Anyone just do their own thing for handwriting?

[mamamindy]

I think that's just what we're gonna do! :)  I am SURE there are others.  I'd like to hear how it worked for you.  I successfully taught my first two manuscript (partially with HWT), then cursive (various resources), so I am familiar with proper formation, and strokes.  I would just go for ease and use a workbook, but I just have not been completely satisfied with anything yet.  (Zaner Bloser comes close - as a font I like, anyway- but I hate the glossiness of the books - it's hard to write in.)  I'd just rather have them write on paper.  I have decided to just trust myself to watch DS for his readiness and do our own thing.  My plan is to loosely use the instructions from WRTR for manuscript, and then cursive when he's ready, writing out my own copy work.  I am going to start writing out DD7yo copy work as well since she still needs a model.  My oldest is easy and has beautiful handwriting.

 

I know this is NOT a novel idea.  Actually, it was my initial idea with my oldest, but then next DD needed extra explicit help, had reversals, etc.  I don't know where I lost my confidence along the way thinking I needed a book for everything... Now that I've used some (nice) resources, I feel like I can confidently move forward using knowledge I have gained, not solely for handwriting instruction, but other areas of our academics as well.  Thanks for letting me share with others who would actually care!  (DH has just started chuckling at me when I start a sentence with, "I have decided..." :lol:

[Goldilocks]

It is so nice to reach that point in teaching our children when we feel like we actually know something and can teach without a purchased curriculum.

 

It is even nicer when we learn this before all of our kids have completed the subject!

[Wabi Sabi]

I've taught both of my kids to write without a handwriting curriculum, and if I may say so myself, they both have beautiful writing. 

My oldest is a kid who has a real eye for aesthetics, so when he was in first grade I showed him several different styles of handwriting, let him pick the one that he liked best, and then we just went with it. Luckily he chose D'Nealian, which is what I was taught as a kid as well, so that made it easy for us. We spent several weeks learning each individual letter (trying to remediate some bad habits he picked up in preschool/kinder before we started homeschooling), then moved onto copywork. Instead of letting him do his copywork straight from the printed page in WWE, for example, I'd hand write it onto the dry erase board for him as a model and he'd copy it onto regular paper from there. We always used a little lapboard and this nifty little lapboard stand I picked up at the teacher supply store. We've had it for several years now and still use it on a daily basis; not bad for a $5 purchase! 

This is what his handwriting looked like when we started homeschooling at the very beginning of first grade: 

https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/260110_2110074433261_3610507_n.jpg?oh=58d1be47b2e186c5e1e89414659da720&oe=54EF8AD8

By October it had improved considerably: 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/313504_2548532674443_1016734877_n.jpg?oh=53604f415684da3428913e4c6323da1c&oe=54D27148&__gda__=1424384385_0f1784a598ff4ceb5af9357c5fdcdf6d

And by the end of his first grade year his handwriting had already matured even more: 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/306509_3725502537954_508558552_n.jpg?oh=a98a977c6e12e14871f2a4c983c07295&oe=551FE11D&__gda__=1428000058_844a3a68ed0b3285f67b90e13f6a6441

It worked well enough for him that by the time my second child was ready for writing that I felt pretty confident in just winging it on our own again. At 6 she now has great printing as well, and in the last month or two has slowly started learning cursive. 

[blondeviolin]

I taught my oldest two without workbooks or anything. It came about very organically as they started to become interested in writing: first their name, then simple sentences, etc. My third will need a workbook because she has all sorts of tendencies that won't work for me (clockwise circles, bottom up, horrible pencil grip).

[Angie in VA]

I've taught both of my kids to write without a handwriting curriculum, and if I may say so myself, they both have beautiful writing. 

 

My oldest is a kid who has a real eye for aesthetics, so when he was in first grade I showed him several different styles of handwriting, let him pick the one that he liked best, and then we just went with it. Luckily he chose D'Nealian, which is what I was taught as a kid as well, so that made it easy for us. We spent several weeks learning each individual letter (trying to remediate some bad habits he picked up in preschool/kinder before we started homeschooling), then moved onto copywork. Instead of letting him do his copywork straight from the printed page in WWE, for example, I'd hand write it onto the dry erase board for him as a model and he'd copy it onto regular paper from there. We always used a little lapboard and this nifty little lapboard stand I picked up at the teacher supply store. We've had it for several years now and still use it on a daily basis; not bad for a $5 purchase! 

 

This is what his handwriting looked like when we started homeschooling at the very beginning of first grade: 

 

https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/260110_2110074433261_3610507_n.jpg?oh=58d1be47b2e186c5e1e89414659da720&oe=54EF8AD8

 

By October it had improved considerably: 

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/313504_2548532674443_1016734877_n.jpg?oh=53604f415684da3428913e4c6323da1c&oe=54D27148&__gda__=1424384385_0f1784a598ff4ceb5af9357c5fdcdf6d

 

And by the end of his first grade year his handwriting had already matured even more: 

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/306509_3725502537954_508558552_n.jpg?oh=a98a977c6e12e14871f2a4c983c07295&oe=551FE11D&__gda__=1428000058_844a3a68ed0b3285f67b90e13f6a6441

 

It worked well enough for him that by the time my second child was ready for writing that I felt pretty confident in just winging it on our own again. At 6 she now has great printing as well, and in the last month or two has slowly started learning cursive. 

 

Wow. That is some progression in very little time. Well done!

