Myrtle
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Posts posted by Myrtle
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I visit other sites that have an emphasis on content, such as Latin/Classics, philosophy, and math. On those sites they will be talking about the latest book to come out or some other contemporary issue with thoughts about how it relates to their field, but they aren't "homeschooling" based.
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The TM isn't conveniently divided into 180 "here's what you do today" lesson plans.
Does anyone have that?
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move through each lesson? I'm looking at the 1A workbook and text and seeing how Singapore teaches the number bonds. Making 6, making 7, making 8, etc. instead of doing it the way MUS does it...doing +1, +2, +9, etc. Does that make sense? So, my question it this: Do you stay on a certain "topic" until mastery is acheived, like w/ MUS? Or, do you just keep doing a workbook page each day and blow through it? There isn't much review built-in so I would imagine you'd need mastery before moving on? I sure hope I've chosen the right program for my ds7 b/c I'm not a big fan of math programs that don't have built it review (spiral approach). Even MUS has review w/ each lesson. Hmmm...so any help you can offer me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Yes, I stay on a topic until it is achieved.
Singapore 1A took a long time. In fact, with my daughter, it took a year for her to learn her number facts/bonds within ten.
My sons went through that section a lot quicker.
The idea with Singapore is not to "train" kids to respond automatically with answers, but to get them to think through the problem. You learn it the long way, and once the long way is learned, then the kid can do it the short way and automate it.
The good news is that there aren't 180 lessons per year. I think the most any year has is about 140 and the fewest is 90. Now that my daughter learned those number bonds she's going through lessons two per day...she's still on time, Singapore 1 is scheduled for the year in which the child turns seven.
One way to review is to keep a notebook of problems your child had difficulty with and pick out a few every day to review before their daily lesson. I write it out on a sheet of looseleaf paper. Another idea is to assign review problems as work that can be done on their own time at the end of the day.
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I think the key is passion rather than "fun."
When a teacher is truly in love with their field it's hard for that not to be contageous.
Very young children perhaps need more "fun" activities, coloring, games, but in the long run if students are required to be immediately entertained by gimmicks on a regular basis then they aren't going to make it as far as those who can grind through the hard work because the reward for sticking to unfun work is more knowledge in fascinating field.
All too often I hear people say that their kids "love subject x'. But the kids don't really love subject X. They wouldn't touch subject x with a ten foot pole when they are left to choose a free time activity. What the kids love are the games associated with subject X. The teachers want the kids to love subject X but the teachers don't even love it enough to do it on their own time for fun either.
Get passion!:drool5:
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My dd is having a tough time understanding long division. I've used multiple programs and all of my own abilities to try to demystify it. But, to no real lasting success.
I have used the "Key To" series for my older child and would love to find something similar for long division.
Any ideas?
Our program has a "pre" long division steps that might aid in the understanding of long division. This was the hardest thing for my kids to get in the entire arithmetic program, and my older son has never encountered anything as difficult as long division and he's in algebra now. So this is tough but after this it's all down hill. :-)
Before introducing long division it teaches the divison of multiples of ten. So an exercise might consist of a collection of problems that look something like this.
6 ÷ 2
60 ÷ 2
600 ÷ 2
9 ÷ 3
90 ÷ 3
900 ÷ 3
That exercise actually is preceded, I think, by working those problems using manipulatives such as base ten blocks.
Then problems like these,
56 ÷ 8
560 ÷ 8
5600 ÷ 8
49 ÷ 7
490 ÷ 7
4900 ÷ 7
Next step, the get mixed up:
2500 ÷ 5
25 ÷ 5
250 ÷ 5
Next step, redo the above problems using the long division bar so that it won't be something new later.
Now, you will give her problems such as 31 ÷ 5 written in long division, that will result in a single digit answer with a remainder. Have her subtract to show the remainder.
After you've done some of those you are ready (hopefully, but I'm seeing some learning steps that are being left out) for long division with place holders.
