HWT question

[SEGway]

DD5 has terrible handwriting. She wants to be all artistic about it, but no one can read it. I didn't start any formal handwriting program with her for K because I didn't plan to make her write much, but she's learning really bad habits by teaching herself. And she reinforces said bad habits a LOT.

 

She's just starting to take off decoding words. She's actually getting to be a pretty good reader. So.....if I start HWT should I go with all the fun manipulatives for the K-ers? Or just what she actually needs to learn in the 1st grade materials? Cutting costs would be great, but I don't want to start something over and totally miss what she needs to know, again. (If that makes sense.)

 

Any advice?

[SEGway]

Also, she thinks cursive is the COOLEST thing ever. Should I just start with cursive and come back to printing when she's gotten the artsy thing out of her system, or at least can express is in a different form?

[Aurelia]

If she really wants to learn cursive, I'd teach her that, and then go back and do printed letters because she'll be far more motivated to learn how to do that instead of feeling like you're crushing her creativity. Or you can compromise and teach her italics.

[Dmmetler]

We really haven't worked on manuscript at all this year, and my DD's manuscript has improved a LOT since she started doing cursive. I suspect it's both fine motor development and simply that her word spacing is more consistent now.

[SevenDaisies]

If she really wants to learn cursive, I'd teach her that, and then go back and do printed letters because she'll be far more motivated to learn how to do that instead of feeling like you're crushing her creativity. Or you can compromise and teach her italics.

 

:iagree:I think go with cursive. There is research showing that it's better to teach cursive first. You can google to find numerous articles on topic. Plus, your dd will have more opportunity to be creative with it. I've just started cursive with my DD6 because she too thought it was the coolest thing.

 

However, if you choose manuscript, HWT is great. What you need depends on what your DD already knows. My 2 favorite extras are the slate chalkboard (important for learning capital letters) and the double line chalkboard (used for upper and lowercase letters). The wooden letters, roll a dough and stamp and see all teach the 4 main strokes used to form the capital letters. If she needs work on capitals, all of these are fun, but one of them should be sufficient. I would get the teacher's guide to familiarize yourself with their methods the first time you teach it, but you probably don't need to purchase one for the next grade.

[FairProspects]

:iagree:I think go with cursive. There is research showing that it's better to teach cursive first. You can google to find numerous articles on topic.

 

 

And there is also research that refutes this ;). I don't think it really matters which you teach first, as long as you get around to both. If your dd thinks cursive is cool, go with it!

[Upstatemamma]

I didn't do any handwriting work with my son in K either. I figured it wasn't necessary. He learned a bunch of bad habits so this year we started HWT. We skipped the manipulatives. We went straight to the workbooks and they have been great! He LOVES it and it has been fairly easy to correct his mistakes.