quitting cursive

[rebot]

Before we started homeschooling, I read all of research and the articles of why we should start cursive first.  So we did.  Now six months in, we're really struggling.  It just isn't clicking.  I often find him writing in his big, block all capital letters that he learned a few years ago but never even trying in cursive.

 

I guess my question is, when should I say this just isn't working and switch to manuscript?  My DH thinks we should stick with it and eventually it will take.  I feel like his not being able to write is holding him back on other subjects.  I would love some opinions.

 

 

[Hunter]

How is his spelling? None of my tutoring students can write well in cursive unless they are already spelling well.

 

Cursive requires multitasking, and the ability to think ahead to choose the correct connector.

 

Romalda Spalding said students cannot write in cursive until they are spelling in syllables, not just individual letters and phonograms.

 

Cursive first only works, if you are severely limiting the early written output, and using mostly oral and pictorial methods of output, with extensive amounts of copywork based on the phonics lessons.

[rebot]

We are just finishing up level A of LOE foundations.  He has been spelling out cvc words with the movable alphabet for a while now, but that is still just individual phonograms.  It makes sense about struggling with cursive if not yet spelling well.  I wonder why I never thought of that.

 

We have been doing mostly oral outputs and up until recently that has been working out fine.  Lately, however, I can tell he is frustrated.  He is ready to write and not just narrate to me. 

[Crimson Wife]

I'm not familiar with LOE's font, but my oldest improved dramatically once I switched her from Peterson Directed to Memoria Press New American Cursive. NAC is ugly IMHO, but it is easy to learn. I recommend it for any kids struggling with cursive.

[Hunter]

We are just finishing up level A of LOE foundations. He has been spelling out cvc words with the movable alphabet for a while now, but that is still just individual phonograms. It makes sense about struggling with cursive if not yet spelling well. I wonder why I never thought of that.

 

We have been doing mostly oral outputs and up until recently that has been working out fine. Lately, however, I can tell he is frustrated. He is ready to write and not just narrate to me.

You never thought about it because NONE of the current and well known cursive-first proponents, other than HLtL, are talking about it or offering remedies. This is like the naked Emperor in the current O-G cursive-first push. SWR started it, and LOE followed along behind her, without the proper field testing. Romalda Spalding field tested her stuff and worked through 4 editions fine tuning the methods. Romalda Spalding doesn't go into a LOT of detail, but she is VERY firm about the need to start with manuscript, and the basic reason why. Even before I read the WRTR 4th I noticed the very same thing, so when I read WRTR 4th, I understood better what I was seeing.

 

Students that are cherry-picked and red-shirted for private schools are often gifted enough and old enough to handle cursive-first in first grade, as many of those children have been reading for a long time, and are natural spellers.

 

But for late blooming boys and dyslexics, cursive-first thrown on top of a modern curriculum doesn't work in many cases. Cursive first WAS the norm, BUT the entire curriculum was designed around it, starting with a syllabary and lots and lots of oral work.

 

If cursive first is a priority, I recommend alpha-phonics, a syllabary, and lots of early oral work.

 

If a modern curriculum and O-G phonics is the priority, I recommend following Romalda Spalding's advice exactly.

 

If you want to TRY both, in GENERAL for people that have not already invested in something else. I recommend RLtL and HLtL, which does offer a syllabary as a bridge and will be enough for SOME students, especially natural spellers.

 

What am I doing? I'm really tired. I ordered myself a used copy of WRTR 4th and for better and worse, I'm going to do it as written, including the the short i ending for baby. I'm dropping cursive first for now. I don't want to put off writing for as long as I have been. It's not worth it, when I balance out all the pros and cons.

[PachiSusan]

Maybe he needs to SEE the cursive. Am I reading it right that you are narrating and he is writing what you say in cursive? If so - stop the narrating and give him a sheet to do copy work with first. Something he doesn't have to work so hard. To do it orally, he has to think of how to spell the word, what each letter looks like, and how to join them up. We are just NOW doing narration with cursive in 5th grade. She has done copywork with textbooks and lined paper since 3rd grade with cursive. 

[kbutton]

We did early cursive, but not first (only because I couldn't find a cursive that worked for us until after we started other stuff). My son really had to work at letter formation at first, and we went really slowly. Once he knew three or four easy letters, we repeated those over and over and added in other letters one at a time with lots of review. We did capital letters later, starting with the ones that look just like the lower case letters. Now, he's going much, much faster. It was agonizing at first. We also spent a lot of time making huge cursive letters on the whiteboard over and over.

