Advice on practice book for joined up writing

[Arkadia]

Have you tried any? What would you recommend?
We have already done the Schofield&Sims Handwriting Practice 2 which was OK, but I thought it was a bit contrived at times. Perhaps we need to move onto something more cursive oriented which probably would make more sense if you want to join up the letters.

[BringOnTheScience]

Ask the school what system they use. There are many variations on joining so you don't want to risk him getting it 'wrong' in their eyes.

[Arkadia]

AFAIK, they don't do any (we are in Scotland).

[user789653241]

Once your dcs got hang of it, it's just matter of writing regularly in cursive.
At least that's what they do at my ds's school.
They practice cursive in ks1. In ks 2, everything needs to be written in cursive.

[user789653241]

My ds wasn't good at it. He literally practiced everyday for few minutes using cursive, doing some free writing/pobble/article-a-day.
It has improved so much in 2 years.

[LetItGoToRuin]

I would agree about asking the school how they want letters to be joined. I’d be surprised if the school simply doesn’t care whether g’s and y’s are joining to the next letter with a loop, for example.

At a parents’ evening the teacher advised us that DD needed to start joining in order to get ‘greater depth’ at the end of Y2, so we said we’d encourage this at home but asked for some sheets showing how/which letters the school wants them to join. The teacher was very slow to provide these so we just started. When we finally got the sheets, there were a few things DD was joining that school didn’t want (eg to the next letter from d and p, y and g).

Luckily, DD adapted quickly to the school’s way, but the learning process would have been smoother if we’d known what the school wanted from the start.

[user789653241]

Like I said on many past threads, move their schools.
I even think it even worth crossing the border if you are so unhappy about Scottish education and want to follow English curriculum.

[Arkadia]

Irvine, I don't think that particular school would be any different from any other here.
Moving to England would be somewhat impractical at the moment, so we just make do.

In the end I went for this:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782946977/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?psc=1&ie=UTF8&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21
which is very similar to the one we have already done and has good reviews. (In the meantime I have learnt how to write like that. I have to say I find it quite laborious, but probably it is because I am not accustomed to it)

[user789653241]

I think the key is to do it all the time. If your school doesn't have any hand writing policy, she can always use it at school as well? I don't think practicing here and there occasionally on work book would achieve fluency.

My mum taught me how to write in cursive when I was about 12, before moving to US. (When I couldn't speak a word in English.)

It was very easy for me. I don't even remember practicing. Only thing I did was learned how to form and connect letters. (I can write in beautiful cursive, it was very handy taking notes in Uni years.)

So, if your dd's school doesn't require her learning it, it maybe better to wait for few more years, until her other writing skills are formed completely.