cursive or manuscript

[grace'smom]

Please tell me if you taught your child manuscript or cursive first, and why, and what program you liked the most.

 

I'm about to beat my head into a wall trying to teach my daughter cursive first rather than manuscript. I've tried Cursive First and Peterson. I can no longer remember why I thought it was such a wonderful idea to teach cursive first.

 

I'm trying to decide whether we should go with another approach or just go with manuscript.

 

If I go with manuscript how do I keep her from writing her words with an inch between each letter, LOL?

[MyLittleWonders]

I have taught manuscript first and then cursive once they were confident with both upper and lower case letters and could write well on smaller lines (2nd grade lines). We have only used Handwriting Without Tears and LOVE it - both the manuscript and cursive books! My oldest is in 3rd grade working through the 5th grade cursive book (the 4th grade looked too repetitive from the 3rd grade book so I skipped it) and has really nice handwriting (I think the lack of "frills" on the letters allowed him to learn them quickly and easily, and he has put his own little flair on them as he has grown more confident in his writing).

[siloam]

Please tell me if you taught your child manuscript or cursive first' date=' and why, and what program you liked the most.

 

I'm about to beat my head into a wall trying to teach my daughter cursive first rather than manuscript. I've tried Cursive First and Peterson. I can no longer remember why I thought it was such a wonderful idea to teach cursive first.

 

I'm trying to decide whether we should go with another approach or just go with manuscript.

 

If I go with manuscript how do I keep her from writing her words with an inch between each letter, LOL?[/quote']

 

Bad day? (((Hugs)))

 

I use Handwriting Without Tears, because it has multi-sensory work and is very simple. None of my kids wanted to slant anyway. I have doubted and wondered if I shouldn't have taught cursive first. If I did I would use the Cursive First program, working a lot with sand and sand letter cards as well as air writing and working with playdoh. The reason why I doubt is because of reversals. I get tired of them.

 

In the end I don't think it is the end of the world to go either way. I had more problems changing programs when I tried italic once with my oldest than I did when we just stuck with things. It really does just take time sometimes.

 

Heather

 

[GESTEP]

We tried starting with Cursive using Abeka then Cursive First. My dd hated cursive. I am not sure why I went with it first either but I see no use in it and did not do it with my 2nd dd. Neither one really uses it but they will learn it in the next year or so just so they can read it. I know very few people who actually write in cursive and none below the age of 60. lol IMHO it is a dying form of writing for this generation.

[Crimson Wife]

My 7 y.o. has awful, awful, awful print penmanship but I just started teaching her cursive and it's going unbelievably well. She finds it much simpler because it's all one fluid motion rather than constantly having to pick up her pencil. Now I wish that I had done cursive first. I'm leaning towards doing that with my younger two.

[Mabelen]

My now 13 yo dd was taught cursive first in Montessori school. I was told her fine motor skills were a little under the norm for her age, so I worked with her at home and hand strenghtening and handwriting. Her cursive improved but never looked great. We then changed her to a traditional school for 1st grade and so that summer I worked with her on her manuscript... it looked very neat. So for us, manuscript first would have worked better.

 

My now 5 yo dd is learning manuscript first and so far so good, but then again, her fine motor skills are pretty good!

[Ellie]

I taught manuscript first, then cursive, because that's how I learned and I turned out ok. :-)

 

I used several different things...I don't remember what, but nothing from any major publishers, KWIM?

[chaik76]

I taught manuscript first. At eight, my son's manuscript still looks like a kindergartner's. Finally broke down and bought a cursive book and his writing is beautiful!!! He just gets it, for some reason. It's helping a lot with reversals, too (he has dyslexia).

[In the Rain]

I intended to teach my dd cursive first, using Cursive First. :D

 

She loved copying print from books though, and drove me crazy with her wacky attempts to copy letters. She would make things like capital H without lifting her pencil. I spent a lot of time trying to get her to form those letters correctly so that she wouldn't develop terrible habits.

