To think cursive handwriting in reception is a good idea

[Lardlizard]

Yanbu if you agree

Personally I think it’s hard for them to start with but better in the long run

Our school doesn't introduce cursive until the end of year two. By then it comes a lot more naturally. Also apart from a handwritten letter not much else is written in cursive, so it's quite an abstract thing to expect children to form letters in a way that they are not exposed to in any of their day to day life.

When my older three were in primary they started teaching cursive from reception. They ditched the idea after one year as children have only just learnt the letter formation and concentrating on the flick before and after was distracting in a manner that they ended up focussing on the before and after instead of the actual letter

As a secondary teacher, I don’t really understand the obsession with cursive (from both the government who decided it’s a sign of age appropriate progress, I get that primary teachers are doing as they’re told) Most of my students don’t write “joined up” and seem to manage fine - once they’ve left high school many of them are unlikely to ever write at length again. The computer is king. Even the ones that go on to HE are mostly done with writing at length by hand by the time they put down their pen in their finals and have submitted all of their modules and thesis electronically.

Also, so many Of my students have perfectly legible print, cursive turns it in to a messy scrawl. It’s no quicker for them to write, they can’t read it very well and then don’t bother to revise from it and it slows my marking down hugely while I squint at it!

I think cursive is not a necessary life skill as the vast majority of communication in real life (after school) is already typed. By the time this lot of young children get to secondary school I'd be surprised if any secondary school work will still be handwritten. Apart from that, badly formed cursive is much more difficult to read than non-cursive. As a teacher I dread illegible cursive! Every beautiful looking cursive can be difficult to read.

Teaching touch typing would be more helpful for the kids' future.

I think children write more neatly when they practice letter formation first and join later.

Learning cursive is a waste of time. Much better learning the basics of writing and then learning to type.

I don’t think it’s a priority for me in all honesty.

Honestly? WTF is the point of cursive? Nobody gives a shit as an adult whether you write in cursive, block capitals etc! It's completely redundant to teach it. Teach them to be able to write, spell, punctuate, type and use spell check!

Absolutely Things ,I trained as a nurse in the mid 90,s when most patients notes were still handwritten ,it was often very hard to decipher bad handwriting ( mine included) I agree touch typing would be a far better skill in this day and age .

Waste of time. Can't remember the last time I wrote anything by hand. Our work is paper free and everything is done via computers now. I also don't ever see anyone write in cursive anymore. I think there are better things to spend the time on.

Cursive and touch typing are good at age appropriate starting points. My daughter was taught cursive and her handwriting is beautiful. I wasn’t taught cursive, just did my own thing. My handwriting is poor. I can’t join up consistently so my handwriting is a mix.

My reception child is struggling to write her letters because she reads printed words (basic) but then teacher is telling them to do letters 'with tails'. She can't read her own writing because the letters look completely different to what she reads in a book.

In fact I remember one manager had ,she was an excellent clinician and would write long detailed care plans and do some very in depth assessments but her hand writing was barely leigable so they were pointless.

What for?

It worked well for my kids - pre cursive in YR, then by end of Y2 they had legible, quick cursive writing. Invaluable for schoolwork now, and exams in the future.

Our first child didn't learn cursive at first, but had to learn to write differently in year 2. The second learned cursive from the start, which I think was probably the best way as it's hard to relearn things.

It doesnt work because books and printed matter are never cursive.
So how could they learn to read?

Also, I learned non cursive at school and I remember as a teenager wanting neat, joined up handwriting so I taught myself cursive handwriting. But it would have been easier if I had done it from day one.

I loathe cursive. As soon as it was no longer required of me, I dropped it and never looked back. My preferred method of handwriting is a type of "joined print". More print than cursive. I think it's perfectly legible, though I try to nudge it closer to plain print when it's for someone else's eyes.

It seems like handwriting is on the way out for the average person, anyway, to be replaced by typing and voice-to-text.

I think it is too early. Far better that they have clear, neat hamdwriting first.

@Scotinoz learning cursive uses another part of your brain which is great! It also helps motor skills and works different muscles in your hand from writing in print. It’s also great for children with dyslexia or similar things as most letters are very different from each other.

Typing is great, but there is a lot of research showing that people who take notes by hand instead of typing have a much greater understanding and recall the information better.

Dd2 was taught cursive writing in reception and now in Y2 it’s really lovely to see.

However my friends son really can’t do it. It’s very time consuming for him and it really puts him of doing any work at all. She has a home tutor who taught him to write non cursive and he is doing smashing. The school were told not to push it with him at all now.

Cursive is a waste of time especially as it's not encouraged or required in secondary school. Most adults print or use a combination of print/cursive IME.

DS has dyslexia and dyspraxia. He hadn't got to grips with printing before cursive was introduced, which often swaps the direction of letter formation. It's a total mess. He still at 9 flips letters and numbers, and even if they are presented the right way round, his formation process is chaotic.

It's all a waste of time as he's trying to learn to type because writing is so painful and laborious, but there are times when legible writing has its uses over writing and he just hasn't developed that skill and it's so hard to unpick. Then his teachers have to push the political agenda for cursive and can't accept his best compromise at producing something functional.

Pick a writing style and stick with it until it's firmly embedes. Handwriting is only significantly useful for getting through an antiquated education system and as a fine motor control activity. I'm guessing that the profession that uses handwriting the most in any meaningful way is teaching!

The boys school tried it for a couple of years and they gave up! Those years spent hours on remedial hand writing..