 

We did lots of oral work for a while, including math. It took my little guy FOREVER (months) to be able to form a number 8. He still has to think about it--I have him draw an X, and he starts at the top right of the X, tracing around and over it to know where to make the crisscross.

 

He rarely writes cursive without having some cursive to look at. He does know print (Italic), but I don't let him use it much. We introduced cursive as soon as he had just enough print practice under his belt that I knew he wouldn't forget it but wouldn't depend on it either.

[SonshineLearner]

Handwriting without Tears... Honestly... best ever... I think they have a 2nd grade one now... I ordered 3rd grade and got paper to go with it. A couple of packages.. and journals... You won't regret it... (I don't think :))

[abacus2]

Switch to manuscript and come back to cursive later. Cursive first, like everything, will work well for some kids and not for others. Don't bang your head against the wall. Adjust to the kid you have.

[PachiSusan]

Adjust to the kid you have.

 

Best home education advice ever. Any subject. 

[Hunter]

free manuscript handwriting instructions

http://www.husd.org/cms/lib07/AZ01001450/Centricity/Domain/1365/Spalding%20Handwriting%20Formation.pdf

[journey00]

How old is your child? Mine are in 4th and 3rd grade and we started cursive Sept 2013 with Handwriting Without Tears.  It has been great for them and they are learning to write and read it.  Once they learn how to read it well then they can have the choice of writing in script or cursive.  We do one page a day, 4 times weekly, except during the holidays and it may not seem like much but at this pace we have accomplished a lot.  I have noticed that they have are signing their name in cursive all the time on their own and have ventured out in cursive during their journaling.  HTH.

[Hunter]

Cursive-first means the child is NOT taught manuscript and doesn't have the option of using it. All they can do is improvise and attempt to create their own handwriting system based on what they see in books and on street signs and cereal boxes. When a child creates their own handwriting system because that is easier to do than use the one they are being explicitly taught–that tells you something.

[rebot]

Thank you to all of you for offering suggestions.  I think we are going to switch to manuscript.  What Hunter said about being able to spell makes so much sense.  

 

I think it was I have wanted to do, but needed some more experienced homeschoolers to tell me that it isn't failing if we give up on learning cursive first.  Instead it is following the student.  DS is only five.  I'm pretty sure not learning to write cursive first isn't going to be the downfall of his education.

[boscopup]

You know, I think the spelling-writing connection is my 9 year old's problem with cursive. He can write in cursive, but it is sooooooo slow. I tried having him do *all* schoolwork in cursive for about 3 or 4 weeks, but it didn't get any faster. It just made school drag on forever. And we couldn't do "writing" because he's just not there yet. He can spell, but he still has to think a LOT about how to spell a word. I've dropped cursive for now. I might pick it back up sometime in middle school when his spelling has merged with his writing more. He can spell well in a spelling test, but has atrocious spelling during writing time. That tells me his brain is still putting it all together. Writing has been the last skill to come along his whole school career. When he entered K at just a few months past turning 5, he could read well and do math well, but he could barely write his name. The writing skills are greatly improving, and he can write paragraphs now, but I can't work on "composition" while having him write in cursive. He has to think way too much about everything to write fast.

 

The whole cursive thing just has me always ping-ponging back and forth. On the one hand, I'd like them to be able to write in neat cursive. On the other hand, I have boys, and frankly, I know very few men who write in cursive where I live. My own DH certainly doesn't use it. The important thing is that they can read cursive and sign their name. My oldest can do both of those things now, and I think he could learn to write better cursive when he's older and everything has come together. It's never too late to change your cursive handwriting style. I changed mine from 2nd grade looking scrawl to something that looks nice enough to use for writing notes to people - in my mid-30s! So it can be done. My cursive will never be beautiful like some women write, but it's better than it was. Changing a few of my capital letter formation styles really helped (like 'T' and 'F' I was taught Palmer style, and I cannot for the life of me make that style look pretty).

