Cursive

[Elizabeth86]

My almost 8 year old has started cursive this year.  His handwriting isn't great.  My handwriting isn't great.  I remember it being a very frustrating thing in school for me and it is for him too.  .  Anyway, I just keep encouraging him.  His print gets better each year, it's legible.  I'm sure cursive will be the same.  We are using Zaner-Bloser for cursive and he CANNOT make his letters slant.  No matter what I say or what he tries to do, they are straight up and down.  I was signing a check to pay a bill the other day and noticed that my signature was straight up and down too.  I never write in cursive and haven't since I was in school, so it didn't occur to me I can't make my letters slant either.  Anything I can do to help him out, or do I just let it go?

[HomeAgain]

Channie's sells paper with slanted blocks.  I'm not sure if it would work for you, but the extra color and lines are things that help my kid.  Mine does Spencerian and it starts with extra guidelines until the muscle memory is set.

[Mommyof1]

My 6 yr old wanted to do cursive (she's artsy and thinks it pretty). She doesn't slant her letters because she doesn't want too. She likes it straight up. I was taught to slant my letters but I have also come across handwriting curriculum that doesn't slant. I don't care as long as it's looks nice and her letters look like those letters on the page. Slanted or not is a preferance.

[madteaparty]

Is it supposed to slant? Just straight-up (ha!) cursive is killing my evenings, now we need angles too? 🙂

[Lori D.]

Perhaps try running through Callirobics first -- it has you practice the loops and lines that will then be used with cursive.

[ktgrok]

Handwriting without Tears cursive doesn't slant, that might work better. 

[forty-two]

Fwiw, though the cursive program we used slanted (Smithhand), my dds naturally didn't slant and I didn't make a thing of it (cursive was hard enough) and it wasn't a problem - they ended up with a nice-looking, legible and practical cursive hand.  I mean, if you otherwise like the program and it is otherwise going well - your dc's non-slanted cursive looks legible enough and they aren't having difficulties with learning a non-slanted cursive from slanted teaching - I'd think you could just ignore the slant but otherwise go on with the program you have.

[Sarah0000]

Could the slant come naturally once fluency and speed is reached? My DS writes his cursive without a slant when he's free writing but when he's doing copy work (and not stopping to think about spelling) I've seen a bit of slant come through. 

[Ema]

I wouldn’t choose to die on that hill either. The fact that he is learning cursive at this point is enough. I was never that great at getting a slant, but now that I am teaching my kids I am able to fix that, and it is easier to fix as an adult than it was for me as a kid. We are using Pentime and the kids love it. If you do want to work on the slant, they have a nice piece of paper that has diagonal lines in dark print. You place it under the page you are writing on, so you can see how your letters should slant. My 4th grader is just now starting to really get the slant, and she has been doing cursive for 3 years. I think that the letter formation is enough for some kids to deal with to begin with.

[Elizabeth86]

Thanks guys.   My personal feelings is that it is no big deal at all.  I just like feedback from others.  I think I will take the advice with just going with our program and not worry if it is slanted.  After he masters the letter, maybe he can work on the slant?  I just keep reminding myself that I had 20 some kids in my classes in school taught by 1 teacher and there were probably 20 different looking handwritings SO really I mean all you can do is show them the correct way, right?