cursive, is it that important?

[hsmom]

My son's handwriting can be horrible at times. His cursive is okay, and doesn't seem to get much better either. Also his handwriting over all is not that great as a whole. So, with that in mind would you push cursive? Or just let it go. Is it really that important?

[Beth in Central TX]

I've had to let go of my *idea* of how my boys' handwriting should look. We've done handwriting as a subject through 4th grade, and I struggled with the idea of remedial handwriting work in 5th & 6th grade. However, I realized that part of it is just the way they write, so I decided as long as it was legible, I was okay with their writing.

 

With that said, I do not allow them to slop down their work and run to play or to go outside or whatever. They are to give their best effort in all of their written work. I do allow them to type their writing assignments to help them in this process. If they turn in work that's illegible, then they redo the work. If I can't read the letter or number, that problem is wrong and will need to be reworked as part of their daily corrections.

 

I think that a minimum level of printing and cursive is necessary even in our age of computers. You need to print most applications still, and legal documents still require a signature. Handwriting is not the most important thing in our homeschool, but it's also not something I overlook.

 

HTH!

[ABQmom]

This is pretty much the same conclusion I have come to. I also don't allow illegible handwriting, but beautiful or even nice won't happen with at least one of my dc.

[Hot Lava Mama]

with my ds8 and dd6. I finally decided that it was something that needed to be addressed. One thing I noticed was that they were zipping through their work, as a result, sloppy handwriting. I started to require "re-doing" any work that I could not read, or I felt it looked like they were going to fast. Same thing with math. If I could not read the number, they had to re-do the entire problem (which I erased completely!). Only had to do that once with math for it to stick. Finally, I required PERFECT handwriting for their copy work. I cut the amount that they had to do WAY down, but also required it to be perfect. My son, for example, went from copying a paragraph down to a single sentance. At first, he still copied it very fast and sloppy. One time, he had to re-do it 3 times before it met my approval. After that time, he has really slowed down and done a better job. By the way, I discoved that I needed to explain what exactly was wrong with his writing. For example, that letter is way below the bottom line, your little "l" and little "i" look the same, you need more space between these two words, etc. That seemed to help put some specifics on what needed to improve. (versus a "write neater" kind of order)

 

As for the issue of "cursive" or "not", I think that whatever they primarily use, you must expect good work. We worked on cursive for a while, and they can both read and write it, so I let them use whichever one they want to use. My ds prefers print, while my dd prefers cursive.

 

Good luck!

[mdhomeschool]

But a friend mentioned to me that students who write their essays in cursive on their SATs are scoring better overall than those who don't.

 

Actually, I just searched, and found this interesting article on dying use of cursive (it does back up the statistic about the SATs that I mentioned above):

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475_pf.html

[Rosie_0801]

I'm of the opinion that by your son's age, their handwriting is the way it is going to be forever. When I was about that age, my mother insisted I do extra writing practise after school, and it did nothing but bore me to death. As long as it is legible, it's fine in my opinion. If you want them to be able to write nicely, you might consider calligraphy. I'm told it uses a different skill than the handwriting skill. It's on my list of things to do, but as with all of us, I have a very long list :) If you need to disguise it so it doesn't look like writing practise, you can look at the history of writing and calligraphy, how the way letters are formed has changed over time. That might work if your kids like history. Otherwise, you can disguise it as art by using a paintbrush.

:)

Rosie

[Little Debbie]

My ds9 hates cursive! He prints neatly and it's easy to read. I've come to the realization that one only needs to "sign" their name. My dh prints EVERYTHING and signs his name. For ds, I've decided to make sure he knows how to form the letters and how to read cursive. If he wants to print everything else, as long as it's neat and legible, I can live with that!

Deb

[AllSmiles]

All I require is that my kids can read cursive and sign their names. For me, everything else is gravy. In college, we were required to type all of our assignments. In class tests had to be printed; cursive was not even allowed. I would rather concentrate on so many other things.

[hsmom]

He can read cursive, sign his name, and write it when needed.