Unlocking Handwriting: Why Teaching Cursive, Core Stability, & Purposeful Practice Transforms Kids’ Writing | Sarah Collins
About this Episode
Handwriting isn’t just pencil meets paper; it’s purpose, posture, vision, and motor planning working in sync. On this episode of The Brainy Moms Podcast, Dr. Amy and Sandy sit down with occupational therapist and homeschool consultant Sarah Collins (The Homeschool OT) to explore how kids move from “hot mess” letters to confident, legible writing by addressing the real foundations: core strength, shoulder stability, explicit motor plans, and a clear sense that their ideas matter.
We break down why cursive can be a game changer for productivity and flow, especially for ADHD and dyslexic learners, and how copy work—when used wisely—reduces cognitive load so kids can master patterns before juggling spelling and punctuation. Sarah shares practical strategies you can use today: vertical writing on mirrors or whiteboards, sand and tactile tracing, wooden letter forms, and programs like Size Matters for spacing and size or Learning Without Tears and its wet-dry-try sequence for consistent motor cues.
Vision gets a spotlight too. From visual scanning to convergence, subtle eye issues can sabotage reading and writing. You’ll hear how to spot red flags, when to consider referrals, and why multi-sensory practice helps the brain integrate “hardware and software.” We also revisit early milestones like crawling and cross-body play, connect them to later fine-motor readiness, and offer creative ways to rebuild those foundations if they were missed. Throughout, we focus on legibility over perfection, endurance for note-taking, and the powerful memory benefits of handwriting and summarizing in your own words.
If you’re a parent, educator, or homeschooler looking for evidence-based, real-world tools to make writing easier and learning stick, this conversation delivers. Subscribe for more brain-smart episodes, share with a friend who needs fresh handwriting strategies, and leave a review to tell us which tip you’ll try first.
About Sarah Collins
Sarah is an occupational therapist with a specialization in helping parents align homeschooling with their children’s unique needs. Through her brand, Homeschool OT, she provides personal consultations. She teaches month-long courses on key topics, fosters community through groups and individual coaching, and speaks at national conferences. Her work empowers parents to build learning environments that support their children’s development and passions.
Connect with Sarah
Website: https://homeschoolot.com/
Podcast: https://homeschoolot.com/podcast/
IG: @homeschool_ot
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Dr. Amy Moore: 0:01
Hi, smart moms and dads. Welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms Podcast, brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers. I’m Dr. Amy Moore, joined by Sandy Zamalis, and Sandy and I are excited to welcome a returning guest, our friend Sarah Collins. Sarah is an occupational therapist with a specialization in helping parents align homeschooling with their children’s unique needs. Through her brand, Homeschool OT, she provides personal consultations. She teaches month-long courses on key topics, fosters community through groups and individual coaching, and speaks at national conferences, which is where we met her. So her work empowers parents to build learning environments that support their children’s development and passions. Welcome back, Sarah. Thank you.
Sarah Collins: 0:53
Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I love that we are here together and that we’ve been at these conferences and seen each other in person. It just makes these conversations more fun. So thank you so much.
Sandy Zamalis: 1:04
Absolutely. So we’re jumping in and we’re going to talk about handwriting today. Because anytime I’ve got a student in my center and there’s an issue with handwriting, I’m calling an OT, especially if there I’m noticing there’s fine motor stuff going on or some visual processing stuff going on. So let’s give everybody a broad idea of how OTs help with handwriting, but then let’s get down into the nitty-gritty because I am passionate about handwriting to the extreme. Like a little bit old school. So same. So let’s jump in. How can an OT help when a student is having handwriting issues?
Sarah Collins: 1:43
All right. So, first of all, I think we have to define so handwriting itself is an occupation, right? So an occupation is how you occupy your time. And anytime that you’re having a struggle with something that you need or you want to do, that’s where an OT can come in. So a lot of times, especially in the school system, but also sometimes with parents, we’re getting referrals or people coming to ask questions because they want to know, all right, my kiddo’s handwriting is a hot mess. You know, that is actual words that I’ve heard. And they’re like, I don’t know what else to do about that. It’s just a hot mess. But it can come down to more than that. Like when I, as an OT am coming in, then I say, all right, a hot mess. Great. That’s a perfect term. Let me kind of narrow that down and think through it. Because there’s a whole lot that’s going into handwriting. So the first thing actually that I look at is does your child recognize that those words on the paper can correspond to the thoughts in their head and that it’s important, right? Because so many times when we’re just writing like a big line down and then or a little curve, or we’re, you know, copying work, which is great to practice just for motor planning, but we’re gonna, I’m gonna table that for a second, copy work. But the main purpose, we have to say, why are you handwriting? Why are you writing? And our kiddo needs to buy into that and to understand. So our very first thing for me as an OT before I even start, let me mess around with your grip or let me look at your core strength or whatever. I’m wondering, do you understand this purpose? And you would be surprised how many kids, even older kids, that aren’t recognizing either one, the value or two, even that their thoughts matter. So I really want them to know like what you’re thinking inside of your head. We want to get it out so that you can communicate to other people. So that’s my very, very first thing. Do you know that your thoughts matter? If not, we can do some things like where you’re gonna narrate to me and I’m gonna write it down, or you’re gonna talk to text on the computer. And I have no problem with that. Like we we need to make sure that you mat you understand the value of your thoughts first. So great, you want to talk to text. Sometimes I call that vomit on the paper. Like, make it happen. My kiddos are doing that a lot. The purpose of the actual motor now. So let’s separate that out. So that was our, you know, our cognitive part, our thoughts matter. Now, when we go into this motor piece, there is a big portion of motor planning. And I know you guys work a lot as far as rhythm and as far as making sure that we can think through, like come up with the idea of how I need to move my pencil or my whatever, I can actually execute that and I can evaluate that. You know, that’s a big piece of this whole actual handwriting. But to even do that, to come up with this plan, we have to have sufficient support. So this comes into we are seeing a whole lot of children who, because we are more sedentary, and whether that’s at school or whether that’s at home, whether that’s because we come from, you know, we’re we’re on the go a lot. So we’re spending more time in the car, whatever, we’ve got decreased core strength. So in OT terms, we call this proximal stability that’s going to give us some distal mobility, right? So we have to have this stability here. If even if as you’re listening right now, if you like slouch down in your seat and then you try to pick up something and have really good control, or you’re washing dishes as you listen to us or whatever, if you slouch over, you try to hold that dish and wash it with the other hand, your grip strength is weaker, right? So without this core stability, which starts here in the stomach, but is also within our shoulders, you’re not going to be able to really move these, you know, your this distal mobility really well to have good control. So that’s one of the things that I look at first and start with before I even start with these hands. And I know that’s like anybody who asks a question on, you know, to a friend on, you know, or on social media or even, you know, to ChatGPT, what they’re gonna come out with is your motor skills. And before we get to that, you need to be stable. But then yes, we do want to think about do you have the motor skills in your hands? And again, we’re seeing a decrease in that because of the core stability. So then we’ve got these weaker hands. So we’ve got to catch up there before we even really start with this motor plan. So next, like I’m rolling through, we’ve got a whole in here.
