Is handwriting necessary?

[tori729]

My son used HWT in his private school for K but I am teaching him at home this year. I went ahead and bought the next HWT for him but so far, we have found he gets a good bit of practice writing from journal ling and practicing trouble words and such. He doesn't like to write too much and I find that if it's something he's interested in, he'll go at it full force. So he doesn't really want to do HWT and I don't know that he needs it that much right now.

How necessary is a formal handwriting curriculum at this point? He can form his letters well and is actually asking to learn cursive which I know HWT doesn't do until 3rd grade I believe. Should I maybe find a cursive curriculum for him or just take a break this year and do some practice/review letters just so he can keep up with it?

[Ellie]

My son used HWT in his private school for K but I am teaching him at home this year. I went ahead and bought the next HWT for him but so far, we have found he gets a good bit of practice writing from journal ling and practicing trouble words and such. He doesn't like to write too much and I find that if it's something he's interested in, he'll go at it full force. So he doesn't really want to do HWT and I don't know that he needs it that much right now.

 

How necessary is a formal handwriting curriculum at this point? He can form his letters well and is actually asking to learn cursive which I know HWT doesn't do until 3rd grade I believe. Should I maybe find a cursive curriculum for him or just take a break this year and do some practice/review letters just so he can keep up with it?

 

Of course handwriting is necessary (which is what your subject line asked). :-)

 

So, is he 6yo? then probably you don't need something Official, but yes, he should  be working on his penmanship. Writing in his journal and practicing trouble words and so on counts. :-) You'll be correcting incorrectly written letters, of course, and helping him hold his pencil correctly and so on. :-)

[tori729]

Ok, I just wanted to make sure journaling and stuff like that would count. I will make sure I am on top of correcting his penmanship while he does it. We are also going through FLL which teaches some grammar as well.

So would it make sense to start some formal cursive curriculum for 2nd grade?

[Tanikit]

I started my DD on cursive halfway through first grade - when I was sure she was forming all letters correctly and could write very neatly within lines in manuscript and also when her manuscript had become almost automatic. Of course many people start with cursive itself and many say this works better for their children. Second grade should be perfectly fine.

 

If you are using other subjects to check handwriting then you need to be right on hand and sitting on the side of your child where you can watch exactly what he is doing - it is not good enough just to look afterwards and say that looks ok. My DD for some strange reason started crossing her T's from right to left and I had to sit there are watch and correct every single t she wrote until it again became automatic - this sounds pedantic because the T still looked like a T but when their writing needs to become faster it is important to have top to bottom and left to right in place as this speeds up writing. 

 

Neat handwriting actually many times seems to matter more in Math than in LA - you can usually make out what someone has written even if it is slightly messy when doing language arts, however write a number slightly messily or line up the numbers slightly skew and suddenly you will get the answer wrong which is another reason to work on handwriting. 

[sweetpea3829]

Well...let me give a slightly different perspective.  Or at least, a cautionary tale, lol.

 

With my oldest two, we did HWT K.  DD has some significant LDs and learning how to correctly form letters was very difficult for her, but finally, she mastered it.  

 

So on to 1st grade we  went...and I dutifully took out HWT 1st grade.  We did maybe the first two or three lessons and I dropped it because it seemed so redundant, and like you, my kids were getting plenty of HW practice in other areas.  Specifically, I had mine write their spelling words in capital and lower case, every Wednesday.  

 

Handwriting seemed to be going just fine.  And then slowly, I noticed my DDs handwriting deteriorating.  DS's handwriting has been fine, but DDs has slowly but surely, gotten worse and worse.  I've had to go back and start her all over again with HWT gray block paper to help her remember how to form the letters.  

 

With our 3rd kiddo, DS6, I'm going to continue having him practice letter formation through 1st grade, even though he's mastered them.  Just to make sure he doesn't fall back on old habits, and to reinforce that muscle memory that will hopefully lead to lifelong legible handwriting.  

[Rosie_0801]

If he wants to learn cursive, teach him before he changes his mind!

[RachelChick]

Agree.

[desertflower]

I agree with Rosie.

[kiwik]

And buy him a nice pen.

[Rosie_0801]

Oh yes! My dd loves her little fountain pen. Lamy ABC, I think it is called.

[Classically Minded]

We didn't use a handwriting curriculum at all, I simply taught my daughter how to form each letter of the alphabet properly and then she practiced that over and over again.  She also did copywork sentences in 1st grade in WWE and Bible and that was enough.  I never understood the reason for a penmanship curriculum. 

