who doesnt follow formal handwriting?

[kwickimom]

I really dont see the point in buying a handwriting program until we hit cursive. I have my DS write on whiteboard, chalkboard, and sand. He writes on his own on paper and I did print out some free forms. I also own startwrite.

 

Will I be missing out by not doing a formal program as I long as I teach him to form them correctly?

 

Has anyone just done free printables and got along just fine?

[MissKNG]

I hope not because I don't see the need for formal handwriting either!

[boscopup]

I think either way is fine. I'm doing HWT with my son to re-teach how to form the letters. It's working well for him, whereas what I was telling him without a workbook wasn't sticking. So for us, a "formal program" is working better. My other son is picking up on handwriting via the white board, and he could probably do fine without a formal program as long as I showed him how to do the letters and sat there and corrected each formation (as I'll have to do with or without a program). I have HWT workbooks for him though, so we'll go ahead and use them.

 

For cursive... My cursive is awful and half the time I forget how to form the letters, so yeah, definitely need a program for that. :tongue_smilie: I'll be using Pentime, which is super cheap. Seriously, $5.50 (at RR) for a book for the year? That's worth not having to make my own handwriting sheets. :)

 

Technically, *any* homeschool subject could be done without a formal curriculum. Most people purchase curriculum to make their life easier, not have to do the planning work, etc. Handwriting can be included in that. The worksheets you do in Startwrite are already done for the person purchasing a handwriting workbook. My HWT grade 1 workbook is 94 pages and cost me about $7.50 (because I bought more than one at a time to spread out the shipping cost). To reproduce that amount of handwriting work in Startwrite (which itself costs $39.95), it would take me quite a while, and it probably wouldn't have fun pictures, because THAT would be way too much work for me to do on a regular basis. :)

[Wendy Inman]

I did not use a formal handwriting program for my son until we just started cursive this year. He did great and i never had any issues. Very glad we avoided that stress LOL

[Guest RecumbentHeart]

We're doing well with just pencil and paper although I have tracers printed off the Internet for backup.

[5Wizards]

I did not do a formal printing program with my 9 year old and she has nice writing (we did do a cursive program starting in 1st grade, and her printing improved immensely through that). I'm doing HWT with my 5 year old now because she likes it and it helps me to make sure that I actually sit and write with her. :tongue_smilie:

Edited December 24, 2010 by 5Wizards

[Nakia]

I didn't do a formal handwriting program with oldest until we got to cursive. I haven't used a handwriting program with my middle so far, but she wants to learn cursive soon, so I will get her a little workbook.

[SilverMoon]

I don't. The preschool workbook at Costco is the closest I've come in four kids. :)

[kwickimom]

Since I already own Startwrite (which i got used for $30) and a laser printer that costs 2 cents a page to print I think it is cost effective, especially for 3 kiddos. And now that I think about it I will prob just do my own cursive also.

 

I like using the whiteboard and chalkboard so I can instantly correct him and I love that Startwrite has the tracers, dotted lines, and then solid lines.

 

Yeah, i guess I answered my own question LOL Startwrite is basically a handwriting program, I just have to print it out :)

[susankenny]

With my oldest, we did not use a curriculum for handwriting until we hit cursive.

 

Susan

[MorganClassicalPrep]

I haven't used a formal handwriting program yet with my almost-5 year old, and she can write all her letters and numbers, even if sometimes she needs a little reminder of what they look like. (And I think that is more a lack of confidence in herself than actually not knowing.)

 

I may or may not use a formal program to do cursive, but we'll see when we get there.

[FairProspects]

I can see big problems with this for a kid who has fine motor delays or issues or is pencil allergic. If you have a kid for whom writing comes intuitively, you may not need formal instruction.

 

However, if you have a kid who has sensory motor planning issues, writing will be a disaster without a formal handwriting program. Ds would sit there and stare at the paper because he didn't know where to start a letter or how to make the motion to make a letter. He needed very specific, step by step teaching to even begin writing at all.

 

I can see both sides of it, but there are definitely HUGE reasons to make handwriting a formal part of your schooling!

[RootAnn]

I didn't ever teach my second oldest to print. She picked it up by copying things on her own. She learned cursive with my oldest using sidewalk chalk when she was 5. I've reinforced some of the letters with Cursive First sheets, but we didn't do a "formal" program.

 

However, I am the type who is more likely to do something if I have a formal program & schedule. So, in my opinion, you do what is best for you & your kid and what will get done consistently. If it is working for you, keep it up. :)

[kwickimom]

I can see big problems with this for a kid who has fine motor delays or issues or is pencil allergic. If you have a kid for whom writing comes intuitively, you may not need formal instruction.

 

However, if you have a kid who has sensory motor planning issues, writing will be a disaster without a formal handwriting program. Ds would sit there and stare at the paper because he didn't know where to start a letter or how to make the motion to make a letter. He needed very specific, step by step teaching to even begin writing at all.

 

I can see both sides of it, but there are definitely HUGE reasons to make handwriting a formal part of your schooling!

 

 

Thank you for this insight, these were the kind of things I was wondering about. I guess i wondered what is in an actual in a "program" I did look into HWT, but i dont like that font at all. I physically teach him how to draw the letters and Startwrite has the tracing function with the arrows, so he can transition into following those. If I just bought a workbook I dont see how me doing what I am doing will be any different?

[Farrar]

A lot of people seem to have responded that they didn't use a handwriting program but they also mentioned a cheap workbook or online printables. To me, that sort of IS a program. A much more informal one, but still.

 

We do HWT, but after some of the K stuff when the kids were first forming their letters, we just use it pretty much the same way as one would use any old workbook and it's only marginally more expensive. I seem to be in the minority in that I love their font. It was one of the reasons I chose it. HWT definitely does have a whole program to it and there's definitely a philosophy behind the way they lay things out, but many people just use the workbook. I am glad to have borrowed a teacher's manual quite awhile ago from a friend so I skimmed and read some of their teaching tricks and we've used a few sort of informally - like the finger space for words and the little "Where do you start you letters song" back in kindy.

[Tracy]

When I taught handwriting to dd, I just picked up a Kumon book at Target, and away we went. We had both the upper and lower case letters done in six months. Two years later, we transitioned to cursive with a formal program, and it was there that I read at length about making sure that the child has a correct grip. I realized that she did not, and she had been practicing with the incorrect grip for two years. I read about correct posture and positioning of the paper, which I hadn't even considered. I read about gross motor writing activities, which I really wished I had known about, because I think it would have made learning to write so much easier and more fun for dd. Consequently, I now wish that I had used a formal program that would have taught me these things from the beginning. (I do wish I had known about the concept of teaching cursive first, because it would have eliminated all of the pain of transitioning to cursive later on.)

 

So I am very glad that used the formal program, although it was a little late. However, our use of the formal program did not last very long. Once we finished learning the individual letters over the course of about 3 weeks, I ditched the program and bought StartWrite to make my own copywork. Then I stopped using StartWrite, because I realized that dd was already doing plenty of writing and didn't really need separate copywork at this time.

 

HTH