Tracing cursive vs. copywork

[mom31257]

Is there a disadvantage to using tracing to teach cursive instead of copywork? Ds can trace cursive very well, but gets so frustrated trying to do copywork. I introduced cursive last school year, and it's something I don't think he has to have mastered anytime soon. His print is not the greatest, but it's legible. He doesn't seem to have this problem when he's doing manuscript copywork. He is a child who doesn't draw very well, too.

 

Any thoughts?

[Amie]

http://mrpencil.adobeconnect.com/fingertrace/

(These are audio--check your volume)

 

I don't have a lot of real-life experience in this area yet, but this series of teaching/slides (from Peterson Directed Handwriting) was very interesting on the subject of tracing (with a writing instrument) vs. "writing". I'd love to hear other's thoughts on this subject. :bigear:

 

ETA: I think the thing to consider is teaching the cursive strokes to a child in a way that he will be able to rely on his muscle memory to write rather than a traceable image. How to do that may be the question. I've heard some argue that tracing will eventually develop the muscle memory. P.D.H. aims to prove otherwise and believes in air-writing, finger-tracing, etc.--methods which also appear in many, old (sometimes o.o.p.) handwriting/penmanship books I've seen.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Amie

[boscopup]

I'm using both. After teaching myself italic cursive, I found tracing to be VERY helpful. It gave me a feeling of how the letters should be. I traced first, then copied.

 

My son is learning cursive now. Likewise, I have him tracing first (Startwrite pages, so the letters are light gray, solid lines, not dotted lines which I don't care for), then he copies. He alternates tracing and copying with each letter. So for 'a', I did this:

 

 

a a a    a    a    a

We've only just started, but it seems to be working well so far.

Edited August 12, 2011 by boscopup
Formatting of my example :)

[FO4UR]

I was going to mention Peterson Directed Handwriting.:iagree:

 

 

Rather than tracing, I would just slow wayyyyyyyyy down. One stroke. One letter. Get that into the muscle memory, and build up gradually. Use a large chalkboard before going to paper - often! Go in order of strokes to learn...I generally follow this progression (give or take) for lower case cursive.

 

c

o

a

d

g

q

 

n

m

 

e

l

h

k

b

f

 

u

w

i

t

j

p

 

r

s

v

x

y

z

 

 

 

If it takes a whole year just to get those letters into the muscle memory (before doing actual copywork with them), so be it. Slow and steady wins the race.

[mom31257]

I'm using both. After teaching myself italic cursive, I found tracing to be VERY helpful. It gave me a feeling of how the letters should be. I traced first, then copied.

 

My son is learning cursive now. Likewise, I have him tracing first (Startwrite pages, so the letters are light gray, solid lines, not dotted lines which I don't care for), then he copies. He alternates tracing and copying with each letter. So for 'a', I did this:

 

 

a a a    a    a    a

We've only just started, but it seems to be working well so far.

 

I'm not familiar with Startwrite. Here is a website I'm using. I've found the paragraph the most versatile.

[boscopup]

I'm not familiar with Startwrite. Here is a website I'm using. I've found the paragraph the most versatile.

 

Startwrite is a software program that has a lot of different popular fonts (including HWT, GDI, ZB, etc.). If you call the company and use the code "HSBC", you can get 25% off. Or at least you could when they had v5.0. I haven't verified that it still works, but last time I checked they were still listed as having the discount on HSBC.

[Hunter]

I was doing a lot of tracing, before I read the handwriting section of WRTR. After one hour of WRTR, my handwriting improved more than 100 hours of tracing.

[SnMomof7]

Ditto on listening to the fellow at Peterson. Tracing does NOT equal writing proficiency, it is actually HARDER to trade than it is to get the strokes into muscle memory.

 

Do one letter at a time, then do joins, then do copywork. Copywork won't really be successful until the character formation is learned IMO. And then just start with individual words :).

[boscopup]

Ditto on listening to the fellow at Peterson. Tracing does NOT equal writing proficiency, it is actually HARDER to trade than it is to get the strokes into muscle memory.

 

But I needed to trace to figure out how the shape should feel and thus get it into muscle memory? :confused: Without that, I couldn't do it. I needed to feel it first by tracing what the correct way was. Then I was able to work on the strokes.

 

Obviously, everyone is different, so maybe some or even most people don't need to trace first. I did better with tracing though. My writing improved by leaps and bounds. Seriously, I couldn't read my own cursive before. Now it's nice enough that I'll actually use it for writing notes to people! That's huge for me! :D I used to have to print handwritten notes, which is embarrassing, but my cursive was even more embarrasing. :tongue_smilie:

[Hunter]

I needed to trace too, until I was introduced to WRTR clock scripts.

[SnMomof7]

My oldest DD hasn't traced, and HWT never uses tracing either. Visual processing and muscle memory are really two different things and the visual tracking can actually interfere with the muscle memory acquisition. Have you watched the presentations at Peterson :)? We don't use their program - not easy enough for me to figure out, and we did use it a bit with first DD but it's more ball and stick than I like in the younger grades. I just want to teach continuos stroke manuscript off the bat with the rest of the dc.

 

So, what do we do? Air writing, writing in dishes of lentils, writing BIG on a wipeable board. I'll even grab their hands and move them in a bunch of lentils so they can figure it out tactilely.

 

BUT that being said, I'm glad you found something that worked for you!

[mom31257]

I was doing a lot of tracing, before I read the handwriting section of WRTR. After one hour of WRTR, my handwriting improved more than 100 hours of tracing.

 

 

What is WRTR? My dd wishes she had better cursive, so maybe it would help her, too.