I had to narrate like a sports commentator what to do and when to do it for many problems until the kid got it. He just wrote the steps out like a secretary. Be patient, this step alone may take days and it was useful for my son to have substeps written out as a reminder in abreviated form 1) divide 2)write the digit on top 3)multiply 4) subtract
Now when she can do that with the zeros, show her how she can leave the zeros off as a short cut.
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I'm making plans for the fall and wondered how necessary - or how much success - you've had with spelling programs. We've been using SW, as recommended by WTM. I really don't see too much value in it. The words chosen for each lesson seem so random and I'm not sure how much retention takes place. It seems like busy work to me... Am I missing something? Does anyone not do formal spelling - maybe concentrating more on frequently misspelled words?
Thanks!
There are other ways to do spelling rather than lists of random words.
Sequential Spelling groups words according to what amounts to phonics families.
I've seen old spellers from the early 1900s group words according to the frequency in which children use the word in writing. Here is one which has all the spelling lists for 2nd - 8th grade including the dictation sentences you should use. Essentials of Spelling
With my son last year we made up a list of spelling words based on the science unit he was reading.
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what would your child need to have covered first?
I don't think the problem with switching into NEM is going to be with lack of knowledge of operations on integers, fractions, and decimals, but I think what will be difficult would be the lack of familiarity with how to go about solving hairy word problems.
If my neighbor came to me and said, "Tutor my kid she's ready for algebra" I'd give them Sing placment test first. Then I'd start them in Challenging Word Problems for whatever level they tested into.
A van and a car both travelled a distance of 190 km from Rose Town to Orchid Town. The car left Rose Town 50 minutes after the van, but it arrived at Orchid Town 20 minutes ealier than the van. If the average speed of the van was 60 km/h, find the speed of the car.That's from the sixth grade.
NEM assumes that the student is already capable of handling word problems with that level of complexity and will build on that--it's only going to get harder.
Technically, the student will learn order of operations, negative numbers, and division of fractions and decimals in NEM I before begining the chapter on algebra.
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I'm hoping that the algebra review at the end of each chapter in Jacob's Geometry will be enough. I almost want to do Alg II concurrently, though. Has anyone ever done that?
We've thought about it.
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My sister went to India last year to teach at an American school. I was shocked when I picked her up at the airport last week. She has lost so much weight and looks fantastic. She probably has dropped 3 dress sizes in 9 months.
She said since the meat is not very good where she lives, she has been eating a lot of vegetables, yogurt and whole grains.
Forget South Beach and Weight Watchers. All I have to do to lose my extra 10 pounds is move to India for a year!!
I bet it's real yogurt too. It sounds wonderful.
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I am under the opinion that the MUS curr is a good route to go. I think you are safe Jo especially if your dc are doing it and enjoying it. This is where I am for dd but ds is another story altogether.
The concept based curr gives kids creative ways to look at numbers to come up with the same answer at the end. Thus the 5x88 is the same as half of 10x88. Which one is easier to get the answer to? .... depends how you learned to think about numbers. The "new math" teaches short cut and the old math teaches crunching numbers.
Myrtle, you astound me. I have an intellectual father and husband and have listen to alot of technical talk over my life but you truely take the first place prize. Thank-you for answering my question. Now excuse me for leaving the room to look up the definitions :leaving:.:thumbup1:
I agree multiplication is not really fast addition although I had not thought about it untill you posted the link. The example 1/2 times 1/2 creates your first realization. I will keep teaching the MUS curr to dd as she is finally getting it. But now I will look at how to segue into multiplying fractions, which is something that was off my radar. You said that you taught the fast addition ideas but then you must make a change for fractions and decimals. How do you do that?
(Trina - who is bracing herself to look up defintions of math terms. :tongue_smilie:)
It is repeated addition and we can prove it with the distributive law.
3 x 5 = 3 x (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3
If your book uses manipulatives your child will get a "sense" of this when she is taught to determine the quanty of objects in an array of objects by adding the rows together using step counting.
