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My daughter, 8, is currently doing Italic D with Beyond, and I have a few questions about what we should do for cursive in the future. Short version - should I continue with the italic approach, switch to Cheerful Cursive, or give up!!

Her printing is excellent, in fact it's neater than my writing! Here is a recent sample (I know there are some spelling errors - I will get her to fix these later!): She does not like doing the "cursive italic" in Italic D, but I think it's just because she is so used to her normal writing style that it's hard to practice something new, and she is a perfectionist, so she doesn't like the look of her results. Copy work is quick for her, but doing her Italic workbook takes her a long time.
Next year she'll be doing Bigger, and I'm just not sure what to do for handwriting.

My dh thinks that I should get her doing a more traditional cursive, because he thinks a more traditional cursive is faster to write than the italic cursive. Following that plan, I would have her do Cheerful Cursive next year - and hope that she won't get too frustrated by learning another writing style...

What I originally planned was to have her do Italic E.

But frankly, when I look at her printing I'm very tempted to leave well enough alone and let her print everything, with just some instruction in how to read cursive. My sister has very negative feelings about the cursive her kids learned in school - if they had just focused on printing, perhaps they would have neat handwriting, but as it is, neither their printing nor their cursive is very legible. No adults that I know use regular cursive anyway, except, oddly enough, my dh!

So, please inspire me to put some effort into this cursive thing! Is traditional cursive faster than cursive italic?

I think I will eventually do Cheerful Cursive with her sister, since perhaps it's more fun than Italic D? I think it would please Dad. Perhaps I should just do CC with both of them next year - I made another post about my other child's handwriting.

IDK. I think her cursive looks great, especially for her age. Have you asked her about it? I wasn't taught italic (I don't think), but my natural handwriting is similar (not all letters connecting). Perhaps print a page of more traditional cursive and let her see what she thinks.

I would have her continue cursive, perhaps waiting to pick it back up in the fall. Also, at this age, my ds is almost 9, I only require his handwriting lesson in cursive. I don't want him to have think about forming letters correctly as he's also trying to think of how to spell, grammar rules, etc. In his various "for fun" notebooks I'll often find cursive, I just don't require it.

Her writing is beautiful, but I agree with your dh. Traditional cursive is faster to write in general than printing and probably than the italic style as well since all of the letters connect smoothly. Overall I think it is easier than printing. I can print really well and make it look almost like typing since I took several years of drafting in college, but it is slow. I do find that I will take the time to print on many things, but if I am taking notes or something like that, I will write in cursive. I can go really fast. I know things are different now than they were when I was in college so perhaps she won't need cursive. I think now days a lot of students might take notes typing on a computer, but when I was in college, cursive was the way to take notes and keep up with the lecturer. there was no way I could have kept up printing unless I had taken a class in shorthand.

Cheerful Cursive is a fun book to work through. It teaches not only how to write in cursive but also how to read cursive so it would be a great book for your dd to go through even if she doesn't like writing in cursive. I think she will enjoy the book with its fun characters, and in the end it will help her in reading other cursive styles. So for that reason, I think I would have her join her sister in doing Cheerful Cursive next year.

Thanks so much for your replies. At this point I think I might have her do Cheerful Cursive with her sister once we get to Bigger. Perhaps I'll give her a "cursive vacation" until we get there...

May I add my questions to this? We are using Beyond for my 8yo daugther and she wanted to learn cursive, so I went ahead and bought CC. SInce it is officially taught in Bigger, I am assuming there are explicit directions on how to use CC. I have never taught cursive, so I am not sure how to do it. I have been letting her do a page a week, and practicing in a salt tray, but not much past that. I am not sure it's sticking, with only a couple days' worth of practice. Do you have them work on chalkboards? do a page/letter a week, use learned letters in daily copywork (or would that be weird, having a cursive letter here and there, trying to connect it to print?)? With so much else going on, I haven't been attending to cursive with her as a Teacher-led activity, but it's a nifty book and I want to use it to the fullest! (her brother is doing Happy Handwriting, but again, I think I am not addressing it fully as I need to)
The 12yo hasn't ever done cursive, or not much, and she bucks it like you wouldn't believe. I agree with you all that cursive is so much faster, and with her affinity for fantasy and for drawing, I would have thought she would be all into it! Should I force it, and if so, what to use? CC seems a little too cutsie for her, being 12 and all....I love the method though, learning by strokes, not ABC order.

sally

SInce it is officially taught in Bigger, I am assuming there are explicit directions on how to use CC. I have never taught cursive, so I am not sure how to do it.

Other than a schedule, there is no instruction on cursive in the Bigger manual. We used Pentime 3 and 4 instead, which is more of a traditional cursive, similar to the traditional Zaner-Bloser that I learned as a child. One note, the cursive copywork in Draw and Write Through History uses the newer version of Zaner-Bloser without all of the loops. I am not sure which style Cheerful Cursive teaches to write, but it is one without all the loops, too.