 

I have two other boys coming up. One is still struggling to make manuscript letters look neat (he's 7). I tried cursive with him in K, but he just didn't have the fine motor control to make anything cursive look legible. And I know all the cursive folks say curves are easier, but that has NOT been the case for any of my kids. They have ALL found straight line letters much easier to form. That's why they automatically default to capital letters, even before I ever taught them capital letters! My 7 year old is doing much better about not putting capitals in the middle of a word, but sometimes he'll throw in a capital 'A'. He really prefers that to the lowercase circle. Circles are hard to make look nice. Straight lines are easier for him. So no cursive for him anytime soon, and I'll probably just do a basic run-through in 2nd or 3rd grade to get him able to read cursive and sign his name. My youngest could probably learn cursive now (he's 4.5) and do well. His handwriting is already better than that of the 7 year old's. He has crazy good fine motor skills. He also has already figured out how to read cursive. He read a cursive note from his grandmother when she sent him a Valentine's Day card. It said, "Happy Valentine's Day. Love, Grandmama", and he was able to figure all of that out on his own. So cursive might work better for him. Writing seems to be coming together for him much quicker than it did for the other two. (interestingly, the math brain hasn't jumped out with him as early as the other two, so I wonder if the older two's brains just put more work into math than in writing, whereas this child's brain put more work into talking, reading, writing, and overall fine motor skills).

 

So I have one kid that probably could have done cursive first, if he hadn't figured out manuscript on his own from looking at other people's writing. :tongue_smilie: He's 4, so I could still do cursive now, but at the same time... I just I just don't know that I care. I want legible, neat handwriting, but I really don't care if that handwriting is cursive or manuscript. They just need to be able to convey information to other people easily when typing isn't an option. I've received handwritten notes in manuscript and didn't think the people were uneducated. In fact, it was often from engineers. And as an engineer, I don't recall ever seeing someone write in cursive to comment on my code or my documents that they were reviewing. They always used manuscript. And you can't tell me any of them were uneducated. ;)

 

Sorry, this turned into a novel and probably doesn't have much to do with the OP. :lol: I just grabbed Hunter's comment and ran with it!

[SorrelZG]

This has been an informative and timely read. I've been back and forth on handwriting for DD since her brother learned cursive in K and I expected to teach her in K also (and she's on the older end). I knew she wasn't as advanced in fine motor skills as DS early on so I was taking that into account when it wasn't clicking as well and as fast as it did for him but I hadn't given any thought to the fact that DS was also reading fluently and freely in kindergarten with an incredible visual memory for spelling. Thank-you for the light bulb moment, Hunter!

[Hunter]

In the homeschool world, too much of bad handwriting is based on hand-eye coordination, and not enough on brain development. Too much is blamed on lack of practice, and not enough on proper ORDER of instruction.

 

Few engineers have the type of brain development that makes the the multitasking of cursive writing easy enough to be worth it. They print, because it is how their brains work.

 

Even all caps is sometimes about more than hand eye coordination. Straight lines are easier for the BRAIN as well as the hand. It's less vague. Most students that can write in all caps, can handle Spalding manuscript, though. Once they practice learning to draw the circle, and then learning where 2 and 10 o'clock are, the BRAIN has the needed precise instructions. All caps is easier though, and some students should be allowed to write in all caps and practice doing that neatly.

 

Neat handwriting is about CONSISTENCY of size, style, slant, etc. I've seen some beautiful all caps handwriting from a machinist I knew.

 

Handwriting is primarily about communication. We don't want to tie our student's hand behind their backs, not giving them the tools to communicate effectively with.

 

One of the hardest things about transitioning from manuscript to cursive is going from vertical to slanted. If doing manuscript first and then cursive, a plan that allows the retention of the same slant is a good idea. I choose to use a vertical slant, because it's easier for LDs and lefties, than a right-slant. A right slant is quicker and smoother to write, though, for those people who are born with the BRAIN development to allow it's use with ease. Those aren't MY students though. :lol:

[boscopup]

Few engineers have the type of brain development that makes the the multitasking of cursive writing easy enough to be worth it. They print, because it is how their brains work.

 

Even all caps is sometimes about more than hand eye coordination. Straight lines are easier for the BRAIN as well as the hand. It's less vague. Most students that can write in all caps, can handle Spalding manuscript, though. Once they practice learning to draw the circle, and then learning where 2 and 10 o'clock are, the BRAIN has the needed precise instructions. All caps is easier though, and some students should be allowed to write in all caps and practice doing that neatly.

 

You know what? When my 7th or 8th grade teachers finally said we could write in manuscript if we wanted (no longer requiring cursive as they'd done since 2nd grade when we learned it), I switched to manuscript, ALL CAPS... and purple pen. :lol: In high school, I finally switched to regular manuscript, but there was that all caps phase in middle school that was just plain easier (and probably partly rebellion from the cursive). You may be onto something here...