 

She did cursive at the end of 2nd grade and through 3rd teaching herself with the New American Cursive from Memoria Press.

[bibiche]

Oh yes! My dd loves her little fountain pen. Lamy ABC, I think it is called.

DS has the same and loves it. He started cursive at six and the pen really helped. Make sure to get some eraser/over-writer pens to go with it - they make it even more fun. :)

[mountains27]

My son is also 6 and HSing in 1st grade right now. He did HWT in his K public school last year and his handwriting is really good now. I have decided the 1st grade HWT book is redundant and not necessary if he is practicing his print in journal work and other everyday lessons. My daughter is a year older then him and did K and 1st grade in PS where she also did HWT so I have seen the 1st grade workbook and it is basically a review of the first. I've also looked over the second grade print book and have skipped that too and am moving on to cursive with my daughter (now in 2nd grade HSing). If either of my kids printing had been shaky looking I might have done another year in the print books but they actually look better then mine so we are moving on to cursive. My son also says he wants to try cursive now but I'm stalling on it slightly b/c he gets easily frustrated when something is hard for him and math is already giving him enough troubles right now so I'm going to wait until maybe mid-year to look at it with him again.

 

I like the idea of special writing tools to make handwriting and writing in general practice more fun, I might have to use that since my kids sometimes pout when I say they have to write anything!

[tori729]

Ok, so I'm leaning toward ditching the HWT 1 book. Thoughts on HWT 3 for cursive? Would that be too advanced for him?

I definitely need to be creative with writing with him. He loves to do journal entries but usually the writing part has to be something HE wants to write, not me. I don't think he would love doing copy work.

 

Suggestions on ways to get writing in without the HWT book? I guess I could just have him copy a history sentence or something. He does journal entries almost every day but they don't always have a lot of writing. I did sit behind him today and he does a lot of down-to-up instead of up-to-down so I know he needs some guidance but again, I do feel that HWT 1 is too redundant.

 

ETA: So since he's still needing help forming some of his letters the correct way, I think we'll hold off on cursive at least for this semester. I can go to the local homeschool store and look over the HWT cursive book so I might just do that at some point.

[Guest Girlofhope]

I think handwriting is very necessary.

[Amy M]

I start my kids with ABeka's cursive in first. It's very pretty. :)

[dbaeimers]

I did handwriting with each of my girls until they could write all of the letters properly and neatly.  With my oldest, by second grade she could write neater than many adults and I saw no reason to continue on with handwriting.  My middle daughter is in second grade this year and is still struggling to form some of her letters so we are still working on it.

 

So, yes I think handwriting is very important until it is learned.  No, I do not think you need 10 years of it.  

[sweetpea3829]

Ok, so I'm leaning toward ditching the HWT 1 book. Thoughts on HWT 3 for cursive? Would that be too advanced for him?

I definitely need to be creative with writing with him. He loves to do journal entries but usually the writing part has to be something HE wants to write, not me. I don't think he would love doing copy work.

 

Suggestions on ways to get writing in without the HWT book? I guess I could just have him copy a history sentence or something. He does journal entries almost every day but they don't always have a lot of writing. I did sit behind him today and he does a lot of down-to-up instead of up-to-down so I know he needs some guidance but again, I do feel that HWT 1 is too redundant.

 

ETA: So since he's still needing help forming some of his letters the correct way, I think we'll hold off on cursive at least for this semester. I can go to the local homeschool store and look over the HWT cursive book so I might just do that at some point.

 

Are you using any kind of dictation/copywork in your language arts?  If so, you could use that for handwriting practice.  

 

Ultimately, I found that my children had a hard time transitioning from the HWT gray block paper to the HWT two-line paper.  So I ditched the two-line paper and then I created a word doc with boxes that look like the HWT gray-blocks, except they're not grayed and they have a horizontal dotted line.  I use it for practicing lower case letters (many of which depend on that middle line) and to transition to three-line paper.  I also used it with DD when she needed to go back and practice her letters again.  

 

Actually, I have a number of gray-block pads that we're probably not going to use.  If anybody wants them, shoot me a PM, lol.  

[tori729]

Ok, so I changed my mind a bit. Upon observing his handwriting, he wasn't forming letters properly at all so I broke out the HWT book again and he actually doesn't mind doing it and I can already see lots of improvement. I think he just needed that review. We don't do it every day - some days we just do some basic copywork - but I think having that regular review of how to form letters and numbers is good for him.

[SeaConquest]

We did HWT K last year and just do copywork from ELTL1 now. We plan to do LOE Cursive next year. HWT cursive is not attractive IMO.