Dr. Amy Moore: 6:29
Yeah, yeah. I’m like super fascinated. And so, like, can we just stop there for just a second and kind of sit in that chair?
Sarah Collins: 6:35
Absolutely.
Dr. Amy Moore: 6:35
All right. So, what do you say to the argument that my kid plays video games all day? My kid is such a fast typer. They obviously have to have hand strength and hand coordination to make that happen. What’s your response to that?
Sarah Collins: 6:52
So they do have some hand coordination for that specific task, right? I mean, think about the difference in when you are using your thumbs on a video game controller and when you’re typing here, two very, very different things than when you’re actually trying to move your hands. Also, when you’re looking at this screen, like what you’re doing is very two-dimensional and not three-dimensional, where you’re actually having to make this motor plan on a piece of paper or on the whiteboard or on the wall or whatever it is that you’re writing. These are very different muscles that you’re using. So if we’re saying you must have sufficient motor control because you’re able to use this, you know, this one motor plan, do you have enough to be able to do all the things that you need to do? Like, that’s where it comes in. Now, I do want to hold space and say, like, there are kiddos who play video games, and that is fantastic, actually, to help to build some of their motor control. Like, I’m not gonna say this is a whole thing that we should never ever do. Like, that is not that is not the ground I’m gonna stand on, although I do have some pretty strong beliefs about screens in my own home. But I am not saying this for everybody, you should never look on a screen ever in a million years. What I am saying is we want our kids to be able to do everything that they need and want to do during the day. And think about the motor control that you need to be able to open all these containers when you’re cooking in the kitchen, when you’re doing your squeezing your tube of toothpaste, when you are writing, when you are, you know, going outside and you need to be able to hold on to something to play, to hold on to the swings or to pull up on a tree. And then when you get older, like you need to be able to fix the sink or whatever. Like, we don’t want to be the people who are holding our kids back because we didn’t consider that when they were younger.
Dr. Amy Moore: 8:41
Love that. All right, keep going.
unknown: 8:43
Okay.
Sarah Collins: 8:44
So all right. So now we’ve got, you know, our motor skills, right? And so now it actually comes into this plan of can I make these letters that, you know, that then correspond to the words that we’ve thought in our heads, right? So there is a big piece, and we’ve talked about this briefly of, you know, we’ve got to have each letter is gonna have a different plan, right? And then we have to put them together. So for some kids, that planning is actually really a struggle, like to come up with this idea first of what it is. So we have to practice that in itself. And a lot of our research says, you know, as much as we can work on these underlying skills, I’m working on core strength, sure. That’s working on handwriting without actually writing, but we simultaneously, or a little after we work on that core strength, need to literally teach this motor plan to our younger kids. So, you know, we’re we can use a program that’s like learning without tears. There’s a bunch of different ones that are that are out there. We can use, you know, there’s uh just so many. And we can get into that if you really want to. We can talk through what some of some of them are. But let’s at this point just say, like, whatever it is, we need to have some explicit teaching to figure out like what are these different patterns. Because for print, there’s a whole lot more. You have to start at different points on the paper. You’re having to make bigger letters and smaller letters. Cursive is a lot easier, actually, because you just flow right through rather than all of the stop and start and turning around. And so we in my own home, once we learned to read print, we write in cursive and we go that route rather than actually teaching the print. Because no, if if you are going to be writing, when and notice I am saying if because I realize that we live in a very interesting society right now. But if you are going to be writing, cursive is gonna be a lot more productive than writing really slowly as far as print goes. But so if we can practice this motor plan and the actual patterns going through, that’s where the copy work can come in, where you aren’t necessarily putting your own thoughts on paper, but you’re just looking at it in front of you. And that’s an easier task than um having to come up with your own thoughts and also the motor plan. And also think about your, you know, punctuation and your capitalization and all of that. That’s a whole other component. So now that we’ve talked through like this these motor pieces, I do really want to mention visual processing. This was a huge piece for my own son. He had visual scanning deficiency and convergence disorder. And this is kind of what brought me along this path of no, this is really important. He did not learn to read by reading, you know, looking on the page because he the visual processing, he learned to read by spelling and then by writing, because he needed that motor component. And I want to make sure, again, that our kids are getting every sense that is possible to influence because all these things come together, right? And so if visual processing, you know, being able to, I mean, this is just the processing, you know this better than me, but processing is different than the actual, you know, scanning, a visual scanning. That’s the first piece of that. So for him, when he couldn’t, then his visual processing was delayed. So we had to remediate and work through his eye muscular first and then work on what was the impact of that within the brain. And then we could start to do it. Like then he could start to recognize the letters, then he could start to write the letters. So all kind of came together in that way. But if your child, so for him, it was we noticed one because he told me, Mom, how are you supposed to be reading when the words are moving on the page? And I was like, Oh, body, they’re not moving on the page. But what was happening, like he was reading through one eye, trying to read through one eye, and then hit that eye would get tired and he’d go through the other because his eyes just were not fully developed in coordination with each other. But then that really impacted so much of what he was obviously what he was seeing and understanding in that way. So visual processing and the actual hard hardware and software, we can go in that route. The hardware of the eye muscles and the software of the brain both matter in that Sure.
