Handwriting

[violin69]

How do you handle different handwriting systems? Which one do you use and why? Dc are learning Slovak cursive which has some letters that differ from US handwriting. They don't cross their t's or connect their p's. Dd goes back and forth easily but I'm not sure how to handle handwriting next year for ds. Any advice?

Edited March 6, 2009 by violin69

[momof165]

Hi Violin69,

 

I wouldn't worry too much about handwriting. Your kids will change their handwriting style down the road anyway. I don't know of anyone who still writes the way they were taught in elementary school.

 

We are living in the States (dh is from the Ukraine, I'm from Germany) - both of us are NOT familiar with the American cursive writing style. Hence, I am teaching my son the European writing style that differs somewhat from American Cursive. However, I don't think my son will run into any problems down the road. I'll teach him to read and recognize cursive in both writing styles, but will stick to what I know. Otherwise, I HAVE TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL learning American Cursive, Italic, Contemporary, etc. :tongue_smilie: I'm too old for that.

 

Hope this helps. Just my 2 cents.

 

Sonja

_______________________________________

Homeschooling JUST ONE - ds 9

[violin69]

Thanks, this is just the advice I needed. Dd is doing well with understanding the differences. Ds not so much.

 

BTW, I really like how cursive here is taught as an art. Dd's penmenship is so beautiful. Both dc are so proud of graduating to a fountain pen. Dd is now required to do all her school work with it. Ds just received his.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

I don't bother either. My son started with the French very flowery handcursive, and since he lacks fine motor skills it was a disaster. When we quit the long distance school, I switched him to Zaner Bloser, it didn't really help, but the crying stopped. Now he's back with the French school, they don't comment on his nonFrench handwriting. They do comment on his lack of legibility though.

 

He can read the American and the French handwriting. But he will mostly type anyway.

[Friederike in Persia]

:iagree: with the other two.

 

In a few books about bilingual children I had read to space out learning to read and write a language by a year. So I started mine with English and then added German a year later. Germans write slightly different to what they had learned in their first year, but the differences were small enough to not bother with. They have since attended German school and nobody complained.

A year after that they started Tajik school, where they learned the cyrilic script. The next year they got Russian as a subject in school, with a few letters differerent to how the cyrilic alphabet is used here.

Both dds have coped fine and are hardly every confusing any letters.

The oldest got Farsi as a subject this year (very closely related to Tajik), with the Arabic script and is adding that on all right too.

 

So go and throw various alphabets at your dc, I'm sure they'll cope fine ;)

[jellogirl]

I would suggest picking whatever script you like and is readily available. Then you can teach the letters that vary, for example, in Norwegian we use the letters æ, ø, and å, which are not taught by American materials!

[violin69]

I would suggest picking whatever script you like and is readily available. Then you can teach the letters that vary, for example, in Norwegian we use the letters æ, ø, and å, which are not taught by American materials!

 

Sounds good. I think that' I'm going to just add crossing t's and closing p's to the Slovak script and leave the rest as is. Thanks everyone for the insight.