Cursive writing

[cherryapple]

Hi, my daughter has just started reception and we have been told to encourage cursive writing. Is there any benefits to this apart from being quicker?

I am now teaching DS1 and DS2 aged 5 at home. I have been looking to find a scheme that will teach phonics for reading whilst also writing. So he would learn both skills at the same time. I found these worksheets which look good and are free
www.phonicsplay.co.uk/BuriedTreasure2.html

If anyone has time to look I would like to know others opinions on them.

DS1 aged 9 has/had disgraphia and when he made the transistion at 8 from printing to cursive it helped. His spelling hasn't improved but he finds writing much easier and more comfortable. It is possible to learn later and the progress with DS has been swift.

Phonics play is brilliant.

Thank you Feenie. I won't be teaching cursive handwriting though. It was the straw that broke the camels back.

I wonder if many boys cope with cursive writing . They often have weaker control over fine motor skills when. Having said that I don't know any men with neat handwriting.

Sorry that should have been- fine motor skills when young.

My dh (also a teacher - 6th form) has incredibly neat handwriting, but the worst pencil grip I have ever seen! He is right handed - have also seen some left handers with terrible grip but lovely writing. I tend not to get as worried about pencil grip as some - fine motor control is more important, I think.

That is really interesting. I thought pencil grip was important but I have noticed that Ds2 has a weak/light grip and his writing is small and neat. Not ready to read cursive so I don't believe ready to write it either. It will come later.

minimathsmouse Sat 30-Oct-10 21:52:58

The hand learns the pattern! Next we will have children writing without thinking.

Just as adults do everyday. It's exactly the same principal as learning the shape of individual letters... or do you have to think how to form each letter and word as you write?

The child with the best joined handwriting" in my Y2 class is a boy. In fact in the best five for handwriting only one is a girl.

principle argh!! I should read before I post

Mrz, we as adults write or type words without thinking because we have written most words hundreds of times before and we do not need to apply much thought to their spelling.

Young children, on the other hand, have to think about the spelling of most of the words that they write. And young children today are encouraged to use their phonic knowledge to write words, whereas we used to do an awful lot of copying off the blackboard.

Something that strikes me as odd is that at the same time as phonics has replaced whole word recognition as the method of starting off beginner readers, printing is being replaced with cursive (eg whole word) writing.

CecilyP as I say the theory is that by constantly writing the word it becomes an automatic action ...

I teach using phonics but I also teach a cursive style in reception and joined handwriting in KS1

It has really irritated me that my children's school has not taught them how to write cursively properly and yet there was comment on my dd's 'messy' handwriting.

So, I did what I do most of the time, namely taught it myself with lined paper.
[[http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/handwriting-paper.htm Different sizes available from here) and sorted it in about 3 weeks.

Looking through my father's old exercise books from the 40s and 50s, I note he was producing beautiful cursive handwriting with the aid of lined paper by the age of 5.

So bloody annoying how there is generally scant attention paid to such essential skills.

That Cripps (1990) paper cited in the tesxt is interesting Mrz. I've stored it.

Here

Our children have beautiful handwriting and take great pride in their work so it really annoys me that once they leave us Secondary schools let them write (print) in all capitals or even worse a mixture of upper and lower case!

I bet it does.
How annoying.

How interesting that although the benefit of cursive writing has been repeated that people are so vehemently opposed to it. If I wrote joined up on the board and a child in my class could not read it, they would know that they just needed to ask and I would tell them or show them or model it for them.

There will always be varying degrees of 'neat' handwriting, some people will always find it more difficult than others. Older generation were always taught cursive and I think that there is a clear difference between their handwriting and younger generations (their's being neater)

I do agree with it linking into spelling too, especially learning the pattern for various phonemes and graphemes and how they fit into certain words.

Printed work e.g. books/one the computer have slightly different rules than handwritten and children should start to know this as don't employers look for this?

Heaven help any child who finds them self in your class roundtable. Cursive handwriting may be very pretty but I think you?ll find that proper sentence structure, spelling and grammar are essential.

I'm well aware of that but I thought the original post was about handwriting? Schools do not spend the whole day teaching children how to write in a 'pretty' way. Of course sentence structure, punctuation, text organisation, spelling and the composition and effect are important in a piece of writing but what on earth has that got to do with whether or not a school teaches cursive script?

The parents of the children in my class don't have the same opinion as yourself when they find out their child is going to be in my class but then they don't spend their time fretting over cursive vs printed either as they realise that is not they only part of their child's learning.

Not really any need to be so rude minimathsmouse.

• the

That was totally unnecessary, minimathsmouse. You have no idea of roundtable's qualities as a teacher.

I think you?ll find that proper sentence structure, spelling and grammar are essential.

I agree minimathsmouse but they are pretty pointless if no one is able to read them because of poor handwriting.

Supposedly cursive is also good for dyslexic learners as it doesnt overload the working memory because all letters start at the bottom. Just thought Id add that.

My dd is in yr1 now and though she can write she has a hard time with it. They have used joined up handwriting since reception, even with the phonics, she has disliked writing since reception class because she worries about forming the words/letters correctly. She has never been corrected/told off by us or school about untidy writing or wrong spellings but my dd often crys because she feels she "can't write" and dreads the days she has to write.