Italic cursive first?

[desertmum]

This is a question for those who have used Getty-Dubay or similar programme. Have you tried using italic cursive from the beginning?

 

Ds is having trouble leaving too much space between letters. Also, he tries to write from right to left and I want to emphasize the "left to right" movement and avoid letter reversal, etc.

 

Italic cursive letters have a little "tail" which I think might help, but the book says the student has to have the basic italic down before starting italic cursive. As a newbie what I need is to hear from more experience users. Help? :confused:

[desertmum]

:bigear:

[nmoira]

There may be another italics program better suited for cursive first than GDI, as GDI isn't structured in a way I think it is practical. Entrance and exit serifs for the manuscript letters and some joins are introduced in Book C, and it's assumed the child is proficient with the manuscript characters. The fancy uppercase letters and remaining joins (there are 8 altogether) in Book D.

[boscopup]

Yeah, the books are laid out a bit weird for teaching cursive. I have Book C for DS1, who did HWT print first. I've already somewhat abandoned the book and am making my own sheets in Startwrite. :tongue_smilie:

[J'etudie]

Yeah, the books are laid out a bit weird for teaching cursive. I have Book C for DS1, who did HWT print first. I've already somewhat abandoned the book and am making my own sheets in Startwrite. :tongue_smilie:

:iagree:

 

I chose GDI for oldest ds precisely becuase the manuscript was so close to cursive. I did books A and B with him and then used Penny Gardner's Italics, Beautiful Handwriting for Children. For ds #2 I wondered why I'd bothered with the manuscript and started with cursive in K. I used the StartWrite software to make worksheets of all the phonograms and later progressed to using it for his copywork; I plan to do the same thing for kindy dd this year.

[desertmum]

:iagree:

 

I chose GDI for oldest ds precisely becuase the manuscript was so close to cursive. I did books A and B with him and then used Penny Gardner's Italics, Beautiful Handwriting for Children. For ds #2 I wondered why I'd bothered with the manuscript and started with cursive in K. I used the StartWrite software to make worksheets of all the phonograms and later progressed to using it for his copywork; I plan to do the same thing for kindy dd this year.

 

Yes. Thank you for the replies. Sorry about my ignorance but what exactly is a phonogram? Do you mean to say you by-passed Penny Gardner's book about how to draw individual letters in cursive italics and just went on to write "combinations of letters" or small words? Or did you use Startwrite to make worksheets of individual letters in italic cursive, and then words? Sorry if I sound I bit confused...

[In The Great White North]

http://donpotter.net/PDF/Cursive%20First.pdf

 

This makes sense to me, but I came upon it after they had learned to print. I wish I had seen it sooner. Dc had little interest in careful handwriting by the time they got to cursive, and it shows.

 

I personally dislike Italic, as a sort of half cursive-half printing mishmash and I particularly dislike "cursive" that doesn't slant. Unfortunately, that's what the school they were in taught.

[desertmum]

http://donpotter.net/PDF/Cursive%20First.pdf

 

This makes sense to me, but I came upon it after they had learned to print. I wish I had seen it sooner. Dc had little interest in careful handwriting by the time they got to cursive, and it shows.

 

I personally dislike Italic, as a sort of half cursive-half printing mishmash and I particularly dislike "cursive" that doesn't slant. Unfortunately, that's what the school they were in taught.

 

I see your point. I saw the alphabet recommended in the link and however pretty I really don't like the upper case G and Q. I may be too much to expect from a 5 yo (I can't do this upper case G and I have tried). I haven't found a cursive easy enough for him to manage. I thought italics might be easier. Uhmmm. Time for a cup of tea so I can think about this some more...

[hmschooling]

New American Cursive is great for teaching cursive first. It's designed for little ones and is a simple, modern, nice looking cursive.

[desertmum]

New American Cursive is great for teaching cursive first. It's designed for little ones and is a simple, modern, nice looking cursive.