Dr. Amy Moore: 13:11
So you said something really telling. You said that cursive is makes us more productive than printing, or cursive can can you talk more about that? Because so what you’re saying is you can be more productive in the writing task if you’re writing in cursive versus printing. And my assumption is because there is not a break in between each letter, that you don’t have to worry about spacing in between each letter, that there isn’t such a laborious process. Yes, right. How does that impact creativity? And you talked about how important our thoughts are, right? So how does that impact our ability to get thoughts out of our mind and onto paper?
Sarah Collins: 13:54
So if we can think about the concept of flow, right? Like when you are in this moment, especially for our kiddos, that really um they this one of the turb could be hyper focus. I don’t specifically love that term, but like when you’re really in your moment of something that you are super interested in, then you’re you’re in it. You know, you are focused on what that is. You’re making this, it’s harder to get distracted, right? And we want to help our kids to get into that so that their thoughts can get out, right? We want them in that state of flow, or you’re again, another term is hyper focused. So if they can do that, one way to help is we’re not gonna stop this every two seconds with forming a different letter and coming out a different space and you know, making moving up to the top of the page and then down to the bottom. I unfortunately can’t remember right now, but I would love to, the number of spots that you can start your letter, letters in print versus where you everyone, every single letter in cursive starts at the same spot at the bottom. So I wish I could remember that right now. But we can Google it. You can look that up. Ask Chat GBT that. That’s a great thing to ask. How many spots do you start your print? But if you are using your cursive, you’re just flowing right through. And so you’re not doing that break every single second to have to come up with a new idea for each single letter, then the execution, then the evaluation. You’re just flowing right through. And so our research shows that that can really help, specifically for our kiddos with ADHD, that we’re just going right through and we’re helping them to get into that state of flow.
Sandy Zamalis: 15:33
I’ve read that it’s help it helps with kids with dyslexia too, especially if they’ve got the visual processing piece to it, because it helps that differentiation. Like Ps, B’s, D’s, and Q’s aren’t as alike as they are in print. So it’s easier for that to flow. And oftentimes they have beautiful cursive handwriting, and so they like that style because it really adapts to their creative side. Um, because, you know, in general, with that high visual processing, they tend to tend to have more creative tendencies. So like the flow of the artsy part of it comes across even more. Um, it’s been fun to watch students work through that. I wonder what your take is. I feel like in even in homeschool circles, but definitely in public school circles, the decrease in explicit teaching, both in cursive and in print, has gone down. I find the kids that we work with at our centers, they’re just winging it. You know, I can tell because they’ll make the same letter five different ways, right? They did because they know what it’s supposed to look like, but they, you know, don’t have enough muscle memory to pull it all together and make it automatic for them. What is your take on that as a society? Is that just because we’re in a digital time, people aren’t thinking about it as important anymore?
Sarah Collins: 16:51
So I think that yes, we were in that point where we didn’t think of it as important. And so, and our teachers are really strapped with trying to get all of this information in by the end of the year in their 180 days. Um, it’s really interesting we’re seeing a pendulum swing go the other way. In fact, Pennsylvania, which is the state that I live in, just passed legislation, which part of me is like, why is there legislation about what you have to do? But anyway, we’re gonna get started. We can digress about that at a different point in time. But legislation that they’re gonna put cursive back into the school system. And so they’re recognizing that there is a difference and that we do need this explicit teaching. So now, does that carry over into the homeschool community? I sure hope so. Um, I really do think it is important to go through how do we form these letters? Let’s practice just this letter. You know, again, this is kind of separating out the task. This is not your, I’m just gonna all of a sudden I want to tell you all about my hike today. So I’m gonna let you know about that. And let me try to put it down in cursive. Like that’s you can’t just automatically do that. And us expecting that our kids can should, I mean, that’s that’s really a hard thing to do. So we need to at least give some like basics of let’s trace this letter. Where would you start? How do we flow through and to really work in that way?
Sandy Zamalis: 18:12
And give them lots of practice, right? Yeah, I feel like that is the piece that gets missing too, is that they just they might get that initial instruction, but the practice is going away. Yeah. Partly because it’s tedious, right? And there’s a lot of fun things we can do, a lot more computer, so we can transition quickly to doing things on the computer versus having to write in a workbook or on a sheet over and over and over again.
