Using Startwrite for Handwriting Pages

[Mom2Monkeys]

My dd has done cursive with HWT, but it's aweful! I was given the New American Cursive (only) StartWrite Program and want to use that for improving her cursive.
What would be good to type up for her to copy so that she's doing very little each day, but enough to really learn the style. Bible verse, parts of the poems, sentences from R&S?
Should I start with individual letters or move on to sentences since she's done cursive before?
Should I have her trace it all at first (dotted) or should I just have her copy it on the line below?

She's working with the italics right now and prefers that book and style, but she's not doing well with the change in letter shapes (more oval with flat tops and she's used to more circle like letters). Maybe I should just stick with Italics? She just writes it so slowly so it's hard to make those shapes I guess. Hmmm...help me out please! She's one of those kids that would really have benefited with cursive first...learning a new way of writing is really slowing her down just when she was really starting to write! Which is why my K'er is going to start with New American Cursive instead of print! And that brings me to my next question...

Any advice on using startwrite for a K'er, no matter the font? Letter order, tracing vs. copying, individual letters first, lowercase first, etc.

[netpea]

My 8yo ds is in Bigger. We put the entire poem in Startwrite (cursive). I have him do part of it for each day so that he finishes it on Day 5 of the Unit. I also put his Bible Verse in Startwrite (cursive) and he does that. I will often put his verses from notebooking in Startwrite as well and then he cuts and pastes them into his notebook pages.

[funkmomma71]

Any advice on using startwrite for a K'er, no matter the font? Letter order, tracing vs. copying, individual letters first, lowercase first, etc.

First, what is New American Cursive?? As for Starwrite for K, I just used the letter order recommended on the HWT website and added picturess. I make worksheets that progress from tracing into freehand copying. I also encourage my dd only a do a few letters at a time and cirlce her best efforts. This last bit has been most helpful in that she evaluates her own work, this seems to make her try harder to do well.

[gestep]

For the K, I would start with lower case letters that are similar (like 'i', then 'u', then 'w', etc-since a 'u' is just 2 'i' and a 'w' is a 'u' with a hook-you get the idea). You can start by tracing, but we really enjoyed using salt in a pie pan with a finger for beginning practice then just talking them through the letter shape as they write and not doing the tracing. That was what worked for us but each child is different.
We have NAC but neither of our dd's preferred it. My 9 yo likes modern print but will tolerate modern cursive if she has to write in cursive. We used the McRuffy handwriting books but Startwrite has modern cursive which is pretty much the same. You can upgrade to the full Startwrite, with all of the styles including italics, HWT, modern and a bunch of others for $25 on the NAC site (that's what I did a few months ago and I love all of the choices. It seems my youngest loves all the loops of tradtional cursive-go figure ) We use the poems in Bigger for copywork but we jsut started with HOD a few weeks ago so we will probably add Bible verses too for variety. If you dd likes italics, I would let her continue with it. With practice she will most likely get better. If you do get the full version of Startwrite let her see the other styles maybe she will take a liking to an easier style. I learned that if they like the style and get to choose then handwriting is more enjoyable for all of us. I am by no means a handwriting expert and if you saw my writing you would probably not take my advice. LOL My view is if they can write legibly and read cursive and use it if necessary I am happy. I rarely see cursive used by anyone under 50 these days but it is still a skill they must learn IMHO.

Gina