Poll--3rd grade/starting letters at bottom

[sbgrace]

My 8 year old 3rd grade son (left handed if it matters) is still forming a lot of letters from the bottom up. I don't know whether to focus on printing longer to try to correct this or go ahead and move to cursive?

 

I'm going to post a poll. Suggestions or any thoughts are welcome.

[zenjenn]

My daughter did this (and still does). At the insistence of my mother, I tried emphatically to encourage "proper letter formation". This was all but impossible. IMO, it was the equivalent of trying to force a left-handed person to be right-handed. I don't see how I would have changed this without beating her with a stick or yelling at her every time she did this.

 

We moved on to HWOT cursive which was helpful, but still not ideal.

 

BTW, this child is both left-handed and dyslexic.

 

We started recently with Orton-Gillingham tutoring for dyslexia and interestingly this methodology involves utilizing cursive that all starts from the baseline.

 

I am getting some D'nealian cursive books (all letters start from the baseline). I suppose you could say the jury is still out (as DD is a 4th grader and we're still unresolved), but based on experience so far I would move on to baseline-originating cursive.

[Farrar]

No answer, but I'm curious to hear the results. One of my ds does this and is also starting third grade, though he's on the younger end for grade and it's only with a few letters. Every time I spend a week or two correcting it, he reverts. I'm kind of at the point where I just want to let it go.

[julie4]

My 9yo/4th grader still does this, he's a lefty too. I am struggling with the same decision. Some argue cursive is easier and then there is the camp that doesn't even believe in teaching cursive anymore. I just want my son to be ale to write legibly, whether it's print or cursive. I have no advice, except that I'm considering doing HWT this year to see how he does with that, it's supposed to be a lefty friendly cursive style.

 

:bigear:Interested in the responses you get. Good luck.

[LisaKinVA]

My son, despite print work, concentrated effort, etc. has reverted time and again to bottom-up for some of his letters. We started cursive last year. While his printing is still fairly messy, he has beautiful cursive, and forms each letter pretty near perfect.

 

So...my vote is move to cursive and let it go.

[Embassy]

I was asking a question like this a year ago. I had thought that I would go the cursive route, but I ended up going the printing route. We focused on correct letter formation for most of the year trying to build new habits. I also had to correct his grip. Things aren't perfect, but he can do the correct formation most of the time and his handwriting looks pretty good in general. Poor kid, if I caught him writing a letter like o from the bottom to the top I would give him a whole page of that letter to do the next day. This year we are starting cursive.

[FLDebbie]

I have the same issue with my son and have deliberated over print or cursive as well. I'm going with trying to teach him to print properly first and then we'll move to cursive. My reasoning is that I've noticed many adult men prefer to print over write in cursive, and I also prefer printing. Perhaps it's the men I know, but I think that if he's going to print later in life, he needs to have legible handwriting. I'll be curious to see what his writing is like when we do get to cursive in the second half of this year.

[mrs.m]

My 10yo does this. I taught him cursive but he prefers to print. I keep working on cursive fluency in hopes that he'll decide to use it more often. Thus far no luck on that adventure.

 

I decided to just let the odd letter formation go because he has very neat handwriting when he puts forth effort. I tried many things (HWT, sensory letter formation techniques, singing "you always start your letters at the top!", making him write it correctly every time, etc.) when he was younger and he would start a number of letters at the bottom as soon as it was no longer working on handwriting practice. :banghead:

[Shelsi]

I would move forward with cursive using a program that starts all the letter on the bottom line. We're using LOE Cursive for both my kindergartner and my 3rd grader this year and all the letters start on the bottom line. I believe Cursive First also has all the letters starting on the bottom.

[Earth Angel_79]

What do the letters look like?

I'd probably say if they look good, let him have a go at cursive.

Admittedly, I never paid attention to how my lefty (DS1) was forming his letters, but by some miracle he is an extremely legible left-hander (as opposed to his father). I let him at it with cursive last year and, oops again, didn't pay attention to how he was forming the letters. He was sometimes circling that "o" 3 times before moving on. :lol: I helped him once I realized the darned curriculum I had bought didn't have directional arrows, but his letters are once again, very legible and even beautiful, so I don't really care about how they are formed as long as he isn't taking forever to write the words out.

 

DS2 has some issues still with letter directionality (b and d confused, backward letters out-of-the-blue), so I'm much more inclined to catch him working from the bottom up and correct him. He's right-handed. Oh, btw, we do daily copywork.