I mindlessly followed Singapore on multiplication of fractions last time and got great results by turning that crank. :001_smile: This next time with the next child I'm going to spend more time on formal notation that uses the distributive law--it's not in the book, I'm just going to do it and I think I'll get better results in algebra.
For a physical manipulative with my first son, and this isn't in Singapore I don't think, I used paper folding to illustrate how fractions are multiplied. I can explain this here but it's really easier to see it.
3/7 x 1/6 for example.
The paper is folded in sevenths in one direction and three sections are colored. It's folded in sixths in the other direction and one section is colored. The overlapping area of color of the two colored sections is the answer.
3/7 x 1/6 = ( 1/7 + 1/7 + 1/7) x 1/6 = 1/42 + 1/42 + 1/42
See the repeated addition?
The phenomenal mistake that Devlin makes is thinking that because it's not immediately obvious the product of two transcendental numbers such as pi and e can be based on repeated addition that multiplication is not repeated addition. Some mightier greatier mathematicians in history would disagree and one can simply open their books and point out their proofs. I'd bet his email inbox is just full right now on this one too, he he.
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is that in my next life' date=' I want to have Myrtle's brain.
In homeschooling my dc using Singapore Math. I have come to love (and understand) math at a level I never achieved during my ps experience. I collect math books, work through them, take notes, read blogs, articles and commentary on mathematics.....
When I see Myrtle posting, I just wish there was an smiley for...
"I am not worthy..." (Smiley bowing down to Supreme Math Mind)!!
Keep posting Myrtle. We learn so much from you. Is there a smiley for "hurting head?"
K[/quote']
This whole Devlin thing is all very problematic. I just made this post elsewhere...
I am going to pick up my son from the airport today but in the meantime, I'm glued to my computer because someone on the internet is wrong.
If anyone is up for a math debate it starts with
Mathematician asserting teachers teach arithmetic wrong in his article
http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_06_08.html
Teacher thinks he makes a convincing argument but can't figure out where to go from there because he's not telling her how to correct the mistake (No doubt about it, Devlin is playing gotcha)
Here:
http://letsplaymath.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/if-it-aint-repeated-addition/
Half way through the 100 exchanges posted in the comment section of Denise's blog Devlin puts up his response here:
http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_0708_08.html
And someone who sounds like a mathematician or at least knows bunches of math called Joe Neiderberger says, "Yeah, but he's still wrong"
Which prompts JD at Text Savvy to do a blog entry on Joe
http://www.textsavvyblog.net/2008/07/devlins-right-angle-part-iv.html
And he says, "But if the only way Joe can use that definition is to rewrite multiplication expressions as repeated-addition expressions, then it's not very useful in our present discussion. "
And now I need to come back and say, NO FOOL, that isn't "just" a definition, it's derived, look on page 14 of Edmund Landau's Foundation of Analysis. Devlin is wrong when he says it can't be derived, Joe is wrong for presenting it like a definition, and you are wrong for complicitly accepting that. But, I like JD. He posts to my blog from time to time even though he did remove the link to my blog from his blog and I'm sore over that( and need some sort of validation) And besides, JD, who has a good math blog that no one appreciates, took down the ability to comment on his blog which means I would have to post it to my blog.
I don't think you want Myrtle's brain, more often than not I am slow, simple and need intellectual supervision.
But just in case someone told you that you don't "need" all that axiomatic stuff to do math: You may not need it to do engineering, but you do need to win internet debates.
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I'd like to know what multiplication is if not "fast addition"...
Here is his follow up to that article, you have to get about half way through before he tells you what math itself is. What we are looking for begins in the section titled The need for the concrete: "Part of the problem, I suspect, is that many people feel a need to make things concrete. But mathematics is abstract. That is where it gets its strength. Multiplication simply IS NOT a generalized addition, and exponentiation IS NOT a generalized multiplication. Just as you can't really say what the number 7 IS in concrete terms - it's a pure abstraction - so too you can't say what addition and multiplication and exponentiation ARE. They are BASIC, not derived. A significant part of mastering mathematics is coming to terms with that."