 

I do teach my kids Spalding style manuscript, constantly reminding them to start at 2 o'clock, etc. It does help. My 7 year old is doing very well with it, though yesterday I noticed he did the stick on the 'a' first, after I erased the capital 'A' in the middle of the word. :tongue_smilie: So I need to remind him before we get to the 'a' next time.

 

My oldest learned typical ball and stick in K at school (for 'b', draw a stick, then a ball... for 'd', draw a ball, then a stick). That really was not good. I remediated his handwriting, but to this day he *still* reverses those letters at times (he's 9.5!). Middle son, who reverses those letters in reading, does not reverse them in writing, since he learned the Spalding way first. Phew!

 

[Hunter]

It's interesting that the cursive-first O-G proponents are so quick to say that cursive is necessary to prevent b and d reversals, when the Spalding manuscript very seldom causes that problem, and usually only in students that ALSO mirror write in every way. These authors have read and used Spalding and KNOW that the Spalding font is more than adequate to prevent b and d reversals.

 

I find that some students need handwriting reviews. Boscopup, I'd do a lesson on writing "a" and then another lesson writing "a" words. I also have found that requiring a student to go back and fix their work is very beneficial.

[Hunter]

Boscopup, I think you just did what was the absolute easiest. It must have been like going from surfing the web on a smartphone, to surfing the web on a full sized laptop. You skipped over the option of tablets and netbooks and went right for the full sized. All caps is the easiest option for some STEM people, and what they SHOULD use.

[rebot]

It's funny about the STEM.  My husband and I are both engineers.  I don't think I've ever seen DH do anything but print.  I do a combination of print, cursive and my own shorthand.

 

I have been planning out our homeschool adventure since ds was about two.   In my head, he would be writing by now, but that image also included me doing arts and crafts on a daily basis and us always having a grand time while soaking up knowledge without even trying.  Reality is so much different.

 

I think I'm off to look into some handwriting programs. 

[Guest Nan Barchowsky]

As a handwriting specialist I am attentive to research. Within the last three or four years it has been shown that children learn best when they write by hand rather than type. They implant the forms their hands and fingers make into motor memory, but here I read concern about teaching print and/or cursive with little attention to the differences.

 

A close look at the print letters shows how stiff they are. They do not relate well to easy movement. The cursive alphabets that are most commonly known are not easy for children, especially if children learn to print first. Strokes for most print letters move from top-to-bottom. Children form habits of movement. The print alphabet is implanted in motor memory, the 'file' children use to recognize letterforms for reading.

 

A close look at the cursive that is most commonly known in the US reveals dramatic changes in the formation of the alphabet. Starting points for strokes, directions in which strokes move and shapes differ form print. Handwriting must be relearned. A second motor memory is filed in the brain. It takes time to develop cursive fluency because children must search that alternate motor memory file for the different letters.

 

As I read through comments I saw one referrence to italic. I wonder how many in the Well Trained Mind community use italic. Many homeschoolers use my materials (www.bfhhandwriting.com) and many use the Getty/Dubay materials.

 

The advantage is that children learn basic letters that bear enough close resemblance to what they read so there is no recognition problem. Then those letters retain the same shapes, stroke starting points and directionality as they develop almort automatically into a legible, age-appropriate italic cursive.

 

 

[Hunter]

Like Spalding, some of the italic fonts are an easy transition from manuscript to cursive. But the basic italic font is tricky to copy exactly. It's pretty, but tricky to write. Instead of circles, or ovals, it uses rounded triangles.

 

Italic in a nature journal, written with a fountain pen, sure is pretty. But teaching it to little ones and LD students is beyond ME. I tried to use it with my 2E son back in the 90s, and I looked at it again recently, when LLtL's first edition workbooks were published with fewer fonts.

 

It is worth some families to consider italic, but I just don't know how to teach it to non-gifted students. It think it would have worked well for my older son, but I never tried, as there was no need to supplement what he learned at PS.

[journey00]

How old is he? Sorry if you answered, but I didn't see it.

He's 5. Very young. :)

[rebot]

He is five, six next month.  I figured we would slowly plug along and eventually it would all come together, but he wants to write now.

 

I still really like the idea of teaching cursive first, but in reality I think it makes more sense to switch over to print.  When ds was in preschool he learned how to print all of the uppercase letters and I find him still doing this every time I'm not there saying cursive, cursive, cursive.  

 

 

[Guest]

I  can tell you that I did not teach my 3 youngers any form of writing. They all started with capitals, then manuscript lowercase, then connected manuscript letters all on their own. Let it go for now. Experts do not know everything.