Cheerful Cursive or Italic D

[jhperry]

My dd will be 7 by the fall and I'm trying to decide what to use for cursive handwriting and whether to begin it then or wait another year. We have used HWT up until now and her printing is neat. I used HWT Cursive with my older two kiddos but would like to try something different with this child. I'm wondering if it is better to just let her do the printed copywork in Beyond and wait one more year for cursive? Also, if we haven't done any of the prior books in the Italic series, will we be able to just jump in at book D?

[mom23]

We did the Italic cursive book, without any of the previous Italic books, and it worked fine. Although I 've been debating which one to use with our second child, I did like Italic D, and will likely use it again.

[LovingJesus]

I used Italic A thru D with my oldest. He loves doing Italic handwriting. The challenge I found though was that he was still unable to read his grandmother's letters that are written in traditional cursive. So I started Cheerful cursive with him this winter. I love Cheerful cursive for how it is both teaching him to write and read traditional cursive. It is a wonderful book, and it really is teaching him to read cursive easily. Based on this experience I am having my ds7, who turns 8 next week, start Cheerful Cursive with the Bigger program that he just started; he has done Italic A thru C and will be doing Cheerful Cursive instead of Italic D.