 

I eventually gave up on the cursive since I was spending so much time correcting her manuscript. :tongue_smilie: The same thing happened with my 2nd dd.

[mommyrooch]

We tried starting with Cursive using Abeka then Cursive First. My dd hated cursive. I am not sure why I went with it first either but I see no use in it and did not do it with my 2nd dd. Neither one really uses it but they will learn it in the next year or so just so they can read it. I know very few people who actually write in cursive and none below the age of 60. lol IMHO it is a dying form of writing for this generation.

 

Wow, Really? :001_huh: It is interesting that you don't know many people who write in cursive. I sure hope it's not a dying form of writing.

 

I would say that my life has shown me the opposite. I don't know of anyone (adults) that use manuscript in everyday writing except to label something etc.

 

That would be a shame if cursive died out. It is a more fluid form of writing and it looks more elegant than plain ole print. :tongue_smilie:

[Aurelia]

We started with manuscript using HWT (K) and switched to Zaner-Bloser (1). Z-B is good about teaching the spacing and the child traces the letter, then copies the model, then moves on to model words, eventually writing their own. I told Ariel that all the letters in each word were friends and liked to be close to each other. It seems to have worked.

 

If it's really not working, I would try manuscript. I think some ways are easier for certain kids.

[fractalgal]

Please tell me if you taught your child manuscript or cursive first' date=' and why, and what program you liked the most.

 

[/quote']

 

I taught Cursive First with the Spell to Write and Read program. My son does well with it. I liked that he didn't have to pick up his pencil between letters within words. He learned the letters quickly.

 

The down side to learning cursive first is that when you go to other programs at the first/second grade level, most are done with manuscript. For example, I would write out the copywork section of WWE Level 1 for him in cursive (and then he would copy it in cursive), because that is what he understood the best. It ended up being more work for me, but I knew it was only temporary.

 

He is now in second grade and has learned manuscript so now he knows both. He is able to go back and forth between them well.

 

I think he prefers cursive, though - probably because he learned that first.

 

Good Luck :)

[Dinsfamily]

I decided to teach my ds (5) manuscript first to correct his CRAZY letter formation. He would copy the look of letters, but use about 2-5 strokes per letter to accomplish it. It was pretty easy to teach him correct formation. He didn't fight it at all because it was so much easier than his method, LOL. I don't think it was a mistake to teach him manuscript first. He prints quite well for a 5yo boy, especially considering he doesn't enjoy activities that use fine motor skills so we were starting from scratch at the beginning of the year. BTW, letter spacing is probably the biggest problem we have with manuscript. I often make him erase his letters and rewrite them closer together. It's a process and he's improving.

 

However, I now wish that I'd just skipped manuscript and taught him cursive, instead. I wonder if it would have corrected his manuscript writing, too. It seems to me that there are a lot of benefits to teaching cursive first or, at least, I keep reading about them. He keeps asking to learn cursive because he thinks it looks cool, but I don't want to switch 17 weeks into the year. I plan to start cursive with him over the summer.

 

I do plan to start my 3yo with Cursive First when he's 5, but I'm also going to teach him proper letter formation with a salt box before he goes to preschool so that he doesn't have the same problems my oldest did. That's my plan, anyway. I guess the real test will be what I end up using for my 3rd boy...:lol:.

[grace'smom]

I found that starfall has a nice italic type font that looks like a cross between manuscript and cursive. It's also free, which makes me feel less guilty about switching to manuscript after spending money on two different cursive programs!

 

My daughter was so happy to see that this morning! She really did not like learning cursive. Now we're both happy.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

Wow, Really? :001_huh: It is interesting that you don't know many people who write in cursive. I sure hope it's not a dying form of writing.

 

I would say that my life has shown me the opposite. I don't know of anyone (adults) that use manuscript in everyday writing except to label something etc.

 

That would be a shame if cursive died out. It is a more fluid form of writing and it looks more elegant than plain ole print. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

:iagree:

[lovinmykids]

My honest feeling about this is that a 5 year old needs to learn the sight of a letter first, then print what they see. I think that if you give them cursive writing first, it is way to confusing.