Sarah Collins: 18:36
Yep. Exactly. And that’s why I mean some of those workbooks are really tedious. And so I’m putting it all out there, guys. I’m an occupational therapist and I never had my kids do a workbook. Like instead, like we really worked through how do you form these letters. We did that in sand. We did that on, you know, a window in front of us. We did that because that’s a vertical surface to help, you know, with our core strength. We did that, you know, by um we got like wooden letters that we went through. The roller coaster writer, she has like wooden things that you can go through. I think grooved writing also does the same. So like you get this feedback of the actual practice, but then we did copy work of books, and I didn’t care what they were cut. I think my son did like a Star Wars book. Middle or my youngest son, right now, he’s super into zoology. And so I got him one of those big giant, like every animal under the sun, National Geographic books, and he and a bunch of stickers. And so he’s like working through, I think he just did sloths the other day, like put a sloth pick sticker on his page, and then he’s like copying what’s there and turning it into cursive. So, you know, he’s practicing in that way. I love it. So it doesn’t have to be laborious, it can be something you’re interested in, too. Right.
Dr. Amy Moore: 19:52
And can or what is your recommendation on how you assess that? So does it decrease? Motivation to actually assign a grade to how beautiful the writing looks, or should the grade be for effort and practice and something that approximates what a cursive letter B should look like?
Sarah Collins: 20:15
Yeah. So when I am looking at quote unquote legibility, I’m not like, wow, this is so beautiful. It should be, you know, hung up on my wall. What instead what I’m looking at is legibility. Now, when I’m thinking about legibility, I’m thinking about line orientation, right? So is it here or are we like going all the way down the paper, which makes it really hard to understand? I’m also looking at the size to see, like, you know, if your cursive L is little, it’s an E. Or if your regular word, if you’re putting your if your B, like if you’re printing it and you’re putting your B below the line, it what letter is that, right? Um, so we have to think through like your size as your so your size, your formation, and your line orientation. And that’s what helps us to know whether it’s quote unquote legible or not. So we kind of have to define that term. So if I were to in general, what I do with with my kiddos is I’m we’re looking at like the word that they just wrote, right? So let’s say he did write about sloths. I’m just gonna make up a sentence like the sloths hanging from a tree, right? Okay. So I’ll say, we’ll write this down. And then I’ll say, like, which word do you think is the best out of your sentence? Right. And then we talk about, I agree, sloth was the best. And look how high up your L was, but hmm, that eight, it’s below that language, makes it look like an N. Can we fix that? Let’s do it together, right? So I’m not like, nope, that was terrible. Let’s redo it, but trying to point out, okay, what was the best part that you’re doing, and it’s something else that we can work on together. And it could be that it’s all great. And then we’re just building up endurance, right? So, because that’s a piece of it too. You know, there’s a lot of families that’ll come to me and say, you know, my child’s hand starts to hurt after a certain amount of time. And I I get that. It’s oftentimes that they just don’t have the muscular endurance. So that’s the same thing. If you’re thinking about, you know, I’m going for a run, you can have great formation of your legs and you’re, you know, holding your core strength strength, but you can’t run longer than, you know, a mile, right? So, okay, we need to build up that endurance. That’s what you work on then. And I do get it, there are a lot of people that are like, why do you need a long endurance for writing at this point? You’re probably right. I mean, when we think about what’s functional, it’s not like I’m asking anybody to write a full paper by hand anymore. I say that. But my daughter’s good friend, my daughter’s a senior, she’ll graduate from our homeschool this year, and she has a lot of friends who are going to college, and St. Joe’s specifically, where we’ve got two, two of her friends are going there. They have teachers who can’t quite figure out how they’re gonna pull this AI and how we’re gonna prevent cheating and whatever. And so they literally can only bring a spiral notebook into their classroom. So I don’t know how long that’s gonna last, or if that’s just like a, oh my gosh, we don’t know what we’re gonna do, um, or if we’re gonna go back that way. But again, we don’t want to hold our kids back from that. So just thinking in that realm. What I do think that we are still gonna be using our hands for mostly is that taking notes piece, because it is really important just to be able to have that motor plan and motor pattern. I mean, there the majority of our research, if if you were to look up handwriting research, it would be talking about the influences on brain function and on memory specifically. But there’s not a whole lot of research out there that’s gonna be like, oh, what is it’s important because it makes it look pretty. No, like the whole the main reason that people are asking questions about handwriting is because they want to know, does it really matter with our memories? And the answer is yes, it does, because we are using these different motor patterns as you’re writing and you are in the flow, and it does add that extra sensory component. So even if you can, you know, just have a recording of your conversation or have a recording of, you know, what’s going on in in class, for you to then take it and put it into your own thoughts, pull out what’s important, put it on that piece of paper. You’re already working more than if you just got this, you know, transcript of the class. So we want to give our children that opportunity to be able to really learn, right? So that’s where the endurance can come in.
Dr. Amy Moore: 24:50
Yeah, I love that you brought that up because the research does say that we encode information differently when we write it in our own handwriting than we do if we type it or hear it. And so in order to bank that information away in long-term memory for use later, um, it is important to put it in our our own writing.
Sarah Collins: 25:11
Absolutely. And our our own words, you know, you’re already doing some narration there. And and if we are teaching note-taking or different types of note-taking as you’re going along as part, you know, once they get older, you’re already asking them to take this, to encode it, yes, to get it so that they’re ready for their memory. But even just the act of writing it and then summarizing it again, you’ve already heard it three times because you’ve heard it coming in, you’ve written it, and then you’ve summarized it. That’s three times that’s going there. So that if we remove the handwriting and remove our own summary, it’s a lot harder.
Speaker 1: 25:52
Yeah.
Sandy Zamalis: 25:54
So there’s different, you know, developmental stages in this whole in writing for sure. From an OT’s perspective, what are some key, I would say, red flags or signals to a parent that it might be time to reach out and get an assessment by an OT to see if we need some help and maybe think about it for our parents, our listeners from those different stages. Okay. Because it can look different. There you can seek uh OT help for different purposes throughout their development in handwriting. So let’s start with like early, you know, kindergarten. Some of those are a little easier to spot, but I’m sure it gets a little more.