 

 

I bought Startwrite before I knew NAC did not come with it. I emailed Startwrite abut it and they told me to go buy the additional software from the NAC company. To be honest I wasn't ready to shell out more money (not to mention we are in the gulf which means shipping is $$$). The email from Startwrite was not friendly at all. I didn't appreciate that.

 

In any case I still want to go back to the original question about skipping basic italic and take the plunge straight into cursive italic.

Please? :bigear:

[boscopup]

In any case I still want to go back to the original question about skipping basic italic and take the plunge straight into cursive italic.

Please? :bigear:

 

I don't see any reason why you couldn't start with cursive italic just like people start with regular cursive. You'd just need to make your own sheets in Startwrite rather than using one of the workbooks.

[desertmum]

I don't see any reason why you couldn't start with cursive italic just like people start with regular cursive. You'd just need to make your own sheets in Startwrite rather than using one of the workbooks.

 

 

I was reading Penny Gardner's book Beautiful Italics for Children and she mentions that basic (manuscript) italic must be mastered before moving on to cursive italic. That was fine with me until I realised that ds is trying to write backwards, and I want to nip this in the bud.

[In The Great White North]

I see your point. I saw the alphabet recommended in the link and however pretty I really don't like the upper case G and Q. I may be too much to expect from a 5 yo (I can't do this upper case G and I have tried). I haven't found a cursive easy enough for him to manage. I thought italics might be easier. Uhmmm. Time for a cup of tea so I can think about this some more...

I don't think which cursive you use matters much.

 

I was reading Penny Gardner's book Beautiful Italics for Children and she mentions that basic (manuscript) italic must be mastered before moving on to cursive italic.

 

I don't think this is true.

 

My mom learned cursive at four, in first grade, in school, back in the 1930's. (And walked uphill, both ways, in the snow, with cardboard in her shoes because her two older sisters had already worn them out...)

 

Do you do any form drawing?

[boscopup]

I was reading Penny Gardner's book Beautiful Italics for Children and she mentions that basic (manuscript) italic must be mastered before moving on to cursive italic. That was fine with me until I realised that ds is trying to write backwards, and I want to nip this in the bud.

 

I don't know what her reasoning is for saying that. :confused: Italic print is VERY similar to regular manuscript. We moved over from HWT print. My son did do print first (and my second son is learning print first also... he is the type that will get confused if I try to do cursive while his reading lessons are all print - we already had an issue with me using caps for reading lessons vs. lowercase :glare:). We're skipping the print italic section and just going straight to cursive italic. I just demonstrate at the white board, have him practice a little at the white board, then we move to Startwrite paper where I've given him some lightly shaded letters to trace, plus space to write his own. We're not very far into it yet, so I can't really say whether my method is working or not. :tongue_smilie:

[desertmum]

I don't think which cursive you use matters much.

 

My mom learned cursive at four, in first grade, in school, back in the 1930's. (And walked uphill, both ways, in the snow, with cardboard in her shoes because her two older sisters had already worn them out...)

 

Do you do any form drawing?

 

We have done plenty of pre-writing skill exercises but ds is impatient is trying to write on his own. Thank you for sharing for sharing the story about your mum. My own mum who's got lovely Palmer handwriting went to a little one room school with students of different ages working one next to the other.

 

I don't know what her reasoning is for saying that. :confused: Italic print is VERY similar to regular manuscript. We moved over from HWT print. My son did do print first (and my second son is learning print first also... he is the type that will get confused if I try to do cursive while his reading lessons are all print - we already had an issue with me using caps for reading lessons vs. lowercase :glare:). We're skipping the print italic section and just going straight to cursive italic. I just demonstrate at the white board, have him practice a little at the white board, then we move to Startwrite paper where I've given him some lightly shaded letters to trace, plus space to write his own. We're not very far into it yet, so I can't really say whether my method is working or not. :tongue_smilie:

 

Works for me.