I feel that they should do manuscript K-2, so they can master it but also to work on neat writing. Then in 3rd, teach them cursive.

I did that, and cursive writing was so easy for her and she loves it! She could read sentences so quickly.

Just my feelings on it.

HTH, Kristin

Oh, I used Abeka for both kinds of writing.

[monalisa]

If you do some research, you'll find that manuscript came about with the LOOK SAY method of reading, along with the Dick & Jane readers (the theory was that kids needed to write the same way they read). Before that, everyone only learned cursive until high school (when printing was taught for technical drawing).

 

My daughter has really struggled with printing, even w/ HWT. Reversaks are a major issue for her. We're now going to cursive (New American Cursive).

 

I almost always write in cursive (and believe it or not, I am younger than 60!) because it is a lot easier. Contrary to what people try to say, you do not always have a keyboard to type on so I can't believe cursive will ever go away. Cursive is much more fluid for most people (my hand aches when I print a lot). I wish we had skipped manuscript with my daughter altogether.

[FO4UR]

Please tell me if you taught your child manuscript or cursive first' date=' and why, and what program you liked the most.

 

I'm about to beat my head into a wall trying to teach my daughter cursive first rather than manuscript. I've tried Cursive First and Peterson. I can no longer remember why I thought it was such a wonderful idea to teach cursive first.

 

I'm trying to decide whether we should go with another approach or just go with manuscript.

 

If I go with manuscript how do I keep her from writing her words with an inch between each letter, LOL?[/quote']

 

 

I taught cursive first to ds6 and am teaching cursive first to dd4 at the present.

 

My ds6 had fm delays so I really dug deep searching for handwriting info on the 'net when he was about 4yo. What I did was take the Cursive First method and used it with ALL gross motor activity for a very VERY long time. I taught, retaught, and retaught some more with ONLY *NON-pencil/paper* mediums. One day, he just started writing. He will be 7 in January and he writes well in both cursive and print now. It was like a very long push up a very steep hill and then he just took off from there.

 

If you dc is trying to print but butchering things...teach the correct way to print. If your dc is like my ds6 was (not even attempting to draw stick people yet, let alone letters) then I would highly recommend cursive first. One HUGE upside to cursive first is that print has been easily picked up w/o much instruction at all. By the time he's in 3rd grade (when lots of other kids are just beginning cursive) he'll have both methods of handwriting down pat.

 

btw - I am using talkingfingers Read Write Type to teach typing too. I think "the younger, the better" on training the muscle memory skills. It's my goal for these things to be 2nd nature before school kicks into high gear in other areas kwim.

 

Graph paper might be good for teaching spacing with manuscript, but honestly, I think cursive first is good for giving the dc a natural feel for spacing.

 

I think the biggest drawbacks to teaching cursive first are #1 the lack of workbooks using cursive (I wish I could find ETC Cursive edition;)) and #2 the expectation of others (Sunday School teachers, grandparents, etc,e tc) that a 5-6yo should be printing first.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

I found that starfall has a nice italic type font that looks like a cross between manuscript and cursive. It's also free' date=' which makes me feel less guilty about switching to manuscript after spending money on two different cursive programs!

 

My daughter was so happy to see that this morning! She really did not like learning cursive. Now we're both happy.[/quote']

 

I'm so glad you mentioned this as I had forgotten about Starfall's free print outs.

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

My honest feeling about this is that a 5 year old needs to learn the sight of a letter first, then print what they see. I think that if you give them cursive writing first, it is way to confusing.

 

 

 

This has not been my experience as even my 3yo can recognize letters in both forms having been simply exposed to both.

 

If you do some research, you'll find that manuscript came about with the LOOK SAY method of reading, along with the Dick & Jane readers (the theory was that kids needed to write the same way they read). Before that, everyone only learned cursive until high school (when printing was taught for technical drawing).

 

[robsiew]

Manuscript first here...then cursive. We've only used HWT and love it. My older 2 have had no trouble. My 3rd has a difficult time with fine motor and is in the K printing book and does okay. Much better I know than if he'd had to do a traditional program.

[FO4UR]

This has not been my experience as even my 3yo can recognize letters in both forms having been simply exposed to both.

 

:iagree:....and besides, bookface fonts differ from manuscript anyway.

 

For my ds6 who has visual discrimination issues, knowing the cursive b, d, p, and q is his main coping mechanism for percieving those letters in print. The cursive is actually a help, not a hindrance for his particular learning quirks. jme

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

Please tell me if you taught your child manuscript or cursive first' date=' and why, and what program you liked the most.

 

I'm about to beat my head into a wall trying to teach my daughter cursive first rather than manuscript. I've tried Cursive First and Peterson. I can no longer remember why I thought it was such a wonderful idea to teach cursive first.

 

I'm trying to decide whether we should go with another approach or just go with manuscript.

 

If I go with manuscript how do I keep her from writing her words with an inch between each letter, LOL?[/quote']

 

I went through the same thing with my dd. I was convinced that she should learn cursive first. We used sandpaper letters for quite a while and she did end up doing well with those. But we were never able to move beyond that. Meanwhile, she had taught herself to write all of the manuscript uppercase letters and some lowercase letters. This fall I decided to just go with that and we are doing HWT K. It is going very well and I'm happy that we changed. Even though dd tries to form manuscript letters, some of them were formed incorrectly. Now she is learning the correct way.

[Sahamamama]

I voted "manuscript first and it worked well for us," but this is with the caveat that my daughter has (so far) only learned manuscript. We have yet to make the transition to cursive (when she's, maybe, six or seven?), so we'll have to suspend our judgment on which method really works the best.

 

I do think, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, BUT if something IS "broken," then by all means, begin again in a different direction. Why not just scrap the CF stuff and go with something traditional, like Zaner-Bloser continuous stroke. It's what we're using and it does seem to be working.

 

The other factor in this equation might simply be whether or not your daughter is ready to write in ANY format -- when I tried to begin with my girl, she wasn't ready. So we waited on formal handwriting instruction, did Kumon tracing & mazes & lower case letter pages, played with play-dough, and practiced pencil skills & cutting skills. After about 3 months of this, I tried again, with better results. I still back away sometimes from demanding more writing from such a young one, because I think that there are more important things in life than knowing how to form all the letters (upper & lower) and numbers at the age of 5. Of course, if your student is older than this, or if you place a higher value on learning to write early on, then you will want to focus on handwriting instruction and practice. It may not be the method, just the timing. HTH.

[momtoboys]

manuscript first. It works--but he's really sloppy! LOL

[Sahamamama]

Martha Robinson: When should a child begin learning to write? How will a parent know that the child is ready? What might happen if the child is rushed into writing early?

 

Bruce Smith, Ph.D.: Because writing requires physical skills as well as intellectual ones, and because the physical skills tend to develop more slowly than the intellectual ones, we believe handwriting should wait until the physical skills needed are present in the child. Demonstrating physical skills by means of other activities such as coloring with colored pencils is a good way of determining readiness to begin handwriting instruction in young children. A child who cannot control a normal-sized pencil on standard notebook paper in such a way that marks stay within the lines is not ready to learn to print. Reading and spelling come first, followed in time by writing.

 

 

When a child is pushed into writing before the needed fine motor skills are present, he is presented with an impossible task which can only result in failure and frustration. No parent would think of making their child practice being three inches taller and they do not realize that practice won't result in correct letter formation unless the fine motor skills are in place. The use of huge pencils and large lines came about to accommodate the requirement that penmanship be taught in a particular grade, without regard for the fact that few, if any, of the pupils in those grades had the physical ability to print or write. When taught to write too early with improper materials, bad habits often develop which are difficult to shed later. Many children rebel against writing altogether.

