Fountain pens for kids?

[lwest]

What are your thoughts on having kids learn to write with fountain pens? My mum had the most beautiful writing as when she went to school in England they used fountain pens. Her writing with a ballpoint pen is not as lovely. I think it might be worthwhile having the kids experience writing this way, but I am not sure it is worth the costs/time.

Are there any benefits/drawbacks to spending time doing this with kids? I have been debating it for awhile now.

If you have your kids use fountain pens do you have any advice/recommendations?

Thanks.

[maize]

French children are taught to write with fountain pens and are required to use them for most of their schoolwork throughout the grades.

Fountain pens are great for writing in cursive, and it is cursive that is taught in France--they start right off with cursive in kindergarten and never use print. Fountain pens are not so good for print style writing because they work best with a continuous flow of ink, not starting and stopping many separate strokes.

So--if you want to take a cursive-first approach, I think fountain pens can be great.

[kiwik]

When I was a kid (NZ 1970s) we switched from printing with a pencil to cursive with a fountain pen in what is now year 3 (grade 2) and used them until high school I think when we switched to ball points.  It was a big thing getting your first real pen.  I thought about doing it with my kids but decided to choose my battles.  I don't have beautiful writing but I can still manage a neat cursive despite having gone back to printing for high school and university.

[birchbark]

My three youngest have all learned to write (printing first, Smithhand) with fountain pens. It quickly trains them to use the correct pressure and keeps them from getting fatigued quickly. We use the disposable Pilot Varsity pens.