Handwriting continuity

[woodrumfamily]

We will be new to HOD in the fall, and I'll have a 5 y.o. in LHFHG and a 7 y.o. in Bigger. My 7 y.o. is ready for cursive, but I''ve been using a D'Nealian style workbook to teach her how to print up until now - just because that's what I learned in school. However, I have never been happy with my handwriting, even as an adult! With this being all she knows, will it be a hard transition into Cheerful Cursive? (Mind you, since this is our first time using HOD, I'm all about trying the things they recommend first, before anything else. ) I was planning on using A Reason for Handwriting with my 5 y.o...she knows how to write all her letters and form words, but has never formally been instructed on correct handwriting. I feel crazy, but when I look at the samples of ARFH and there are no TAILS on the letters...I get a bad feeling!! HAHA! I always thought that in order to move seamlessly from printing to cursive, you needed to do D'Nealian style because the tails on the letters are more like cursive to begin with. Hope I'm making sense! Guess that's my ultimate question...what's the best way to transition seamlessly from print to cursive? Thanks!

[StephanieU]

We used ball and stick print (like ARFH) and my daughter is having no issues with Cheerful Cursive. Cheerful Cursive didn't make assumptions about how a child prints, so any sort of print can be used prior to Cheerful Cursive. You do not need to know about tasks for cursive at all, as connecting letters is taught in CC as one of the first lessons.

[Nealewill]

My two younger kids learned to writing with a different program than what HOD recommends (mainly because we found HOD after we had already started schooling). We easily moved into Cheerful Cursive and my kids hand writing looks amazing! I love it. It does a wonderful job of teaching the letters, their formation, and moving the kids from print to cursive. It is truly a great program.

[MomtoJGJE]

I honestly couldn't care less about my kids learning "proper" handwriting of any sort With that said...

DD1 - did both ARFH books because she wasn't writing enough in Beyond to really do copywork. Then she did Cheerful cursive on her own. She has great handwriting.

DD2 - We just did the first grade ARFH with her, on her own basically. Then she did Cheerful cursive on her own. She is my "I'm only going to do as much as required" child, so she would only do it when I mentioned it, which wasn't often. It took her three years to do the two workbooks. She has nice handwriting. It could be beautiful if she'd slow down and care.

DD3 - I was tired of ARFH at this point and did the italic books for her. She did all the Italics books HOD recommends and then we got Cheerful Cursive for her with Bigger. She has the worst handwriting of the three. But she has a mind that screams doctor or engineer. So bad handwriting and not typical handwriting (most engineers I know write in all capital letters) are par for the course. She enjoys doing the workbooks, but couldn't care less about translating the writing to her actual work.

DD4 - She's only just now starting to show an interest in writing anything. I'm going to skip the handwriting books with her and just have her do copywork. At least for now.

All that to say, my older three, having different level of instruction in different types of handwriting before CC had no trouble going into CC.

[my3sons]

Having visited with numerous homeschool families with dc coming to hOD from having used all different types of handwriting programs, everyone seems to rave about Cheerful Cursive! Having 3 sons, and we all know boys don't always take to handwriting with joy, I would agree - Cheerful Cursive just works. In case you haven't gotten to peek inside "Cheerful Cursive," here are some visuals for you...
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4180&p=30768#p30768

We enjoy Cheerful Cursive because it has characters that are introduced to make it more enjoyable, the order the letters are taught in make sense with the sequence of the strokes taught, the lines are of the proper size for success in writing (i.e. not too big, not too small), the trace over/trace within/write on own concept of practice works well, Cheerful Cursive is Christian so good things are being written, LA skills are incorporated but not to an extent that they take over the primary focus of teaching cursive, different cursive styles of writing letters are shown in a small box just to remind students not everyone will write exactly the same, students convert print to cursive/and cursive to print (a skill often needed when doing copywork from a text), and finally within the last portion of Cheerful Cursive students are asked to read/convert from cursive to print sentences written in different cursive styles (i.e. even some pretty messy ones), which again is a skill needed in life (ever seen a doctor's writing? ). Soooo, these are the reasons we love Cheerful Cursive in our home. I think you will find it effective and fun. Carrie has done an outstanding job choosing cursive programs. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie