HWT to Italics Cursive

Heather,

I can’t answer all your questions, just give you decisions on this and some suggestions(?) I am switching my dd to D’nealian from HWT and my son from Zaner-Bloser to D’Nealian this next year. My dd had not gone into the HWT cursive yet as I think their cursive is ugly as sin, so it was a decision on which style to go into. I knew the best transition for them both would be a cursive style that was as upright as possible without sacrificing beauty (though my husband didn’t want many loops). I personally think D’Nealian has more of a “flow” to it that I think is lovely, without the flourishes of ZB, but fancier than Italics, IMO. Also, I recall being concerned about the width of the Capital cursives in Italics being so substantially different from the HWT capitals.

Anyway, the other I looked at was New American Cursive; I decided I didn’t like the pointed nature of the “v” and “w” and the “m” and “n” don’t go up all the way. Other than that, I think it’s real nice and upright. http://www.newamericancursive.com/alphabet/

But I think your son will be fine; I can’t speak to the older one; thought if you look at how your older one writes now, if it’s similar to Italics then I think it’ll be a smooth transition. Perhaps, if you’re concerned about readability, bring up a page of the cursive styles you like and show them to the young one and get his input to which he considers more readable.

Shalom in Yeshua,

Rachel

Are you talking about wanting info. on the New American Cursive or D’Nealian? They are slightly different.

Rachel

Here’s a chart of the D’Nealian style:

http://www.abcteach.com/free/d/dnfont_alphabet_arrows_cursive.pdf

and here is some free copywork, just click for the D’Nealian cursive option:

http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/downloads.html

As for purchasing, I am going to use these at Christianbook. They seem to be for people who are coming in late to the style and don’t want to go through all of the grade level books. I noticed the capital book has lowercase in them; start with the lowercase first, or use them both at the same time-

D’Nealian Handwriting from A-Z: Lowercase Cursive by Daniel Thurber, Pearson Learning in the D’Nealian Handwriting Series.

and

D’Nealian Handwriting from A-Z: Capital Cursive, same author and all.

Hope I was clear. I’m going to use these two resources from Christianbook for my two.

Rachel