cursive first??

There is a program called Cursive First… 

Peterson Directed Handwriting has a Cursive First Option…

With my son, I started with Cursive First.  He was getting fairly good at all the letters, and wrote nice when doing copywork….. BUT – anytime he had to write or chose to write (church, whatever) he printed – even though I never taught print.  And it was HORRIBLE printing….

About that time, I heard about Peterson Directed Handwriting (cursive) – and I liked how it discussed writing fluency, etc… and after talking to them… I switched him over to that system (and started my daughter on it.)  My son did well with the small changes to the few letters, worked well with getting the rhythm going, etc… and was writing very beautify handwritting – when he had a model.  Any time he had to or wanted to write – he used the same horrible self-taught printing.  So – 1 year of Cursive First…. 1 year of Peterson – and he is now 8, and can’t write without a model, and was very aware of it and complained that he didn’t know how to write.  (I do think he included spelling, thinking of what to say, as well as the actual writing.)  He started Scouting – and near the beginning, they had to copy/write a page of info about an activity they were going to be doing… and he couldn’t get it done (the leader wrote it out for him discretely while the cubs were playing a game.)   His sister – couldn’t do a simple letter after about 6 months….

At that point, I said – time to find something else – so we bought Penny Gardner’s Italics program.  My son’s writing (printing) although not perfect, is quite nice – and when he needs to write without a model, it is still pretty good.  It won’t take long to learn the joins.  My daughter’s writing needs more work – but she is writing all the letters, and it looks a lot better.

THAT SAID – I know people who have had great success with doing Cursive writing first….  

I teach cursive from the beginning now. Works great. My dd8 learned without difficulty. My ds11 transitioned at age 6. 

Here are some old posts:

http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/teaching-cursive-please-help#post-48181

http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/handwriting-help#post-8721

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