improves with spelling instruction. In our view, give spelling its own lessons. Do not only mark it in a story.

Getting ideas down

Ask your child to tell you what they were going to write. Write it down as they talk. Then compare it with what they wrote on their own. That is a check we use, not a test.

Gillespie and Graham (2014) reviewed writing help for students with learning disabilities. They found planning or revising help "only effective when instruction was provided". To us, a planning sheet alone is not the same as teaching planning.

One useful step is to split the jobs of writing for a while. Plan the piece together first. Then talk it through. Write the first draft down as your child says it. Then bring the spelling and handwriting back in, one at a time.

De La Paz and Graham studied students in grades 5 to 7 with learning disabilities. Dictation plus taught planning gave better essays than a comparison group. The authors concluded that planning matters when a child dictates. So teach the planning, not only the scribing.

The point is to let a child try the parts one at a time. It is not to take the work away for good.

How do you choose a curriculum?

This page ranks no curriculum. It names no company's program but our own. In our view, choose the method first, then the curriculum.

One review looked at classroom handwriting programs for young children (Engel and colleagues, 2018). It found no clear support for one program over another.

Ask three questions of any writing curriculum. Does it show each letter, then have your child write it? Does it teach spelling directly? Does it teach planning and revising? These questions are ours.

In our view, ask to see a sample lesson before you choose.

Is there research on teaching writing at home?

We hold no study of children schooled at home. That is a gap in what we hold, not a finding about teaching at home. In our view, the handwriting, spelling and planning studies named above can guide what you teach.

Where does typing fit?

A keyboard takes away forming the letters. It does not take away spelling, composing or holding the sentence in mind.

Our position is this. Ask whether a support builds the skill, or replaces the expectation that it gets built. For a keyboard, the answer depends on the task. In a science test, typing lets the science show. In a handwriting lesson, it replaces the practice. We would keep building handwriting through the elementary years. Type where the point is the content.

When to ask for help

Each of these is a reason to ask for help on its own.

• Little change, even with steady practice and good teaching.
• Writing well below your child's other schoolwork.
• A teacher who raises a concern about writing.
• Extreme upset about writing.
• Complete avoidance of writing.
• Hopelessness about learning.
• Sadness or worry that lasts.
• Significant delays in speech, language or motor development.
• A skill that was there and has gone. Our position is that a lost skill goes to a doctor first, not a tutor.

If your child has a teacher or tutor, start there. Say what you are seeing, and what you have tried. Beyond that, the right person depends on what it turns out to be about. If the work is too hard, someone who works on that school skill. If worry or mood is the thing, someone who works with children's mental health. In our view, delays in speech, language or movement are worth raising with your child's doctor. In our view, if you are worried enough to ask, a professional evaluation is worth asking about.

Any talk of hurting themselves is a same-day call to your doctor or a crisis line.

The US evaluation rules we hold do not mention children taught at home. In our view, ask your state or local school district.