Sarah Collins: 26:32
I’m actually gonna start even earlier. Really? Okay. Yeah, because crawling really makes a huge difference with our handwriting. It actually, the pressure on your hands when you are crawling helps to form some of those muscles. In fact, the arches in our hands are even formed by that. Plus, we know the cross-body movements, you know, what’s that doing to integrating both hemispheres of our brains and even helping to integrate our primitive reflexes? So crawling is really important. And if we skip that, or we have even what we call a janky leg crawl or, you know, scooting along on your on your booty, all of those are impacting what can then later turn into handwriting. So if your child, I know this is gonna sound so strange because so many people are like, my child just went to walking. They must be a genius. And I’m like, sure they are. Push them down, please. They are a genius, but let’s go back. I don’t want to tell you that your child is not a genius because I do think every child is so smart, but push them down and get back to that. And so if your kiddo missed that, don’t say like, oh my gosh, this is horrible. We’re at the end of our rope, right? No, we can think about other ways to do that. In fact, I’ve talked about hiking in the past, like go hiking and you know, crawl across a log because you can do that later on and you’re older and you’re not thinking like, oh my gosh, what’s my mom making me do? You’re gonna love me for this one, clean the floorboards, right? Crawl, you gotta crawl on the floor, reach across, wipe that floorboard, crawl a little bit more, reach across and wipe that floorboard. So if your child did not crawl, let’s go back to that and start work through some of that now.
Dr. Amy Moore: 28:10
So I’m gonna start there too. Yeah. I’m so glad you brought it up because unless the American Academy of Pediatrics has updated it, crawling is not a mandatory developmental milestone, right? And so I don’t want parents to all of a sudden panic, right? Because wait a minute, it’s not on the checklist. My doctor said it was okay if my child didn’t crawl. And so what I’m hearing you say is yes, there are some kids who skip that step. And if they did, then here are some activities that you can do to help um build that same skill in a new way later.
Sarah Collins: 28:49
Yes. And in fact, when they when they took it off, when the American Academy of Pediatrics took it off, that there was an OT uproar. Like, what are you doing here? Right. And what we did come across is, okay, so the biggest thing that we want our kids to be able to do is function. And so these kiddos who’s just moved straight to walking, great, they f they’re functionally, they’re getting around, and that’s what’s important. And that’s why the Academy of Pediatrics was like, whatever, they’re getting to where they need to do, you know. Um, and so, and that walking obviously is really important, but we cannot ignore some of the pieces that then later on impact our day-to-day function. So you’re right, if they missed it, you can’t go back and say you can no longer walk, you can only crawl, but you can add in some of these extra things or extra activities to do.
unknown: 29:41
Yeah.
Sarah Collins: 29:41
Scooter boards are super fun. Put them on their bellies and pull your body across the floor. And then even if you’re older, then you’re still working on those same things. I will be interested because the it’s only been, I want to say two and a half years, maybe three years, since it’s not been on the developmental milestone checklist. And so those kiddos, since it’s been removed, have not even started into handwriting yet. And I will be interested to see if there is a big difference. And this is a hypothesis, but I would guess yes, that there will be. So we’ll see. Time will tell. But if you can get your kiddo crawling and moving in this way, it’s not gonna hurt them. I can tell you that. Now, once we do get to kindergarten, like what are some of our red flags? Now, I really before I even start, you know, with writing, again, we’ve talked some about this core strength, is I want to know, like, can your kiddo climb the ladder at the playground? Can your kiddo climb that rock wall? Can they climb a tree if they want to? Like these are the beginnings of the motor planning. Can they form adequate grip strength to do so, to pull their bodies up more so than I’m worried about this? Can they, you know, do this distal movement? Because without that core strength and the motor planning, that little movement within their hands is going to be a lot harder. So I want to look at that. Then some other flags that, you know, are things that I want parents to be paying attention to. When you’re, you know, in the kitchen, can you can they open the Ziploc bags? Can they turn the, you know, your toothpaste? You know, can you open that? Can you feed yourself well? You know, those that’s where a lot of those motor skills are coming in at the beginning when you’re younger, is like self-feeding. Can you get that little pincer grasp? And then later on, like, can you control that fork really well? All of these things kind of come together, and most of the time we see some carryover between activities that if your struggle is handwriting, it’s not only handwriting most of the time. If your child just has messy handwriting, I’m actually not that concerned about it. It’s more of if it goes all around in all of these different activities.
Dr. Amy Moore: 31:51
I love that you say that because I think that as parents, we automatically go to a laziness and a motivation interpretation of messy handwriting. So speak to that a little bit, like why maybe we shouldn’t stress so much about it and why maybe that isn’t actually what’s happening.
Sarah Collins: 32:11
Right. So we’ve talked about all of the different pieces that go into handwriting. And so if handwriting is hard, we have to think about wow, there is a lot that’s going on here. So most likely it’s not just that you’re lazy, right? There’s a whole lot of, wow, is my body secure? Are my hands warmed up? Am I thinking clearly? Right. So just a messy handwriting, and then we’re like, oh, you’re so lazy. Wait, actually. So what I want to think through is does this matter across different activities, right? And so that’s where where I want to look over at these other like self-feeding and and all the like drawing, painting, like all of these other things, so that we can kind of narrow down like what part of this is it? Is it the words? Is it, you know, your vision? Is it the motor plan itself? Like there’s so many different aspects that just us assuming like you have messy handwriting and so you’re lazy, hmm, we might be missing an underlying piece. But if it’s not impacting anywhere else, like you could do every other thing that you wanted to do under the sun, and all you have is messy handwriting, go be a doctor. And write your notes that way. They have messy handwriting.
