Is This Fifth Grade Handwriting?

So, recently, I posted a diatribe about handwriting.  This is a picture of one student's paper: 

So, the question is, has students' handwriting gotten much worse lately, or is this normal for a 5th grade boy.  This was not the only paper that was written this (il)legibly. 

Handwriting

I was watching a group of 5th and 6th graders work on a writing piece the other day.  They had to use pencils and paper (not computers) for this assignment and I noticed, once again, that many of them hold the pencil strangely.  Many of them also have only marginally legible handwriting.  The two don't always correspond to each other, but I am wondering now, if part of the problem with kids and writing is simply that it is uncomfortable for them to write.

Background:  years ago, when I had a full time position, part of which involved teaching 6th and 7th grade social studies classes, I was frustrated that it was so difficult to get the students to write their answers to "short answer" questions in complete sentences.  [not to mention the fact that most of them thought that "Because blah blah blah." would be a complete sentence].  At any rate, it was even worse to try to get them to write a paragraph.  Usually the paragraphs were one sentence long (or one fragment long).  "Essays" might be as long as 3 sentences, but that was pushing it. 

At the time, I didn't think to look at pencil grips, but now I am wondering how much that might contribute to the overall problem with written work.  The 5th grader I was watching the other day had a grip that resulted in his first two fingers hooking around the pencil, counter-balanced with the thumb, and pointing the pencil directly away from him.  And his handwriting was very close to being completely illegible. 

I am not a stickler for beautiful handwriting, although I am always glad to see it.  But we need to make sure that writing isn't actually painful for the students - and it needs to happen well before 5th grade.

Handwriting

OK, I get it that teachers are no longer teaching cursive.  That curriculum has been pushed out with the emphasis on the language arts block and the math block, leaving little time for cursive writing.  It is even a struggle to include social studies and science.  But this rant is aimed at teaching PRINTING.  I have subbed for 3rd through 6th graders recently.  In each of these classes, the MAJORITY of the students didn't even print correctly on their papers.  There was a mixture of capital and small letters, with B's and P's being the biggest culprits, but many other letters capitalized at random.  One student even wrote half of her B's correctly, but the other half incorrectly.  When I asked her why she didn't write them correctly, she said she didn't think it was important.

Another boy, who did the same thing said that he usually types things on the computer.  Ah, ha!  A clue.  Has auto-correct gotten to be so good that students don't even notice when they are typing the wrong thing?  Of course, on the computer, it is easier not to type capital letters at all.  MS Word will even correct sentences to automatically capitalize the first word.  Some students don't even seem to know that the word "I" is always capitalized.  And, they seem unconcerned by all of their errors.

The assignment for the 5th graders was to write up a science experiment.  Specifically, they were to write a conclusion, with three requirements:  1) they had to restate their hypothesis, 2) they had to include their data, and 3) they had to use complete sentences.  They could also state whether their hypothesis was supported or not and whether their experiment seemed to be reliable.  Only about 5 of the students managed to write a conclusion what was acceptable their first time around.  Many of the write-ups were almost illegible.  To be fair, it would have helped if the worksheet had included lines on which to write the conclusion, and it is the beginning of the school year.  Still, I felt justified, even as a sub, in sending them back to improve their written conclusions.

There are still times when students will need to use printing, as far as I can tell.  I think teachers should hold students to printing the letters with correct capitalization - and spacing, which was another problem I haven't even touched on.  One word would run right into another word and it was hard to decipher which word was which, because, frequently, both were misspelled.  Even the word "hypothesis" was usually misspelled - and it was there for them to simply copy.