When I hear mathematicians say these things it always sounds like Indian mysticism to me. I think he may be wrong that multiplication can not be derived. Edmund Landau did it in 1929 in a book called "Foundations of Analysis." It's on page 14 and he surely does prove that for the natural numbers xy' = xy + y, where y' is the successor of y.
Looks like repeated addition to me.
Follow up article: It's Still Not Repeated Addition
I'm going to start another thread on the high school board on a related issue and see if Jane in NC can respond. Devlin is attacking the status quo for their asserting the principle of harmless fallacy but I think I've spotted him asserting the same...but let me ask.
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Has anyone read this article?
We will be using the MUS Delta this year with regular long division from what I can tell. Anyone out there have a reason to believe that the concept based curricula is a better route? I know this math is not "new" but it seems to be confusing to some parents. I have not seen it myself but was curious.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/18/renegade.math.parents.ap/index.html
I clicked on your title because it said "New Math" and we actually use 1960s New Math! But the math as it is taught in the schools is not "New Math" I'm sure there are some sorts of labels for it, I don't know what they are.
Some, but not all, of the curricula out there do not teach standard algorithms. The belief is that having kids "think" their way through problems rather than teaching them standard algorithm will teach them mathematical thinking. But the problem is that while mathematicians do "think their way" through problems for which there are no standard approaches, they use very specific techniques to do this. This was actually taught in the 1960s and I blog about it trying to snare the unsuspecting into my TomLeherian trap.
But seriously, what our family does that is different is that we teach the kids to "think through" standard arithemetic problems but they use specific properties of numbers to do this. After they have done this the hard way we teach them the easy way, they get the algorithm. Life isn't all about pure math, sometimes you just have to figure out the quantity to put in a recipe and you don't have all day and you really don't care about the mysteries of math when you are doing it.
When we teach "concepts" we mean something a mathematician would recognize as the real reason a mathematical assertion is true. For example, the real "concept" behind multiplciation of fractions is NOT something that is demonstrated with a physical manipulative but involves a logical argument based on axioms. The concept behind multiplication of fraction would involve a proof that the multiplicative inverse is unique, for example. That is what a mathematician means when he says "the concept." What school teachers mean when they say "the concept" is not clear, since it is not in fact "the concept."
The disagreement that mathematicians have with school teachers ideas of "the concept" is exemplified in this article called "It Ain't No Repeated Addition"
On the other hand, not to give the impression that I think that all this "conceptualizing" is for the birds, having some degree of discovery and manipulatives seems to help out a lot of kids. The dispute is how much and how the kids get weaned off the physical objects and into the abstraction of math.
PS And we do teach our kids that multiplication is repeated addition when they are working with the integers--makes it easy for them to come up with on their own if they forget and also there is a neat way to introduce the distributive property of numbers when you do that.
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I need to get a book for my preschooler. She's bright, and has learned a lot already just watching the other two. So I was thinking of getting her a K book and just taking it at her pace. But there are so many! How do you know what to get? Earlybird, Essential Math or Power Math. They all look good. and not much different from each other. I've heard the most about Earlybird, so I assume that's what most use. How do you decide?
I donl't think any of these are necessary. Much of what is taught in Early Bird, the workbook I am familiar with, is taught in P1.
Having taught Singapore P1 three times, I would say that the most useful thing your child can bring into Singapore, is knowing addition and subtraction fact within 10--and they don't even need to have those down at that.
I don't think you can go wrong picking any K curriculum. Choose the one that has the activities you think that your child would enjoy the most. I can't compare Early Bird to the others but it had some activities in basic language skills that one of my kids really did benefit from due to a receptive language delay that he has. My other two just enjoyed coloring them and doing the activities.
