SWR users, handwriting question?

[bnwhitaker]

My 8 & 9 yr old both print. We have not started SWR yet but will in about 2 months. Right now we are doing Pentime trasition handwriting book. We are almost to the cursive part of the book. Should I let them begin and learn from pentime "how" to do cursive or wait for SWR to teach them?

[HejKatt]

Either way is fine - SWR can be done by children who print. All that is required is they are able to:

1) Listen to the teacher sound out/break down a word by phonograms

2) Write down the same word, repeating the phonograms as they do so.

 

The primary motivation I've heard for doing cursive is to avoid letter reversals. At least, that was my reason for starting ds with it. In your case, it sounds like you could start SWR anytime.

[countrygal]

My ds was already printing when I went to SWR and he printed in his book. We worked on cursive separately and you can use whatever you want for that. SWR recommends starting with it, but it's not essential to using it at all. HTH!

[Tracy]

I don't think it matters. While SWR encourages the teaching of cursive, the SWR student does not need to know cursive. I, personally, prefer to have my kids writing in cursive, because it remediates so many handwriting issues that would ordinarily get in the way during dictation.