I am looking for a resource for one of kids who is ready to learn cursive. I looked at the samples of “Print to Cursive Proverbs” but am a little confused. Can anyone explain some of this to me? This is what the flow looks like to me, but I don’t really see where you are ending up by the end of the book:
– It looks like you first PRINT the verse, then work on one letter with connections
– PRINT a new verse and work on a new letter with connections, etc.
– At some point work into other words that can be written entirely in cursive using letters and connections that have been learned on previous pages
– Are you writing whole verses in cursive by the end of the book? I assume by the end you are doing all cursive, but what exactly are you doing by the end of the book?
That’s correct. We created Print to Cursive to allow the student to continue practicing good printing while learning cursive. We introduce one cursive letter at a time, and he writes as much of the verse as he can using what cursive he knows. Obviously, at the beginning, that will be only a word or two. But as he learns more cursive, he transitions into writing more and more of the verse in cursive (as well as other words that he knows all the letters to), until at the end of the book he is writing complete verses in cursive. At that point the printing is phased out too.
I just have to add that my daughter is really enjoying learning cursive this way! I don’t know if other curricula teach to connect letters as soon as they learn them, but my daughter has taken off with it! She is doing Apologia science, and in her notebooking journal she will ask to do the cursive and have me fill in the letters she has not learned yet b/c Print to Cursive is laid out this way for the verses.
Just a question to the SCM team as to whether there might be plans in the future to add more cursive font options to the print to cursive product. My boys seemed to do much better with the bare bones cursive style of HWT and NAC (New American Cursive…I know, not as pretty…sigh, my boys really preferred it though and it’s working).
I believe Memoria and a few other publishers are using these fonts (NAC in particular) now for more product offerings and I’d love to know if SCM might consider this.
I keep hearing these days that many schools are dropping cursive, and it’s no longer a needed skill. This doesn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t tell you exactly why. I’m wondering what others’ thoughts are on cursive, and why we should teach our children it?
Oh, there was an article floating around somewhere on the ‘net about why cursive is important.
I think it’s important, too — but my children are learning the Getty-Dubay italic instead. It just seemed like I couldn’t get my oldest to understand cursive – I tried Memoria press’ NAC and Queen’s cursive. Now I’m second-guessing myself, because it seems that she often gets penpal letters written in cursive and she has a horrible time reading them. Should I go back and try again with my oldest? The other girls are just doing printing, so I’m considering doing the Print to cursive next year for my 3rd-grader-to-be.
My oldest kids learned Getty-Dubay Italic cursive and it was fine; but my 4th grader really likes a more traditional cursive look so that’s what she chose to learn. I think getting letters from others (penpals, grandparents, notes from Mom, etc.) is an excellent way to get practice in reading cursive…which I think is an essential skill.
The thing is that as they get older, they develop their own style of writing — cursive and printing. I think that comes from just seeing other people’s handwriting, an increased need for speed (or beauty) in writing for some purpose, and so on. So I opt for choosing something that the child likes and is motivated to learn (if they have a preference), or if they don’t care then choosing the one that seems best suited to them.
My dilemma now is that while I was planning to buy the Print to Cursive this weekend for one of my kids, she likes the Zaner-Bloser more traditional cursive look, and I had been thinking that Italic seems a more natural fit for the way she (naturally) writes…and hence was thinking I’d go with D’Nealian for the P-to-C book. Now what?? lol
I’m tacking on questions all over the place lately!
I think the method of writing the letters into the words of the proverb is genius! The child gets that sense of acomplishment with each letter they learn. How much more motivating then plugging through 26 solo letters before getting to write anything of substance.
I don’t need the printing section of the book though. Dd needs her print copywork either in one chunk at the top of the sheet, or on a separate sheet to work on transcription. So if I use only the cursive portion of the book, how many lessons are there? And is one lesson a day easily doable the whole book through?