Manuscript, Italics, and Cursive?

[garyandmolly]

Does any one teach manuscript, Italics, and Cursive to their children? Or is it to Confusing? If you have what do you find works best to use for curriculum?

[HomeAgain]

I'm not sure I understand the question.

 

We teach D'nealian.  It is an italic script that easily joins together for cursive.  My goal was not to spend years reteaching a skill, so we skipped doing anything that resembled a ball and stick and concentrated only on strokes that would be enhanced later.

[Kiara.I]

I teach manuscript.  Later, we add cursive.  It hasn't confused them.

I know some people do cursive first, and then later manuscript.  I assume that also doesn't confuse them.

 

I wouldn't teach italic, because it's just slanted manuscript, and I don't really see the necessity to teach it separately.  I also wouldn't teach both cursive and manuscript at once.  I don't see any benefit to doing so, and there could be the drawback of it being just too much.  It makes more sense to me to get fluent with one, and then do the other separately.  That *might* be different if you were trying to do cursive first, as the writing would all be cursive but the reading would all be manuscript.

[MyLife]

I taught my oldest manuscript in K. Then, per his request, we started cursive this year in first grade. I have him practice his copy work in both manuscript and cursive.

[Hunter]

I think it is a bad idea to teach multiple ways to write with different slants. Slant is best kept to one slant.

 

Most manuscript is vertical. Most cursive is right slanted. But you can find slanted manuscript and vertical cursive.

 

After agonizing over all the pros and cons, for me and mine, I chose vertical manuscript and vertical cursive as our default. I use the instructions for both from Writing Road to Reading 6th edition. I use the manuscript uppercase for both manuscript and cursive, instead of teaching cursive uppercase. Modern English contains tons of acronyms and they look awful written in cursive uppercase.

 

It is clean working-class looking hand. It doesn't look like a prep-school or catholic school hand. I no longer feel a responsibility to try and help a student pose as something they are not. If they want to do that, they need to seek instruction elsewhere. I've gotten good at what I do. I have decided it is enough.

[HomeAgain]

 

It is clean working-class looking hand. It doesn't look like a prep-school or catholic school hand. I no longer feel a responsibility to try and help a student pose as something they are not. If they want to do that, they need to seek instruction elsewhere. I've gotten good at what I do. I have decided it is enough.

 

This is a bit offensive and loaded.

 

How I teach handwriting has no indication on whether I'm teaching my child to be a 'poser', and I'm sure many others on this page feel the same about their work.

 

Not all of us are so snobbish about looking at a child's hand and thinking we can discover their background.

[Hunter]

This is a bit offensive and loaded.

 

How I teach handwriting has no indication on whether I'm teaching my child to be a 'poser', and I'm sure many others on this page feel the same about their work.

 

Not all of us are so snobbish about looking at a child's hand and thinking we can discover their background.

You are taking my comment out of context, I'm assuming you have not read the bulk of my over 23,000 post. We have had a lot of handwriting thread over the years where I agonized over handwriting with tutoring students. Agonized. I had some leftie dyslexics that were begging me for handwriting that looked like that of the people from backgrounds other than their own. It took me awhile to get comfortable refusing to help them do that.

 

I'm not a miracle worker. I cannot rewire brains. I was just one tutor, that needed to triage, and pick one handwriting style to 100% master myself and teach to all students with a variety of LDs and gifts.

 

To this day, I still provide students with other hands to self-educate, when they ask for it. I know a lot about other hands. I have even provided another tutor, who herself has a more slanted traditional hand, with materials to improve her own handwriting, and ways to teach it explicitly.

 

I think you are making assumptions or misunderstanding or I don't know what. But I apologize anyway, just knowing that you are unhappy. It is never my intent to make anyone here unhappy.