Why Writing Falls Apart for Students with ADHD

Frustration, Referrals, and Misguided Solutions

You start questioning everything, your methods, your role, even the student’s motivation.
But here’s the truth:

The problem isn’t really handwriting.
It’s not even motor skills. For students with ADHD, writing struggles often stem from executive function, the brain’s ability to coordinate the many moving parts of writing simultaneously. And unless we scaffold that process directly, no amount of repetition or motor drills will change what happens in the classroom.

But that’s a hard sell when someone hands you a sample that looks like this….

So What Do We Do?

What’s Really Going Wrong? The Executive Function Load

Writing isn’t just one skill, it’s dozens happening at once.

In the early grades, executive function supports the process of learning to write. Students are using mental energy to form letters, recall spelling, space their words, and get ideas on the page. When transcription( writing and spelling) becomes automatic, the brain can use those executive processes for organizing thoughts and structuring paragraphs.

But if handwriting never becomes automatic?
Executive resources stay stuck on the basics.
And that means students never get to the part where they actually learn from writing.

This isn’t a motivation issue. It’s a mismatch between the task demands and the student’s cognitive availability.

Unless we reduce the executive load of early writing, students with ADHD will keep falling apart, right at the starting line.

Executive Function Breakdowns in Early Writing

Here’s how it shows up in the real world:

• Working Memory
  • “He forgets what he was writing mid-word.”
  • These students are juggling too much, letter shapes, letter sounds, word forms, and their actual ideas, all at once. Working memory overload leads to shutdown.

• Planning and Organization
  • “It’s all over the page.”
  • Even with handwriting practice, young learners with ADHD may not know where to begin, how to plan spacing, or how to organize their letters into words, let alone thoughts into sentences.

• Cognitive Flexibility
  • “She keeps doing it the same way, even when it doesn’t work.”
  • Rigid thinking keeps them stuck on inefficient letter forms, refusing visual supports or alternate strategies, even when they’re struggling. Ever have a K student tell you ” that is not how I make my ” a”?

• Inhibitory Control
  • “He rushes through everything.”
  • Impulsivity leads to skipping lines, ignoring margins, and missing steps, all without pausing to self-monitor.

• Emotional Regulation
  • “She cries after two lines.”
  • Handwriting that looks “easy” to adults often feels impossible to students with ADHD. The overwhelm leads to meltdowns and avoidance. Gentle corrections can feel like harsh criticism.

What looks like “laziness” or “avoidance” is usually just overload, cognitive, emotional, and even physical.

Why Most Interventions Miss the Mark

We’ve been taught to treat the product, not the process.

We focus on what’s on the page instead of how it got there.
But when executive function is the true barrier, that approach fails our students.

The interventions that work are process-based.
They:

• Reduce cognitive load
• Build access
• Automate transcription
• Support persistence

And most importantly, they help students stay in the task without burning out.

This Summer, Let’s Do Better

If you’re tired of watching writing fall apart and being expected to fix it with tools that ignore the real problem, you’re not alone. That’s why I created Not Just Handwriting.
It’s not a handwriting program.
It’s not a curriculum.

It’s a method for scaffolding executive function directly into early writing tasks, no matter what materials or program you’re already using.

Because the issue isn’t handwriting.
It’s access.

Start With This Free Tool

Want to Go Deeper