Handwriting: improving legibility and speed

[Tardis Girl]

My rising juniors really need help increasing speed and improving legibility in their handwriting. It doesn't look AWFUL, but it doesn't look anywhere near "mature" in terms of presentability. And timed essays? Ugh!

 

Has anyone used Fix It Write or Teach Yourself Better Handwriting?

 

When they were elementary age they had beautiful italic handwriting, but not now. I don't think they'd want a particular "style" they'd have to duplicate (like the Getty-Dubay adult italic book), but would like to improve upon a more individual style.

 

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks so much! :)

[DH in Las Vegas]

Like many homeschool moms, in elementary I had my ds model my handwriting in daily copywork exercises as well as use handwriting workbooks. Now that he is "on his own" he shows much more carelessness and a tendency to rush. It's like he forgot everything related to good handwriting (remember shape, size, spacing, and slant!) Like most boys, he hates to physically write as it is, so I know having him repeat copywork exercises would go over like a ton of bricks, so I'm thinking of having him learn calligraphy. Four reasons:

 

1. It would be fun - if offered more along the lines of a cool art exercise, rather than dreary copywork. I would have him do maybe 3 short (15 min.) sessions a week.

 

2. It would require him to use care and concentration - which I hope would eventually carry over into his everyday handwriting, at least make him more conscious of what he is doing.

 

3. It would build for him a good foundation and then allow him to expand his skills as far as he is willing to go. In other words, we wouldn't run out of "levels".

 

4. It would be a creative outlet - art often gets short shrift in our schedule. There are many, many uses for calligraphy and many projects he could do. I doubt he would get bored.

 

Our library has several books. I chose Calligraphy for Kids, by Eleanor Winters to get us started. Hope this helps!

[JudoMom]

My rising juniors really need help increasing speed and improving legibility in their handwriting. It doesn't look AWFUL, but it doesn't look anywhere near "mature" in terms of presentability. And timed essays? Ugh!

 

Has anyone used Fix It Write or Teach Yourself Better Handwriting?

 

When they were elementary age they had beautiful italic handwriting, but not now. I don't think they'd want a particular "style" they'd have to duplicate (like the Getty-Dubay adult italic book), but would like to improve upon a more individual style.

 

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks so much! :)

 

I've got Fix It...Write, and I think it would be a good fit. It's purpose is to increase speed an legibility. I was going to recommend it :001_smile:.

[Tardis Girl]

Thanks for the feedback! Like so many things in the hs-ing realm, I wish I could just flip through some of these books firsthand. I do appreciate that "look inside" feature on Amazon, but they need it for EVERYTHING! lol

 

I wonder... is it possible to just "decide" to write more neatly?? I mean, it seems like some days it's hard enough to just get all the usual subjects done when they're in high school -- always so much going on. Does it boil down to desire? I don't know that they feel their handwriting is as big an issue as I feel it is. ;) But I do like the idea of those books, too....

[Brigid in NC]

I am interested in hearing about cursive strategies too -- and hope we will hear from more who have tackled this issue.

 

An additional concern I have is that my own kids, and kids I teach, cannot READ cursive! Even well written cursive. Beautiful, flowing cursive handwriting from grandparents is impossible for them. They stare at a note written in cursive like it was written in hieroglyphs :001_huh: and argue with me about whether an "r" is really an "r" ("It's not shaped like an R! That's not how I learned to make an R"!). Sure, honey, it's not your fault, it's grandma's fault you can't read it.

 

So do I ask all my friends and relatives to write me letters in cursive and then have a unit on cursive reading? Or does learning to write -- more confidently and frequently -- in cursive, lead to the ability to read cursive?

Edited July 25, 2010 by Brigid in NC

[romeacademy]

I was planning to post a similar question. My dd (rising soph) would like to improve her cursive handwriting. She'd like to be faster and have it be "prettier". I've thought about going back to copywork - just typing out a passage using StartWrite and letting her copy. But she was also asking if there were copybooks, or something like that, that weren't geared toward early elementary.

