Cursive for lefty

[McSalty]

Hello everyone,

I have a 10 year old lefty who really struggles with cursive. This is our 1st year homeschooling so he learned cursive in public school and they practiced it daily for 2 years. I feel like I have tried everything under the sun to get him to do it painlessly.  Left handed books, every type of pen or pencil, trying copywork of something his really into, researching with him why cursive is important, watching videos on tips for lefties, etc... I only require it once a day now. He still will complain and make a 5 minute exercise turn into 35 minutes or longer. This has been going on for months. Is there ever a point where I should just throw in the towel on something like this and come back to it later?

[Loowit]

I am not sure this is a lefty problem.  My lefty does cursive just fine.  I never bought special books or pens although I think I did get her a lefty pencil grip thingy for comfort and teaching better handgrip and taught her to slant her papers the opposite of what a right handed person would.

One of my rightys only writes in cursive, but my youngest who is right handed hates cursive.  I made him learn it long enough so that he can read it and write in it if he so chooses and after that let him decide what he wants to do.  Mostly my kids type things anyway now.  Some kids just hate handwriting.

[Ema]

I agree with the above. DD9 is a lefty and while it is a bit more difficult with the positioning of her hand so she is not ‘writing from above,’ so to speak, we haven’t done anything differently. It is her 3rd year doing cursive and is enjoying using it for her other assignments. Meanwhile my sister’s DS11 is a righty and complains and procrastinates and hates having to do it. I think it is just a personality thing. Some people like it, some don’t. Boys usually do have, I have read, more struggles and are often later to start with writing. I would just try not to make a big deal out of it. No more fancy stuff, no more trying to convince him it is important. Just say, “it is time for this, no snack until it’s done.” Good luck!👍🏻 

[Ellie]

Was he taught to hold his writing implement correctly, and to turn his paper so that his forearm is aligned with it? If neither of those happened, you're going to need to remediate.