Remediating Cursive?

[Guest kruser59]

I posted a few weeks back about hitting a wall with my teen aspie. I got some very kind and insightful responses, and we have been working to come up with a plan.

 

We are starting a fresh school year today. I have everything planned out, but yesterday I wrote my son a note in cursive, and he told me he could not read it. I immediately thought about remediation, and my dh agrees. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if cursive is a necessary skill?

 

My grandsons are in 5th and 3rd grades. They have not been instructed in cursive. All the work they do is in manuscript. Most of our communications these days are in some electronic form. I am wondering if it is important to re-teach my son cursive if it is obsolete. I wonder if this is a battle I need to pick? I am torn on this one, and would appreciate the thoughts of others to consider in my decision process.

 

Thanks!

[Dmmetler]

Handwriting without tears has a handwriting screener on their website that you can download and use, and has a program specifically for older students that works on either cursive or print skills at that level. It looks quite good, but I've never personally used it.

[Guest kruser59]

Thank you, I will check that out.

[scrapbookbuzz]

As I told my dd (who is newly, unofficially dx'd as Aspie), "You need to learn to read cursive because some people still write that way." She's 11. We've just "gone back to the basics" with Writing Road to Reading. HWOT is a good one, too. But unless she physically forms the letters to use more than one sense, it doesn't make sense to her. Plus, with her dyslexia and dysgraphia, cursive will help her to not juxtapose her letters; and, of course, other people will then be able to read HER writing, too! :^) There's nothing wrong with remedial writing as long as you explain the "why" of it to your student. HTH!

[NCW]

I have used the HWT upper level cursive with my son (we're still working through it). He doesn't love it, but it is nice for an upper-level student who wants to try cursive. The topics in it are generally regarding grammar, so if your son is strong in grammar he may find that a chore. My son needs the review.

 

I also really like, for older students, Nan Barchowsky's materials http://www.bfhhandwriting.com/ She uses the italic style of cursive, so it combines print and cursive and may be easier to transition to at his age. She writes about how everyone has their own cursive style. Her "Fix it Write" book is written to the student. It has sections on improving both manuscript and cursive (you choose what you want to work on), and helps the learner set their own goals.

 

I happen to think cursive is essential just because we won't always have a laptop there, and we may need to take notes, etc, very quickly sometime. You also want to be able to read other's notes without embarrassment. Cursive is not as obsolete as some would have us believe...it's just not on the standardized tests, so teachers don't take as much time to teach it. Some kids also have to be forced to transition to it - my 3rd grade teacher thoroughly taught cursive, and in 4th grade any assignment done in manuscript had to be rewritten. Can you tell they were nuns? Still, I finally did the same thing to my kids around middle school.:tongue_smilie:

[Peela]

I just put my ds14 into yet another handwriting book. It's for younger kids than him but its not babyish at all.(Its a local Australian book ising Victorian Cursive). His handwriting has been pretty bad- suddenly, he is actually writing beautifully and taking care- developing a pride in his handwriting. I think it's just a brain maturity thing and it happens when it happens, if ever.

I would have generally thought we would be finished with handwriting by now, but he is dyslexic....and I feel it is great for his fine motor skills to just plod away.

I dont think its the end of the world either way. I just felt to continue and so far, so good.

[dsmith]

I was ready to give up on cursive with ds, except for his signature. He was able to read cursive as long as it was somewhat neatly written. I decided to plug along using Startwrite and just doing a few minutes a day without any pressure, plus using fountain pens and some exercises someone posted on this forum. He suddenly started writing in cursive a few weeks ago - first with his spelling tests, and slowly carrying over to other areas. The fountain pens made a big difference, and I think not having a formal handwriting program and taking the pressure off helped a lot.