 

Thanks!

[ma23peas]

I am working on this with two of my children..one writes very well...she had the same lessons I taught the other ones but I think she has a strong right brain??

 

I would almost rather teach a very neat print, similar to what they teach in architecture/engineering school....any helps there? Surely they have some sort of class to teach that??

 

Thanks for any help!

Tara

[Julie in MN]

I liked the HWT books for teaching kids to write full, rounded letters. Their method involves beginning with a "magic C" so all of the letters with that shape are nice and round, such as d, b, e, a, g, etc. They also have some books that use older type topics for practice.

 

However, I had the most success last year by just doing it myself with my 8th grade ds. First I sat him down and talked about the fact that his father wanted him to have nicer handwriting because he felt it would cause him less embarrassment in later life. Then I just worked on two letters per day.

 

MFW had scheduled this handwriting practice every year, but I think I had always went too quickly or handed it off as independent work. This year, I sat and really showed him the proper letter formation. I found he didn't realize where to start the letter in some cases, and he was taking major shortcuts in other cases. I told him I realized folks like to write quickly, and we discussed possible shortcuts -- including possible pitfalls such as an *a* starting to look like a *u*. I wrote each letter at least once, and he continued writing that letter for one row. Sometimes we discussed the row afterwards. We just used the type of paper he would regularly use.

 

After we got through the alphabet, he went back to his usual copywork and it seemed better. I think I'll spend the time again next year if he still needs it. It did take my extra time, but at two letters a day it was only about 13 days (with a few repeats).

 

Julie

[KnitWit]

My dd who is off to college this fall learned to write Italic. During her high school years, I actually took everyone else out of Italics and went back to traditional cursive because, while she had LOVELY handwriting, she complained that she could NOT increase speed while writing Italic. She wished she had learned traditional cursive and even tried to go back and teach herself to change. She still complains that she prints faster than she *writes*.

[Tullia]

Penmanship was something that my ds didn't enjoy for the most part, but at some point he got interested in calligraphy because he was into Robin Hood, treasure maps and such for a few years in late elementary/early middle school. At one point, he found and asked to use a set of Spencerian Penmanship booklets I'd bought on a whim, looked at, but dismissed as too "fussy". They were siting on the shelf. He took them down and worked through each one and learned to read grandparent's cursive that way. It helped his cursive, but he's since adopted a print style (from dh) I call engineer's miniscule. However, most of his work is typed and all his math and science instructors at CC seem to be able to read his handwriting, so I guess it all turned out for the best.

[Tardis Girl]

These are all very interesting comments -- thank you for sharing! I did find that I could get the Teach Yourself Better Handwriting (older edition) through my library system, so I'm going to go ahead and at least preview that since I can do so for free. Also, they had that Getty-Dubay adult italic book; I don't know that my girls would want that, but I'll at least check it out and take a look. And the Fix It Write book does have at least a few sample pages online, so I think I'll have them review all of these once I get the library books.

 

My girls did do calligraphy for a time, and while it did look pretty, it didn't really help with the everyday writing. In fact, the comment MSPolly just made about her daughter's issue with italic cursive and speed (or lack thereof) I think may get to the heart of the problem mine are having. They DID have absolutely beautiful cursive italic when they were in upper elementary. People commented on it all the time, and the girls have seen some old copybooks of theirs and commented on how well they wrote. But I think they weren't able to maintain it with speed as well, and it just went by the wayside. I didn't try to direct them to anything else. TBH, I thought it would just improve with time and maturity. And maybe it still will.... But with only 2 years left at home, I'm getting a little more concerned! lol

 

It's interesting how many of us have had similar issues though. (And the reading traditional cursive was as issue here for a while. Fortunately my mom would hand write letters once in a while and that is something that they have picked up with pretty limited exposure -- although they do struggle just a bit with some of it.)