[Doodlebug]

I branched off on my own in handwriting so that we could work smarter -- integrating subjects.  I really like the results and wish I'd been brave enough to do it sooner. ;)

 

Currently, we use our history memory work sentence across all three days of cursive handwriting practice.  He traces the sentence on day one.  He copies/dictates the sentence on day two and I circle areas that need a closer look.  On day three, he copies the sentence again making those corrections.  This works far better for us than changing up the content daily... his handwriting improves with each attempt, and an added bonus is that it seems to cement those elusive history dates!

 

So go for it!  I think you'll find you love it!

 

Stella 

[EndOfOrdinary]

I found my son much more engaged when he got to dictate a sentence which I wrote out, then he wrote it in cursive. We started with a word at a time and worked our way up to three sentences. There were quite a few aliens, ninjas, and zombies involved, but the sentences were much more fun than workbook ones.

 

He will still ask occasionally about how to do a capital Q or an X. I think this is just do to not using them in general. I do not think a workbook would really gave helped much. In aenglish we just do not use the letters frequently enough.

 

We are beginning copywork in January. This will be fifth grade. The point is to really perfect the artful side of handwriting. His cursive is reasonably legible, especially when he is not just writing for himself, but it is not artful. I want him to view language as an art form, both the word choice/composition and the physical writing of the letters, and I do not think that would have been possible before this year as he just did not have the maturity.

 

I put in the last part about copywork only because I think it is important to have a specific goal for the handwriting. Mine was to get my son fluently writing in a way that people could read and that did not take eons for him to get an idea on paper. It did not need to be beautiful initially. It just needed to happen. Other parents I know really wanted to focus on the beauty right away, and thus did far more scribing initially, or had kids writing in print longer. Neither is bad, but trying to do both at once woukd have been very stressful. For most kids the fine motor skills are just not completely ready to tackle both speed and fluid beautiful writing.

[Lori D.]

We went with a "DIY" approach. Riddles and limericks were popular. In the first year when it was mostly just a sentence, we made them fun sentences all starting with the same letter of the alphabet, and the next day moved on to the next letter. Adding a few sentences a day to a family story was fun, too.

[Hunter]

I never use a writing curriculum, other than the free resources from the Don Potter site or pages photocopied from a WRTR book.

[SilverMoon]

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Edited September 5, 2023 by SilverMoon

[MotherOfBoys]

We haven't used a writing curriculum either. Someone gave me handwriting paper for free. I write at the top what I want them to write underneath. I wasn't going to pay money, especially $15 for one level of handwriting that I could do myself.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

We are, at least kindergarten level. Then we'll start on Zaner Bloser. We're doing handwriting without a pencil to introduce letter formation.

 

http://sceleratusclassicalacademy.blogspot.com/2014/09/handwriting-without-pencil.html

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I have tried a number of HW resources and found them all to be expensive and not enough practice.  So we DIY.  I just write a line of copywork for my DD, and she copies below, or I type for my son, and he transcribes onto lined paper. 

[mamamindy]

Go for it! A few of my six have never touched a penmanship book. For the kids that did I usually told them something like, "Oh that must be a typo. You're really supposed to make the d in one stroke like this." They shrugged and did it my {pre-cursive} way. :)

 

My current 6yo is using Modern Manuscript from Evan-Moor this year though. It was cheap and saves me time. *shrug*

 

Fwiw, writing the samples on their pages with a highlighter gives them something to trace first if needed.

Well, after my little brag, I am thinking of doing the same thing!  I have some handwriting books i cleaned out of our school closet and I might just throw those at the kids to save time! ;)

 

I have tried a number of HW resources and found them all to be expensive and not enough practice.  So we DIY.  I just write a line of copywork for my DD, and she copies below, or I type for my son, and he transcribes onto lined paper. 

Yep, we've done this as well.  However, now that they both have daily copy work, I found the free Zaner-bloser (where you can type up your sentence in cursive or manuscript on the paper you want) site very helpful! 

[Southern Ivy]

I've taught both of my kids to write without a handwriting curriculum, and if I may say so myself, they both have beautiful writing. 

 

My oldest is a kid who has a real eye for aesthetics, so when he was in first grade I showed him several different styles of handwriting, let him pick the one that he liked best, and then we just went with it. Luckily he chose D'Nealian, which is what I was taught as a kid as well, so that made it easy for us. We spent several weeks learning each individual letter (trying to remediate some bad habits he picked up in preschool/kinder before we started homeschooling), then moved onto copywork. Instead of letting him do his copywork straight from the printed page in WWE, for example, I'd hand write it onto the dry erase board for him as a model and he'd copy it onto regular paper from there. We always used a little lapboard and this nifty little lapboard stand I picked up at the teacher supply store. We've had it for several years now and still use it on a daily basis; not bad for a $5 purchase! 

 

This is what his handwriting looked like when we started homeschooling at the very beginning of first grade: 

 

https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/260110_2110074433261_3610507_n.jpg?oh=58d1be47b2e186c5e1e89414659da720&oe=54EF8AD8

 

By October it had improved considerably: 

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/313504_2548532674443_1016734877_n.jpg?oh=53604f415684da3428913e4c6323da1c&oe=54D27148&__gda__=1424384385_0f1784a598ff4ceb5af9357c5fdcdf6d

 

And by the end of his first grade year his handwriting had already matured even more: 

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/306509_3725502537954_508558552_n.jpg?oh=a98a977c6e12e14871f2a4c983c07295&oe=551FE11D&__gda__=1428000058_844a3a68ed0b3285f67b90e13f6a6441

 

It worked well enough for him that by the time my second child was ready for writing that I felt pretty confident in just winging it on our own again. At 6 she now has great printing as well, and in the last month or two has slowly started learning cursive. 

I would die a happy woman if my 4th graders could write like either of the last two. The majority of them write similar (or worse) than the first.