Handwriting in 2nd or 4th grade?

[amyrobynne]

My older kids are in 3rd and 1st grade and I currently have them work in HWT books 2-3 times a week. My older son is learning cursive and doing well. He's down to the last 5 lower case letters and I'm starting to have him write cursive for his other subjects (printing capitals and unknown letters) and he's a little slower than printing, but his letters look good.

 

My middle son is going through the 1st grade book. He knew how to write his letters before this year but randomly starts some at the bottom and some at the top and isn't the neatest writer ever. It's legible though and I'm not seeing tons of improvement this year.

 

If your kids were at a similar point in 1st or 3rd grade, did you specifically give them handwriting practice in 2nd or 4th grade? I expect I'll bring my middle son back to handwriting for cursive in 3rd grade, but for next year, should I just have them correct messy things in their other writing work and skip HWT?

[happypamama]

My second grader gets handwriting practice only from doing the copywork in WWE. However, his writing is extraordinarily neat for a second grader. I have not started him on cursive yet, but it's coming in a few weeks. My older child needed some extra handwriting practice after finishing HWOT; I'm not sure my current second grader will. I think it depends on the child and how much other writing they're doing in other subjects; if they're getting a lot of practice otherwise, that might be enough, but if they're "pencil-allergic," I might have them do some specific practice/copywork, maybe using quotations from favorite books or something.

[amyrobynne]

I'm fairly sure I'll have my then-2nd-grader do WWE and FLL next year, so there's writing there, plus spelling elsewhere.