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Hi All!

Question...
My daughter really wants to learn cursive despite the fact that she is in the beginning/intermediate stages of learning/perfecting basic manuscript (using A Reason For HW K and A). Should I indulge her, or is it imperitave that I wait and just work on basic manuscript for now? She is my artsy girl that loves the look of the "curly letters".
FYI, she is just five, but is so very creative. I saw the post regarding Cheerful Cursive and it got me thinking. I don't want to jump ahead and mess up any basic steps that need to be in place before beginning cursive, please advise this new home schooling mommy.
Thanks for any input.

Candice

Candice,
My opinion is that if your dd is interested, let her! I did this with both my older 2 dd's - when they wanted to learn it, I let them do it, pretty much on their own. Granted, both mine were 7ish at the time, but again, if she wants to, let her!
Brenda

There are some who think you should start with Cursive and teach manuscript later. If your dd wants to learn, I'd say go for it.

netpea wrote:There are some who think you should start with Cursive and teach manuscript later. If your dd wants to learn, I'd say go for it.

Yep, I agree!

I agree...I taught my ds cursive first and it is beautiful. His print is fine when he tries

Thank you so much!

Candice

Candice,

I'd agree that enthusiasm goes a long way in learning to write in cursive, so it is good to follow kiddo's lead in this area. However, your little girl is pretty young and is currently in the midst of fine-tuning her printing. So, I'd lean toward letting her have another year to come along in her printing before switching to cursive. Typically kiddos work on getting one style of writing down at a time, and then when that's down pat the alternative style is learned.

Just some food for thought!

Blessings,
Carrie

Makes perfect sense Carrie, thank you!

Candice

Candice wrote:Makes perfect sense Carrie, thank you!

Candice

I agree with Carrie as well. My thoughts are that it's not just about having fun writing it. You have to be able to read it as well. Not that that can't be done, but I'd hate to work twice as hard, because they had fun writing it, then they had to work even hard or try something else for them to be able to read it. Just a thought.

When you are ready to start cursive with the younger crowd, you really should find one that is aimed at early learners and not your typical 3rd grader. We teach cursive first now and use New American Cursive. My ds5 is Pre-K this year and wanted to learn to write. We loved the philosophy behind teaching cursive first, so we got the NAC StartWrite CD. There are workbooks too, but I like the CD so I can print off however many pages he needs. He is doing awesome! He is also teaching himself print letters when doing his phonics lesson in Reading Made Easy. He actually enjoys his handwriting lessons now which is great!

Another program that is more curly letters and made for little ones in "Cursive First". They also have lots of great info on their site about teaching cursive to early elem. kids.

coming in a bit later here, but I want to encourage you. I started all my kids with cursive when they were 4½ and they have each done really well. I did it for the first child b/c he had been writing manuscript letters INCORRECTLY since he was almost 3. I didn't want our first school year to be me constantly pointing out how he was writing wrong. So I went with Cursive First and he did great. He now does manuscript on his own, and he does it pretty well. My second has beautiful handwriting and I just started my third child. She has only done a few letters. [It is hard being #3 in this house!]

Candice,
Audrey is the same way. She sees me writing using cursive and wants to write that way. I have noticed that when she writes her name at the top of the page, we have a curly "y" at the end. She still needs more practice on upper and lowercase manuscript letters, so I am going ahead with A Reason For Handwriting A with her. Then, we will see where she's at.

LeAnna

Mom2Monkeys wrote:When you are ready to start cursive with the younger crowd, you really should find one that is aimed at early learners and not your typical 3rd grader. We teach cursive first now and use New American Cursive. My ds5 is Pre-K this year and wanted to learn to write. We loved the philosophy behind teaching cursive first, so we got the NAC StartWrite CD. There are workbooks too, but I like the CD so I can print off however many pages he needs. He is doing awesome! He is also teaching himself print letters when doing his phonics lesson in Reading Made Easy. He actually enjoys his handwriting lessons now which is great!

Another program that is more curly letters and made for little ones in "Cursive First". They also have lots of great info on their site about teaching cursive to early elem. kids.

Tamara,

Thanks so much for the additional information, I appreciate all of the details that you included, very helpful.

Candice

momof2n2 wrote:coming in a bit later here, but I want to encourage you. I started all my kids with cursive when they were 4½ and they have each done really well. I did it for the first child b/c he had been writing manuscript letters INCORRECTLY since he was almost 3. I didn't want our first school year to be me constantly pointing out how he was writing wrong. So I went with Cursive First and he did great. He now does manuscript on his own, and he does it pretty well. My second has beautiful handwriting and I just started my third child. She has only done a few letters. [It is hard being #3 in this house!]

Momof2n2,

Thank you for the encouragement, I appreciate it. Your kids sound like they are doing beautifully!
I think we will continue to work on manuscript since that is where we began, and in the mean time, will just let her fiddle around with cursive on her own and then eventually move on to a different style of writing.

Candice

LeAnna wrote:Candice,
Audrey is the same way. She sees me writing using cursive and wants to write that way. I have noticed that when she writes her name at the top of the page, we have a curly "y" at the end. She still needs more practice on upper and lowercase manuscript letters, so I am going ahead with A Reason For Handwriting A with her. Then, we will see where she's at.

LeAnna

Hi LeAnna!

We are right there with you, Danielle loves seeing her name with curls and waves, swoops and swirls...definitely a girly thing in this case! And yes, Danielle definitely needs plenty of practice as well with her basic manuscript at this point. So, we are just going to keep going along with ARFH and worry about the "fancy stuff" a bit later!

Candice