Sandy Zamalis: 33:32
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Dr. Amy Moore: 34:34
Talk a little bit about different curriculum that you have um evaluated or tried or come across. Do you have specific recommendations uh for curriculums?
Sarah Collins: 34:46
Yeah, I do actually. There are a lot of different curriculums out there. So let’s just take like two for time’s sake, two that I really, really love. Number one would be it’s called Size Matters. Um and I’m sorry, I I’m laughing because every time that I talk about this, I was leading a this is horrible. I was leading a conversation one time with all of a bunch of different family members of people in our co-op. And my a good friend of mine just sent her husband a text. She was like, I gotta remember this later. Size matters. And he wrote back and he was like, So now every single time I just start laughing. So I’m okay. I’m glad that I shared that now. Anyway, let’s digress. Let’s jump back.
Speaker 1: 35:33
And so size matters. See? I know. No, you can’t. The funny thing is, I went there too. Like in my mind. And then when you busted out laughing, and I’m busting out laughing. I don’t know. We could edit it out or we can leave it because I bet you.
Sandy Zamalis: 35:53
That somebody else was thinking that exact same thing. They will never forget the name of this handwriting book.
Sarah Collins: 35:59
I know. I don’t know if Mark is good or bad, right? But the reason I like this one, it was designed by an occupational therapist. And she has different letter um boxes. So that, you know, your B that’s going to go up higher, right? Then your C that’s lower. And they’re color-coded most of the time, which really helps to one, bring that visual attention to your kiddos, but it’s also giving you the spatial relation size, like so that you can recognize. And so for kids that are really struggling with the space between their words or that line orientation, because remember, we defined those within if this is legible or not, it starts with those cues and then it removes them as time goes on. So I really love that one for our kiddos that really that we think it could be a visual processing, or that are when you’re noticing that their words are really squished together, or they’re having a hard time with that line orientation, go that route. Um I I do really like learning without tears as far as their specific cueing systems. So that helps with the motor planning piece. So they always use the terms and they’re very consistent with it, you know, your big line down or your little line down, or your little curve, or your big curve. And they use those throughout the whole thing. And they also are really great about their order, you know, of things that are happening in the order that they actually present the letters to students. I really enjoy, I again, I told you I did not even use workbook, so it didn’t go in that route. But they have something called wet, dry, try. So it allows us to try it with multi-sensory ways. So basically, I would write the letter H on a small slant board, which has the spot where I’m gonna start it. I’m gonna write the letter H. Then my kiddo’s gonna look at it and they’re gonna get a little sponge, get it wet, and they’re gonna make it wet to erase my H. Then they’re gonna dry it with, you know, a little paper towel or whatever. And then they’re they still have somewhat of an outline because even if you dry it, you can still see it. And so then they write, you know, their own H and it gives them some spacing within that. So that’s my favorite part of that program. But it is, it can be really great to have like they have wooden letters that go along with it that you can make in that way. And we did that a lot with my younger son uh or with my middle son that I talked about his visual scanning problems and convergence. So that was really helpful for him too. Those are my two favorites.
Sandy Zamalis: 38:31
Is it beneficial to have um a child be able to write like both on paper or slant board, but also like maybe on a whiteboard, like a vertical surface, so that they can use their core.
Sarah Collins: 38:44
That you mentioned that. Yes, yes, that is a great plan. In fact, we used to in our homeschool, we would do what I called bath math for a really long time. And this was when my youngest was around one, right? So then Caleb, who’s my middle son that I keep talking about, I’m coming back to, he was six. And so my one-year-old Reese would be, you know, all over the place. And everyone’s always like, How do we homeschool with toddlers everywhere? Well, bath math is how one of the times that it helped us. So I would put him in the bathtub and I would be in the bathroom and have my older son do his math on the mirror. And so he was getting one the core strength and stability. So you’re getting that stability through your core, but also through your shoulder blades. Your eye hand coordination is different when you’re at that level. And also, if you think about when you’re holding a pencil, it’s really hard to actually, or a window marker or whatever, to hold it with that same fisted grasp when it’s in front of you. It’s actually easier to hold it in a way that would translate to a better grasp pattern on a pencil. So he would do that up on the mirror and write his math problems and whatever, and we’d go across that way. And my younger son was safe in the bathtub because I’m right there next to him, too. We’re all together in a little tiny bathroom on this vertical surface. So yeah, anytime that you can do that, going back and washing windows, that’s the same. Right, you have to do that right after. So now we also have a clean mirror.
Dr. Amy Moore: 40:15
Well, and I think there’s also that engagement piece too, right? It’s novel and unique. And you know, when I was a second grade teacher, I used the individual whiteboards and the individual chalkboards for call and response and math and phonics. And it was everyone was usually pretty engaged because this was this is more fun to use than my regular old pencil. And it’s just a different medium to explore with and race with and all of the things. And so I think that’s just really great practice to vary um the media. Absolutely.
Sandy Zamalis: 40:51
I’m like, bring back the chalkboards because as messy as they are, that was they’re so fun when I was a kid. One teacher would have that you get from those. The feel, yeah. There’s something to be said for the loss of the chalkboard.
Sarah Collins: 41:05
I agree. I agree. We can all have our personal slates. We can go back to you know, Laura Engels Wilder and the little house on the prairie and bring our personal slates. It’ll be great. I hate them.
Dr. Amy Moore: 41:15
I I have sensory. I’m a sensory avoider. I’m a sensory avoider. And so the feel of chalk on my fingers is overwhelming. So I was super excited when whiteboards came out.