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We've used Singapore for 3 years but I wasn't aware there were game cd's! Can you link me to these? I'd really be interested. Thanks!
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what would you do in addition to a curriculum?
I need to spend the next year focusing on math with ds who will be in 3rd grade. Whatever curriculum I choose, it is only natural that he will only be able to work on it for a limited amount of time. (Where my 8th grader could spend 2 hours on math-obviously age (and gender) limits ds's attention span.)
But ds is so far behind in math, (couldn't pass Singapore's Math's 1A placement exam) I have to find some alternatives that he won't hate! Yes, attitude can be a problem.
Any suggestions would be totally appreciated.
Holly
The Singapore CDs with games are very good. They have self-teaching modules, covert teaching, for many of the topics along with games that reinforce the particular topic. All three of many children have learned math from them to the extent that I didn't have to teach whatever topic they did on their own. My 8 yo learned fractions on his own, for example.
My oldest son has never liked math and dressing it up in a game would not fool him one bit, but the Singapore CDs did keep his attention.
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Something is not right with this story.
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I do feel for this mother but she is going a bit too far with the dragging bit. I would focus more on the voting.
Holly
I'd bet if the school district will offer an alternative placment for the child, maybe offer to pick up his tuition at a private school and the mom would settle for that. No doubt any lawsuit is going to mention more than just the dragging incident.
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I did not see his feet as "dragging". Personally I think the way parents are today when their child misbaves and refuses to do something the parent should be called to fix the situation and bring their child chld to class this would end the stupid lawsuits fast.
I don't know about that.
Most of the people on our board are probably involved middle class parents, but I've made phone calls to parents who really did not care. I had a principal that made phone calls to parents in the middle of a "crisis" with a kid and the parent would basically blow it off, the principal would tell them to come down to the school to deal with a situation and they just didn't think it was necessary. "Just tell Johnny he's in trouble when he gets home." or "What did you do to my child to make him act like that?"
In one situation one of my students, after having a huge altercation in class, physically assulated the principal in the hallway. The student was drunk and it was eight oclock in the morning, the police were called and the student was arrested. The parent, the same parent who on previous occassions had suggested inappropriate remedies, then filed a lawsuit saying that the principal should have called her first! While this was in high school, I am skeptical that these all these little darlings had responsible parents back in elementary school.:tongue_smilie:
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The child was sitting on the sidewalk refusing to go to his class. They couldn't just leave him there.
When you hear about teachers calling the police to arrest a very young student. Think back on this lawsuit. They can't leave kids to sit on sidewalks, have tantrums on tables, etc. If we don't let them touch our kids their only other option is to call the cops or allow the kids to persist in disorderly conduct.
I would ask myself if a reasonable parent would handle the situation in the same way. If the child is special ed or has emotional disturbances, would he be treated much differently by an orderly in a residential treatment program?
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I taught Spanish and to be honest I didn't learn a single useful thing in any education course I ever took.
The thing that helped me the most was knowing my own subject matter. When the class was having difficulty I didn't resort to theories in psychology, I used my knowledge about the rules of Spanish to figure out what they needed more practice on.
What helped me to learn behavior management was a wonderful mentor teacher who was there on the spot to give me very practical and specific advice. The education classes that give advice are about some idealized alien children that live on other planets and were certainly not in my classroom.
That is not to say that I am not interested in educational philosophy. I am. However in my education courses they only ever gave us progressivist philosophers and after I began homeschooling I cam across Diane Ravitch who told the other side of the story in her book "A Century of Failed School Reforms." I used the bibliography in her book to look up the people with ideas that I never learned about.
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Any suggestion for a good simple art project or craft book? My boys are 6 & 8. I'm just looking for an easy, fun, somewhat mindless book. I want to enjoy the time with my boys and not stress over something not turning out the way it was supposed to. Any good finds out there???
Thanks,
Emily
May I suggest Origami?
No glue or scissors.
