Penmanship in 1st grade - fresh ideas?

[Spryte]

DD is in first, and it's been a long time since I've taught first.  DS needed more hand-holding re: penmanship, and we were big fans of HWOT.  It wasn't beloved by him, it became a bit tedious, but it did the trick.

 

DD did HWOT for K last year, and ETC, and there was a lot of focus on letter formation.  We've started out with HWOT again, but honestly, she's such an eager, ready to go student, and this isn't feeling quite right.  She writes all the time, for fun.

 

Her grip is not perfect, but we're working on it.

 

I feel like we need another approach to writing.

 

I have a few things on the shelf - we've got Draw Write Now, which I don't usually think of as penmanship, but perhaps might be enough?  It's certainly more up her alley.

 

There's a cursive program geared towards youngers, I can't recall if it's Cursive First.  

 

And I have various writing workbooks and sheets that I can pull out for variety, as needed, but not more full programs.  And, of course, we have all the HWOT goodies - manipulatives, etc, but goodness, she's way past those.

 

Do I plow ahead with HWOT till the grip is completely smoothed out, and all letter formations are consistently right (she's at about 85% on those now, but some numbers are issues)?  Or switch to something else for her?

 

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[Petrichor]

Writing Road to Reading is nice because of the scripts for each letter.

 

But if she can write a nice letters if she takes it slow, maybe just take it slow?

 

At the beginning of 1st, I had DS write rows and rows of the same letter until they looked near perfect.

 

I'd tell him to write 3 perfect 'k's for instance, and sometimes it would take a few rows before he found some nice 'k's.

 

I had him analyze his letter formation. "What could be better about this 'a'?" And he took pride in working to get his letters looking nice.

 

I didn't have him write words (for school) until he was writing letters nicely. Outside of school, I let him write however he wanted to.

 

Whenever he slips into poor handwriting (within school), I have him rewrite the word, and sometimes even just practice a few of the problem letter.

 

He gets complemented on his handwriting.

[SilverMoon]

You could let copywork take over the penmanship. My first grader knows how to form the letters already. I insist on his best penmanship for his daily copywork, and if it's messy I'll erase it for him to redo immediately. This is enough for him and I won't add separate penmanship until he's ready for cursive. (2nd or 3rd)

[Spryte]

Thank you!

 

Dust, I like that approach.  It reminded me of how we worked with my oldest, who is an adult now.  He was in PS, but needed significant help with handwriting.  

 

We might do a combination of using what we need from HWOT (because I have it), and copywork as she seems ready.

 

Which leads me to what you said, SilverMoon, as I waited on responses I browsed a bit here, and came to the conclusion that once DD is forming her letters correctly, we might just move on to copy work through other subjects for the most part, and continue to monitor letter formation.  

 

It's been so many years since I've had a little to teach, that I need some refreshing.  Thanks!