Sarah Collins: 41:28
And kiddos now who are writing on your iPad and whatever, that’s a also a different feel versus your different paper. And so that’s something that parents can mess around with and try to see. I’m so glad you said that, Sarah, because I cannot write on my iPad. I can’t either. But we both we both really like chalk, and that gives us more feedback. So that makes sense. Whereas Amy and I love writing on my iPad. I bet you do. Yeah.
Sandy Zamalis: 41:56
It probably looks beautiful. It looks like chicken scratch when I try.
Dr. Amy Moore: 42:00
Well, and it it does not take very much pressure. And so um it you get you don’t get as fatigued as quickly in taking notes. Or I I should say I don’t get as fatigued as quickly taking notes on the iPad. I can see that. Yeah. But it does make a tapping sound, right? So then it’s a give and take.
Sarah Collins: 42:22
You can get overstimulated by the tapping by the sound, rather, but the feel is okay.
Speaker 1: 42:28
I’m your classic sensory avoider.
Sarah Collins: 42:31
Well, and that’s where, you know, there does take some trial and error, and it’s okay to say there’s not one right way to do this. You know, let’s figure it out. Let’s work. Like somebody might hate that marker on the mirror because it is kind of reflecting right back to you, but could write on an easel. And that’s okay too. Like we can mess around with this and think, and part of that then allows us to collaborate with our kids. Like, oh, I’m noticing that you actually don’t really like writing up there. But I thought you would because of how you know much it is in front of you. Do you think we could try it on an easel or whatever? You know, like let’s let’s talk about it and problem solve that way.
Dr. Amy Moore: 43:10
I love that you brought that up because I, you know, I have been criticized for for promoting a collaborative approach and a problem-solving approach when some parents feel, well, they’re the parent. And because they said so, this is the way that’s it should be. And a child should just do it that way. And so my response is always the same. Well, how’s that working for you?
unknown: 43:33
Yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore: 43:33
It’s always the same. How’s that working for you? When there are options. And so I just I love that you have validated that idea of really involving your child in choosing materials and choosing the approach. And I mean, there’s more than, you know, one way to solve this problem. And so why would we pick one that was not the path of least resistance?
Sarah Collins: 43:56
Yeah. Especially when one of the things that we really want our kids to be able to do as they are growing is to know themselves and to know what works really well for them, because there are not two brains that are alike, right? And also to know how to advocate from themselves. So if we can start that at this age of, you know what, this feels funny. Or when I have to write in front of me, it hurts my eyes. Like, all right, so let’s talk about that, and then we can problem solve it together. So that then you can come up with a solution. And that is actually promoting these this flexible thinking, right? Of here’s my problem, what is a possible solution? Rather than there’s not any other way to go about it. You know, that’s that isn’t actually thinking flexibly. So if we’re going to promote executive functioning, let’s also model it. Love that.
Sandy Zamalis: 44:49
Does an occupational therapist come in handy later on down the road in developmental years as well for topics such as handwriting? For example, if a student’s struggling with note-taking or just um being able to write and get their thoughts out on paper, what would that look like?
Sarah Collins: 45:08
Yeah, an occupational therapist can be helpful with any time that there is an occupation, you know, or how you occupy your time. So something that you need and want to do, if you’re struggling with it, then yes, an occupational therapist can be helpful. Now, here’s where it kind of comes into a struggle is that we OTs work in a few different quote unquote systems, right? So we work in the medical system, which oftentimes you need a medical diagnosis to come in and say, okay, so I’ve got ADHD, or I have a medical diagnosis of cerebral palsy, or I have a medical diagnosis of Down syndrome, I have one of these or autism, right? So we’ve got a diagnosis here. How can we what now, now that we have this diagnosis, here’s the functional areas where I’m struggling, an OT can come in and help, right? So during those cases, especially if you’re trying to go through the medical model, you can’t just say, I’m really struggling with handwriting, I need an OT, right? Because they’re gonna be like, What? Like that doesn’t work. Within the educational system, you can say, Yes, I’m really struggling with handwriting, and because this is an occupation, so that affects my learning. And so then they would have to do some testing, and typically you need an IEP, and then they’re gonna find out for those services there. So these are two separate systems. This is kind of where people like me come in because we bridge this gap. I do not work within a system which has its own limitations. So instead, what I can do, because I’m only working as a homeschool consultant, because we have OTs all have licenses state by state, right? And this is a beautiful thing because it can help us to make sure that it actually, I don’t know what makes it beautiful that we’re licensed state by state, but I’m sure there is a beautiful thing. I think it’s probably so that they can make sure that if we have a problem in one state, we’re not just gonna move to another one, right? So they can they can kind of keep track of us. But what that does is make it so that outside of the state of Pennsylvania, I can work as an as a consultant and I do a whole lot of parent education on things like this of like what is this underlying why and how can you support your children using the homeschool? Here’s, you know, we just went through a plethora of reasons, but we can say, all right, your kiddo specifically, who is now struggling with note-taking, this is where it’s showing up in your day. How can we help? Right. And I actually have a podcast on teaching note-taking on the OTSN. But also, you know, here’s how you as the parent can come alongside of your child. And that’s more of the system that I work in. So it’s my own system. I created it. So this is the way that you can work. Um so I think as parents, if you’re noticing that your child is struggling, you can go one of those two routes. You just have to kind of figure out what the best one will be.
Dr. Amy Moore: 48:03
Does every OT specialize in education or homeschooling or you know, child development issues like this? Or do do you have different specialization areas and the parents would need to be aware of that?
