At what age/grade do most of you stop teaching penmanship?

[iamrachelle]

My DD's penmanship is beautiful. I'm not opposed to having her practice occasionally, but we're doing penmanship most days and it seems a bit like a waste of time. Is this something we should maintain, or can I skip it?

[pbandpickles]

My daughter is starting cursive now even though she has already been dabbling in it on her own. But she has very neat handwriting and I don't think it will take long for her to master cursive writing. I assumed once she had that her daily writing in other assignments would be enough practice.

[FlockOfSillies]

I stop as soon as the student has mastered cursive. By that time there's plenty of writing practice to be had with regular schoolwork.

[mamaof2andtwins]

In an ideal world I would say when a child incorporates cursive into regular school work. I was not diligent with my older children and they still print most of the time. One of my fourth graders is using cursive so much that she is becoming comfortable using it in her regular school work. When she is annoyed or has had enough she will go back to cursive.

 

I think for me the jury is still out on the best way to handle penmanship.

 

Jennie

[sweetbaby]

I stop when they have mastered it pretty well and that's around 4th grade. In 4th grade, we write all of our work in cursive so they get plenty of practice with copywork, grammar, writing, etc. However, every child is different.

[LisaKinVA]

Most likely (for me) it will vary from child to child.

 

My oldest is in the 4th grade, and still needs it. He's beginning to incorporate it into every day assignments -- but we're still a ways from "being there." I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to stop penmanship practice by the end of next year for him (5th grade). He is on the younger side for his grade level, as he's only been 9 for 2.5 months.

 

My oldest dd is in the 1st grade, and I have high hopes that we'll pretty much be done with formal penmanship practice by 4th grade. She's one of the oldest in her age/grade class level, and very talented with a pen & pencil.

 

My youngest ds, who is in K, turned 5 in July. He's a very active boy (has to bounce through lessons). We're still working on proper pencil grip, so I expect we'll still be doing printing next year and will do a transition to cursive in 2nd grade... and probably finish up with curisve practice in the 5th grade like my oldest ds.

 

I have no idea where the younger two girls will be. If Lizzie keeps holding her crayons/pencils/pens with the proper pincer grasp, I could have an easier time -- and Abby, well, she's not born yet... so we've got a few years to evaluate her progress on the issue.:lol:

[Peela]

I would skip it but if it starts to deteriorate, bring it in once a week.

[newlifemom]

I had stopped it because dd finished R&S Penmanship last year. However, she asked for more. We are now working through (read just began) a penmanship course from the early 1900's. Spencerian Penmanship. It is very pretty and I think it will be rigorous for her but she wanted to do it.

[MerryAtHope]

If my kids' writing was beautiful I'd probably stop it! As long as they are doing lots of other writing & it doesn't go downhill, I don't see the problem there. If they are forgetting how to form letters sometimes, then they'd still need a writing curriculum.

 

Merry :-)

[Ellie]

You can stop having specific instruction, but you can always evaluate her penmanship in other subjects. Everything she writes, every paper in every subject, should have good penmanship. Some teachers give students two grades: 1 for content, 1 for mechanics, including penmanship.