? about cursive in PHFHG

[kiloyd]

We have 24 pages left in Cheerful Cursive as we finish our last week of BHFHG. We skipped some days and I was going to have him do cursive each day til it's finished. Wondering what it would look like if I had him do 4 more for this week and saved the last 20 for when we start 4th grade and PHFHG in August. Would it mess up whatever cursive is scheduled for PHFHG?

Some how we skipped math and cursive and English some days and have more of those. I've been skipping some math and plan to finish it Friday and English too. But cursive I"m not sure how to finish it the best, ds is burnt out. Ideas?

Thank you,
Katherine
ds 9 (finishing Bigger)
dd 5
dd 3

[LynnH]

There is cursive copywork 3-4 x's a week in Preparing. Once a week is cursive in the Science notebook, once usually in history notebook and once in common place book, but sometimes there is one more depending on the week. If he knows how to form all his letters you might get by with having him just do the cursive in Preparing. The passages to copy start out fairly short, but get long quickly.

[my3sons]

Doing 1 thorough year of cursive with "Cheerful Cursive" has been enough instruction on cursive for our ds, and then we've just been able to have him follow the HOD plans for retaining that skill through copywork. This was such a breath of fresh air for me, as doing multiple years of formal cursive instruction was not something I wanted to have to do. So, in lieu of having to possibly teach another year of cursive or of having to revisit it due to not having had a complete year of it prior, I'd probably try to have him finish out "Cheerful Cursive", as it will fill in any gaps he may have and hopefully make it possible not to have to teach it again in another formal manner. The pages are super short, so if he just started his day out with it, it would probably take him 5-10 minutes, and within a month he'd be done. You can happily be skipping through the tulips at that point and just have him do the retaining lessons of cursive in PHFHG independently. HTH! On a side note, once our dc started using the guide as their own, we talked about how doing each box of plans each day would make it possible for us to finish school in time for summer, and that it would help them not have to be finishing out school then. This was a huge motivator for them, and helped them focus on staying on track so we didn't have anything to have to try to complete when we were all ready for a break!

In Christ,
Julie

[kiloyd]

Thank you Julie. We will finish up the rest of school today, I'm thinking I will tell him he has to do 3 pages a week to finish up his cursive book. He can choose if he wants to do 3 days in a row or every other day. Surely he cannot complain much in doing 1 page a day and that is it. We're just tired and I need to plan our breaks better this coming year.

The annoying thing is that we take off when family comes so I never really just get a week off to relax on our own.


Katherine

[Tabitha]

We are finishing Preparing now, and dd did finished her cursive when we finished Bigger.

However, her handwriting is horrible. She does not care about how it looks. Doing cursive in Preparing on unlined paper has not been good for her.

Memoria Press has a new cursive book now, it's on lined paper, and they are writing hymns and prayers. I am going to get that for her and have her do this over the summer. They still have areas to draw pictures like their other books, I believe. I was so excited to see this - lol - because I need something to get her to write neater.

And seriously, she writes so bad that you can't read 1/3 of what she writes sometimes. Even doing the notebook pages on lined paper in manual, it looks disgusting.

I would definitely finish up the cursive now. And, if your child needs more help feeling comfortable to write neat on unlined paper in cursive, I would find another smaller book for him to do. Preparing doesn't have any formal type of cursive instruction. It's just them copying verses or info from their books onto plain 'ole paper. For my dd, she obviously needs that sample infront of her to model longer than others might.

[Carrie]

Tabitha,

Your post struck a chord with me, as so many kiddos struggle with exactly what you are mentioning with your own daughter. All kiddos have their weak areas, and it is sounding like your little honey's weak area is handwriting. One thing to ponder is that Charlotte-Mason would say that neat handwriting is a habit, which needs to be worked on as all habits are, carefully and consistently one step at a time. With most kiddos who have poor handwriting, it's important to note that as the volume of writing increases, handwriting that used to be passable at best become illegible at worst.

While it is a good idea to work on handwriting in short time increments over the summer,it will be more important to address the habits she's formed with her handwriting during the school year. Likely, you should see some improvement in this area in the summer simply because it is one of the few or only subjects your child is working on, and she is probably doing very little work requiring handwriting during the rest of her day. However, during the school year it's important to really weigh how poor the handwriting is and whether it is bordering or moving toward the illegible. If this is the case, I would begin first by cutting back the amount she is writing (meaning you would neatly write the beginning part of the assignment for her), and then she would finish the last portion neatly. Charlotte Mason would say that a little done neatly is better than volumes done carelessly. Whatever is not done neatly would need to be redone. When they aren't writing as much, it is easier to have a child redo what is done carelessly. Then, the habit of doing written work carefully can truly be honed.

As your daughter improves in this area, she could take over more and more of the handwriting assignments herself. While this likely would feel like a backward step, it honestly is the retraining of a bad habit that has been allowed to form. I know this because I had it with my own oldest son, prior to reading more deeply about CM. I did not go as far back as expecting perfection from him (and had I been more willing to devote more time to the retraining of this habit I should have), but I did lessen the amount he wrote and did require him to redo as needed. This helped my oldest son immensely and his quality finally improved. Honestly, continuing to write in a workbook is a crutch that will not improve written work in the day-to-day writing. Kiddos can perform it on the workbook page, and then continue their messy habits in all of their other written work. These are just my thoughts, after years of using workbooks for handwriting with my oldest son and seeing little improvement. Diligently working on handwriting overall as a habit in all areas of written work bit by bit made the most difference at our house.

Also, if you feel that your child functions better with lines, as most children do, you can easily assign your child to write on lined paper for the notebooking assignments. Then, she can cut that portion out and glue it on her notebook page. We did this in my public school teaching days all of the time. It makes each notebooking page customizable to fit exactly what the assignment requires.

Blessings,
Carrie