Sarah Collins: 48:21
Yeah. So there are OTs that work in so many different ways. And now I can say that is the beautiful. I actually still can’t come up with a beautiful thing about the licensure, but I can about occupational therapy as a whole. And that is because the number of occupations that we have during the day, you know, each and every one of us are very, very different. And we also have different skill sets within ourselves. We also have a different environment, right? And so what we as OTs do is we look at you as a person. What do you need and want to do? What environment are you in? And what occupations do you need? So there are some OTs that are working, you know, with spinal cord injury, there are some OTs that are working with brain injury, there are some OTs that are working in geriatrics with, you know, older people’s pop occupations that they need. There are some people that are working specifically within the school system and they really care about some of these educational occupations. There are some people that are working in nature and because they’re recognizing that this play is super important and we want to be outside and help to build some of this core strength and you know our motor skills so that then we can carry it over. No, not every single OT is going to be looking in the same way. But if you do say, this is where it’s impacting me, then that OT, a big important thing for us, is evidence-based practice, should either be saying, huh, let me look up the resources so that I know how to help your child, or let me refer you to someone who does.
Dr. Amy Moore: 49:55
Perfect. So give our listeners a little bit of how they can work with you, what resources you have, why would they choose you rather than just seeing someone who is licensed in their state that perhaps insurance might cover?
Sarah Collins: 50:10
Right. So what I do as homeschool OT is I come alongside of those homeschool parents. And this is very different. In fact, I don’t think as of now, and I look frequently that there’s someone else who is doing what I’m doing, which makes it important because I can help to bridge that gap, right? So when you are looking absolutely for someone who can work within your state, work with your kiddo. In fact, a lot of times I work with those OTs too, right? And working with parents and kind of help to bridge that. Because if you are working in in a clinic, right, we are often bound as OTs by specific productivity. We have to be seeing this number of clients and this many, you know, minutes that we can be with each one so that we can bill for our insurance. And this is not by any fault of the OT, but this is the system that they that they’re working in. And so they only have so much time. And a lot of times parents are coming in at the end and they’re like, but boy, what do I do at home? And sometimes they can be really great and helpful and be able to fill, you know, this is what I want you to do, and this is how this can really impact your day. Or sometimes the parents can come in, but that also depends on how many other students are there. And there’s just so many variables. And so I work with parents and say, all right, this is what’s going on according to your, you know, OT or according to your eyes of what you’re thinking. How does this impact your day? And how can you either A work within the person? So this is where even a lot of times I’ll be referring to you because I’ll say, wow, I’m really seeing that there’s something cognitive going on here. How can we work on that? Well, it’s not me. That’s where I’m going to refer you, you know, over to Learning RX. Or, you know, I’m saying we need to build up a lot of strength. Here’s some ways that you can do that within your homeschool day. You need to build up, you know, we’re working on executive functioning. How are ways that we can do that during the day? How does that impact your homeschool? Or how can we set up the environment? Or what curriculums are working well? So I’m really kind of on the outskirts of when you’re seeing a struggle and you need to either A, build your team, or B, have recommendations exactly for your homeschool. That’s me. I’m the resources and recommendations person. And you have a podcast? I do. I have the OT is in that comes out two times a month now on Thursdays. And we cover topics like executive functioning, handwriting, obviously, sensory processing is a huge one. We go through all the different senses. I also look at things like what are other occupations that really matter for our kids. We talk a lot about play, risky play. I talk a lot about handwriting, obviously, literacy, reading, like sometimes even ADLs like getting dressed. And if your kiddo is struggling with toilet training, even we’re gonna have an episode on that. So kind of run the gamut of all of those things.
Dr. Amy Moore: 53:06
And I noticed you have some courses available to you on your website. Yeah. Are you looking at it? You’re my favorite. I’m not looking at it. You just know. This is straight from memory. I just know you have a lot of stuff happening out there.
Sarah Collins: 53:19
You’re so great. I do. I have courses, you know, we’ve really uh scraped the top of this handwriting issue. Um, so I have one on handwriting where we dive in way more on what is the visual pieces, what are the core strength, and what can I do about that, right? So I call that one kind of the pieces of the handwriting puzzle. I have a course on sensory processing. What are all these senses that you’re talking about? And how does this impact my day? And if my kiddo is really struggling, what do I do? I have a course on that. And then one on executive functioning, like what are each of those executive functioning skills and how can we, you know, address them in the person, in the environment, accommodations with different occupations that we’re doing during the day. So I have that one for parents and actually just came out with a course for teens. A lot of times, you know, if we could build a language around executive functioning, then we can begin to learn and advocate for ourselves and then recognize all right, where do I need the most supports? Sometimes we can do that, you know, within ourselves. Sometimes we need to do that with others. So there’s a big literature component to that course where we read Hatchet and Ella Enchanted and talk about their executive functioning skills. So really to build that language around it. So I have all those courses as well.
Dr. Amy Moore: 54:37
Well, Sarah Collins, we are so excited that you joined us again uh to share your wisdom and knowledge and experience with our listeners. So we just thank you for blessing us with your time today.
Sarah Collins: 54:51
I am really honored. This is super fun. So thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Amy Moore: 54:56
Um, so listeners, we will put links to Sarah’s podcast, Sarah’s website, Sarah’s courses, Sarah’s blog, Sarah’s social media in our show notes. And of course, we’ll uh put that in those social media posts that you see that we’ll be promoting as well. We hope you feel a little smarter after spending this hour with us. Okay, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. Wondering what’s next? Well, don’t forget to sign up for our free monthly newsletter at thebrainy moms.com. Be sure to follow us on social media at the Brainy Moms and subscribe to our YouTube channel at the Brainy Moms Podcast. And last, check out our sponsor at learningrx.com.