Cursive in different languages??

[4KookieKids]

I've been considering starting to teach my son (almost 5) cursive, because he has a lot of issues with reversals/orientation (d,b, p, and q always throw him, but so do u/n and several others). However, as I started to look at cursive sheets, I was struck by the fact that a few letters are markedly different than what I learned! I thought maybe it was just a style issue, and found this link http://www.cep.pdx.edu/samples/compare.pdf comparing different kinds of cursive, but it still didn't address my concern.

 

So then I realized that it might be language/country dependent, and lo and behold, I find "my" cursive here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schreibschrift . Makes sense, since I did grade school in Germany. But this raises the question -- what cursive should I teach my kids? I'm far more comfortable with "my" cursive, naturally, but I'm concerned that he should learn "American" cursive, since we do live in the US (and mostly likely will live here permanently). Only a few of the lowercase ones are radically different (those American z's are crazy and took me a long time to figure out!!) but lots of uppercase letters are significantly different. I feel like the American cursive will probably suit his needs better, just in terms of usefulness, but I also feel like my own cursive writing is pretty set and I would accidentally write things "my" way and confuse him a whole bunch if I tried to go solo-American cursive.

 

Help! :)

[Guest]

Teach him yours. To quote dh, "American cursive is ugly and strange looking, not to mention nearly undeciperable."

 

Mine taught themselves UK style Italics which is what dh and I both use. It looks like D'Nealian print but joined up without a slant and the capital J is crossed.

[4KookieKids]

Ack! I spent some more time looking around, and now I'm even more confused! From looking at this site http://www.unkonzentrierte-schueler.de/Pages/GratisDownload.aspx  it looks like I learned Lateinische Ausgangsschrift -- but is that not actually what's taught in German schools? If I teach my kids this, will it be completely irrelevant, or does anybody else actually use it?

[mprez]

Looking at the link, I was taught zaner-blozer. I intend to teach DD the cursive I learned. DH was taught d'nealian. Last month, I made DH write cursive. I told him some letters are written wrong. I insisted mine is right because I've been writing in cursive ever since it was taught to me while he writes in manuscript. Turns out we learned different styles.

[saw]

Unless you're planning on sending your dc to school during the time in which the school would be teaching them cursive, I think I'd pick a cursive style that made sense to me and for which I could get quality inexpensive resources that are readily available.

[quelle.que.soit]

We are teaching French because it is her first language.  I would probably teach whatever style you expect to be most likely used later in life regardless of price, because the cost to them could be high later for being cheap now.

Whatever you choose, there are mental and coordination benefits to learning how to write in cursive.  For myself and most other people I know, we have all developed our own sort of style of writing through our lives that is nowhere near perfect cursive.

[EndOfOrdinary]

I went to Catholic school in the US which taught formal calligraphy cursive. It looks slightly different in a few letters than someone who did not go to Parochial school, but I have never had anyone say they did not understand it or know how to read it. I could read all the styles which were presented on the links. In general, they are all similar enough that it is more an interesting part if who the writer is than an international communication problem. Your so will probably develop his own hybrid writing anyway. Most people do over time.

[nansk]

Ack! I spent some more time looking around, and now I'm even more confused! From looking at this site http://www.unkonzentrierte-schueler.de/Pages/GratisDownload.aspx  it looks like I learned Lateinische Ausgangsschrift -- but is that not actually what's taught in German schools? If I teach my kids this, will it be completely irrelevant, or does anybody else actually use it?

That sample of Lateinische Ausgangsschrift looks very pretty. In your place, I would teach that to my kids. It is seems pretty easy to read, so I can't imagine that someone won't be able to read your children's writing. Who cares of anybody else uses it or whether it is still taught in German schools? It will be taught in your German school. :)

 

[In The Great White North]

Teach them the one you like best.

 

I haven't heard of American teachers fussing about handwriting for more than 30 years.  (If you're kids will ever be going to school on Europe though, teach them what is taught there.  When dd did an exchange year, they made her switch to their style of handwriting.)

 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I wouldn't worry about what style you choose.  Make sure hecan read the American one if necessary, but if heshould need to go to school suddenly, he may find that his school doesn't even teach or require cursive anyway.  And they probably won't care what style he uses, as long as it's legible. 

 

After a certain grade, schools will expect things typed anyway probably. 

 

We've done a bit of mix-and-match.  We did the basic Kumon cursive workbooks, but now I've switched to the local Swiss workbooks.  I like the Swiss font better, except for lowercase p, which they don't close for some annoying reason.  lol. 

[4KookieKids]

I wouldn't worry about what style you choose.  Make sure hecan read the American one if necessary, but...

 

 

This was actually an issue I had with some of the American capital letters. I had to flat out ask in grad school when someone used a cursive G in a math class, and there was no "rest of the word" or anything to tell me what the letter should be. :)

 

 

We've done a bit of mix-and-match.  We did the basic Kumon cursive workbooks, but now I've switched to the local Swiss workbooks.  I like the Swiss font better, except for lowercase p, which they don't close for some annoying reason.  lol. 

 

 

I find that annoying too, and may just close my p's anyway! :D I'm not sure yet...