 

http://www.homeschoolchristian.com/allabout/interviews/interviewsmith.php

[lovinmomma]

My honest feeling about this is that a 5 year old needs to learn the sight of a letter first, then print what they see. I think that if you give them cursive writing first, it is way to confusing.

I feel that they should do manuscript K-2, so they can master it but also to work on neat writing. Then in 3rd, teach them cursive.

I did that, and cursive writing was so easy for her and she loves it! She could read sentences so quickly.

Just my feelings on it.

HTH, Kristin

Oh, I used Abeka for both kinds of writing.

 

I have to respectfully disagree with this. I am no expert, but have you ever noticed how many different ways there are to write each letter of the alphabet? Yet, our children can still recognize that the "a" that they see in a book is still an "a" even though it isn't the way that they were taught to write it. Saying that they can't recognize both is like saying that children can't see 2 shades of blue and know that they are both blue. This is just my personal experience.

[sarahv]

Currently I am teaching cursive lower case letters, and both upper and lower case manuscript letters this year. Because I want to develop a sense of a slant to all writing, including manuscript, I am teaching manuscript on the whiteboard (or Getty Dubay book A), without lines, and cursive on paper with the lines (mostly just tracing for most of this year, though). Since he is a late bloomer in the fine motor skills department, I am doing both manuscript and cursive very gently as an introduction this year, and I plan to go with NAC next year. I will continue to review manuscript as needed, though, because I want him to be comfortable printing.

 

So far, it's been going very well. He's catching on very quickly, and I'm pleasantly surprised at the natural way he is taking to cursive. And this is from a kid who wouldn't color a picture to save his life. :lol: I'm using Abeka K5 Handwriting book for cursive, and some of the Book A of Getty Dubay for Manuscript.

 

So my vote is for none of the above. :D Actually, it's for both, taught simultaneously in K and 1st, maybe in 2nd too, if needed. :)

 

One thought in my mind, though, is that teaching cursive when learning to read, is that you have to teach the student how to read in two different "fonts" for lack of a better word. We'll see how this goes as copywork gets started for us come January...

[FO4UR]

Martha Robinson: When should a child begin learning to write? How will a parent know that the child is ready? What might happen if the child is rushed into writing early?

 

 

Bruce Smith, Ph.D.: Because writing requires physical skills as well as intellectual ones, and because the physical skills tend to develop more slowly than the intellectual ones, we believe handwriting should wait until the physical skills needed are present in the child. Demonstrating physical skills by means of other activities such as coloring with colored pencils is a good way of determining readiness to begin handwriting instruction in young children. A child who cannot control a normal-sized pencil on standard notebook paper in such a way that marks stay within the lines is not ready to learn to print. Reading and spelling come first, followed in time by writing.

 

 

When a child is pushed into writing before the needed fine motor skills are present, he is presented with an impossible task which can only result in failure and frustration. No parent would think of making their child practice being three inches taller and they do not realize that practice won't result in correct letter formation unless the fine motor skills are in place. The use of huge pencils and large lines came about to accommodate the requirement that penmanship be taught in a particular grade, without regard for the fact that few, if any, of the pupils in those grades had the physical ability to print or write. When taught to write too early with improper materials, bad habits often develop which are difficult to shed later. Many children rebel against writing altogether.

 

http://www.homeschoolchristian.com/allabout/interviews/interviewsmith.php

 

 

I agree and disagree.

 

If a parent expects to teach letter formation with fine motor skills to a young child, then I agree with the article. However, I think if a parent waits too long to teach how to form letters, then the child will form bad habits and miss a window of opportunity. If a parent teaches letter formation through gross motor play (finger paints, play doh, chalk, finger tracing sandpaper letters, etc,etc) then the child will spontaneously begin forming letters on paper when those finger muscles catch up with the brain. This worked with my ds6 who at 4yo was sent to an OT for fm delays, and it is working with my dd4 who compulsively writes all over everything (and I know it's her b/c it's 1000000000 copies of the same letter we worked on last week:lol:).

 

We aren't teaching a classroom full of little ones - teach, but don't push kwim.