The very first Origami that I did with my kids was from this page,
http://www.tammyyee.com/origami.html
You just print it out on you printer and fold. Some of the designs are more complicated than others the dog was the easiest and I first folded one to show them and then I folded another one along with them while they did it with me. (We, ahem, did actually glue or origami animals to popccle sticks to turn them into stick puppets) We worked our way out from that one. Sometimes the kids get ahead of themselves and make a mistake, but that is okay, it's easy enough to just print out another pattern and start over.
http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42341&highlight=origami
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This is xpost from earlier on the four year math requirements. We just found out the same. If I would have known, I would have done Fundamental Math, Pre Alg., Alg, and Geo.
But adviser told me to skip pre alg and there is no way dd can do Alg II. She is squeaking by algebra 1, we go at it everyday.
Here is question, do you think I could take two steps back and give her Pre Algebra for her eleventh grade yr, since we missed it. Or is that big no no.
Any ideas,
Jet
Hi Jet,
I would hop over to the Saxon math website and have my child take a placement test. If she places into prealgebra that means that she does not have the skills it takes to be successful in algebra. It doesn't do any good to start algebra I if your child hasn't mastered adding, subtracting and dividing fractions.
If she misses questions on graphing or percentages I wouldn't worry so much because algebra will teacher her graphing, and you will have to stop and review percentages if you do MIXING word problems.
Depending on the algebra program that you use they may teach negative numbers from the ground up, Jacob's does, and so you might not need negative numbers from pre algebra either, but you really need to get those fractions down cold!
One idea is to fast track this with "KEYS TO" algebra, pick up percentages also if she is weak in that area. No messing around with these, no slow pacing, work on weekends, do two or three lessons a day.
Also, your daughter is old enough to be motivated o do the extra work that it takes to get into college. Due to a lousy math background (I changed schools 10 times in 12 years) I ended up going to the public library and on my own and studied algebra every weekend so that I could do better on the ACT. Getting into college was important to me and I made doing what it takes priority. This was not my parents pushing me to study extra, I just was I wouldn't do well.
The good news is that once self-motivated she can do this work in double time. Some 16 year olds take algebra in community college and that can amount to high school algebra I and II in four months--so I know that a high school student could do it in one academic year.
I would use a mastery program such as Foersters so that I could do every other problem, or every third problem if I was catching on.
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We are doing 5A now (and have used Singapore since the beginning). We are also doing Chalkdust Basic Math. Since we plan to use Chalkdust pre-algebra next year, I'm wondering if continuing with Singapore (6A/6B) would be necessary or redundant. We will be using Chalkdust through high school (not NEM).
Thanks,
Lisa
I guess I would look at it like this: If by doing Chalkdust basic math your child is able to solve Singapore word problems at the same grade level then Singapore 6 would be redundant. If not aren't able to solve these kinds of problems then they would be getting something out of Singapore.
Someone hold my hand through this- I'm lost. (cursive writing)
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
The role of script has changed over the past 200 years.
I believe that some 300-400 years ago, and I wish I could find this awesome article for you, that style of script that was used by an individual indicated their social status as well as profession. If you had a particular job, say carpenter there was a particular style of script that you were taught to use and you used that one. In fact, there were laws against using the wrong script, it was like a version of identity theft.
If you go to google books and look at old school books that teach pensmanship you will see a gradual evolution from flourishy script to more mundane script.
By the time you get to 80s and 90s script has become so plain that it some cases it amounts to barely more than print with connectors. I would say that Handwriting Without Tears falls into that category. There are other scripts that are much more beautiful.
What makes HWT so popular to use with a child is that it was invented by an occupational therapist and is structured to make penmanship easier for kids that have problems with such things.
Is penmanship an essential part of a classical education? I don't think so because it does't have the "formative" quality to it in the way that theology, logic, liberal arts studies do.
What is important to me is that my children write neatly and legibly. If we want to upgrade later to calligraphy because we enjoy its aesthetic value (it's no longer a class indicator) then that can be pursued as a separate interest.