[Nan in Mass]

I am American and was taught American script in third grade.  I looked at the website with your type of script and could read it just fine.  Most of it looked the same to me, in fact.  I would just teach your children your script.  I don't think it will cause any problems in the US and will be more internationally readable. : )  I taught mine the one I learned.  It is a bit easier to teach script if you can obtain a workbook, but you don't really need one.  I taught one of mine without a workbook and one of mine with one.  I had to remind myself how to make a captial Z and a captial Q, since I mostly print and usually just do those letters in print, even when I am writing in script.  I just wrote out the alphabet and then lots of words to first trace, then copy.  It worked fine.  Like you, I was worried about teaching a different style from my own writing, thinking it would be confusing.  When we used a workbook, I picked one that matched what I had been taught.  Homeschooling is hard enough without having to change my handwriting lol.

 

Nan

[4KookieKids]

I am American and was taught American script in third grade.  I looked at the website with your type of script and could read it just fine.  Most of it looked the same to me, in fact.  I would just teach your children your script.  I don't think it will cause any problems in the US and will be more internationally readable. : ) 

 

 

I think I was more concerned that they wouldn't know what others are writing, because that's an issue I had. I think most of the letters are similar or look "more" like their print in the one that I learned, whereas there are quite a few letters in American cursive (G, I, Q, Z, z, r) that I couldn't recognize on sight when I encountered them. Of course, it seems obvious to me (NOW! :) ) that I can just teach him to recognize those American cursive letters, even if he doesn't write them that way. 

 

It is a bit easier to teach script if you can obtain a workbook

 

 

 

This is one of the reasons I was really stoked to find that website I linked to. They have printable worksheets for a nice variety of (German) cursives. So I printed out the sheets here http://www.unkonzentrierte-schueler.de/Pages/SchreibschriftbuchstabenLA.aspx since they match my script, and my son really likes them so far. He especially likes the first page of each letter, where each letter (uppercase and lowercase) takes up half the page and they trace the letter in various colors (first yellow, then orange, then red, etc.) because he's really artistic and loves coloring the rainbow. :)

 

It is hard to get him to loosen his grip on the pencil/pen, but I suppose that's not really a language specific issue! He's been working so hard on grip strength at his preschool while tracing out ball and stick letters that I'm not really sure how to get him to relax. Right now, we're just experimenting with different pens and pencils trying to see if one is "smoother" for him.

[DoppeltGemoppelt]

I had the same issue with my twin boys. I finally decided to teach them the American way, but every time I encountered a letter that differed from German cursive, I thought them both ways. I told them "This is how most German kids learn how to write it." Then I just moved on. This way, if we ever move to Germany, they'll expect things to be different and will hopefully have an easier time to adjust.

[yinanyinu]

My daughter also often mixed up her letters, and now has very good penmanship, as well as spelling, no thanks to me. This is just to say that your son's difficulties may just be a stage which he will work through, regardless of which style of writing he learns.

 

On cursive, I teach the children what I was taught, and modified printables if I could find them. Otherwise, I made my own by hand. When they were around 5/6, we used handwriting practice sheets (letters, words, etc) to occupy downtime while waiting at airports, offices, etc.; but I did not spend a lot of time on pure handwriting practice. DC do a lot of writing as part of their work, of course. I also did not spend any time teaching them to recognise the different handwriting styles because I thought that they would just naturally pick it up through exposure. And there are probably infinite variations on what is taught in schools which would stump anyone, and which I can't possibly cover. I think it's most important to find a script which is easy for DC to write and which is legible. If you've chosen it, it's good.

 

Having said that, I do have my biases although I still haven't been able to 'drum' them out of DC: in Chinese, they are taught to write the horizontal stroke first and then the vertical stroke. So, when they write "t" or the plus sign, they would start with the crossbar and then the downstroke. I tried to teach them to reverse the order but it hasn't stuck, simply because there is no logical reason for my insistence! =) Pet peeve.

[maize]

I learned American cursive in 3rd grade and French cursive in 6th grade, switching was not particularly difficult so I think it is reasonable to teach either the font you are most comfortable with or the one your child finds most appealing, if he needs to learn another form later he can.

[Guest hmulford]

We live overseas and our girls attend an international British School.  The cursive is different than the American cursive.  We have just decided to let them learn they way they are being taught, otherwise they will get really confused! 

[Espresso]

I apologize if this post is too old to reply to, I am new around here and different forums have different ways.

 

Anyway, I learned a very calligraphic form of cursive in my home country. It looks somewhat like this:

 

 

We had calligraphy classes with ink pots and whatnot all the way until the end of high school. Still, it was gradual. We started with print in K, and then in first grade we did a hybrid with print capitals and cursive lowercase letters. Slowly we made our letters fancier until fourth grade and developed our personal handwriting. Later on, we'd learn four or five specific calligraphy fonts that required more precise strokes.

 

I plan to do the same with DS. We'll start with the plainer US cursive, if only just because I want to continue the Handwriting Without Tears books, and then we'll have time to change things up once he's mastered that. Also, I've had to change some of my print and a few numbers to avoid confusing DS, and it hasn't been a big deal so far.