Cursive writing from reception

[GandalfGrey]

Hi all, i just joined today because I want to ask all of you about your experiences with the new cursive writing programme that schools seem to be rolling out like the best thing since sliced bread.
My DD3 ( is that right? I don't know what DD means but it seems to be to preserve identity so I'm going with it) went to school after learning some of the letters at preschool and with me at home in print style lower case.
However DD3 was then taught to relearn the shape of all the letters with a cursive join at the beginning and end of each letter.
These 'Printed' cursive letters have become the BASE of reference instead of print letter shape.
Now in year one DD3 is trying to join them up.
However, because her reference of each letter is now the cursive single letter each word begins with a flick which just sticks out of the start of the word not joining anything. Similarly this is also the case at the end of the words too.
Secondly the letters f, g , o, r, v, and w end above where the cursive start (on the line) begins, so in order to obey the 'not taking your pen off the paper' rule (and using the cursive letters learned as a base), there is then a drop down to the line to start the next letter, therefore creating an I within the word. I asked about this and was told DD3 had to join the end of these letters to where the letter naturally starts when printing- yeah, all very well but DD3 was retaught all the letters so that as far as DD3 is concerned they all start on the line with a cursive curl!
My DD1 and DD2 both learned to simply flick a joining curl at the end of each letter so that they could join and had very nice writing thankyou, but they like the rest of the school have now also had two years of the curse and their writing has deteriorated.
People and children who print in my experience end up naturally joining their letters as they quicken the pace and their writing tends to be legible which should be the main concern, after all the whole point of writing is to communicate.
I'm really struggling with the validity of this and fear that in a few years there may be a sudden understanding that all this is totally unnecessary but too late for all the children who had their confidence knocked, were frustrated and confused etc etc
Anyone able to reassure me?

I have exactly the same concerns, but fear we may be in the minority.

My daughter attended a different school for nursery and Reception where they were taught to print. In this school, from Reception they teach it I think how you describe. She had to relearn all of her letters. Bs and ps are open, so they do not make a complete circle but have a flick at the top.

It was all very confusing for my DD and even now half way through Year 2 her handwriting is worse than when she left Reception.

Her teacher was not very sympathetic to how hard she finds it because apparently they all get it eventually. It seems a really silly thing to do because at almost 7, by daughter spends more time worrying about if her letters have the little flicks in them, than the quality of the content of her sentences.

It makes far more sense to teach printing, and then as you say, show them how to join one letter to the next. Schools obviously like the look of this fancy writing, and that is apparantly more important than what the children write.

Sorry I cant reassure you, but then I'm approaching this as a parent of a child who changed schools and so it was even harder to adapt.

I hope someone can come along with some research to reassure us that this new handwriting regime is for the best.

I don't think it is the personal opinion of teachers that poor quality work is acceptable.

However I agree that current thinking is that too many corrections damage the child's self-esteem and may stop them from taking any risks with their punctuation and spelling.

Some teachers do not understand this maybe and so do not enforce basic punctuation rules.

I know of one school where a year 2 teacher was told by the Head never to write as a comment 'always use capital letters and full stops' because they should be doing it anyway!... Yes but when they aren't doing it surely it needs to be pointed out so that they do it the next time.

in reception, DD started cursive, we were told they were being taught this now as they found that the Juniors found it very difficult to change from print to cursive. At first DD and I found it difficult as she had learnt to write, but in print.

However we perserved, and now she is in year 1, she can write in cursive and print easily and now i've noticed that she is begining to write in 'joined' up writing. she has quite nice writing, not always legible, but she is only 5 and it's going in the right direction.

She is also expected to use capital letters when relevant and basic punctuation.

I'm afraid I agree too op and messybedhead (and in fact started a thread on the same subject around this time last year). The school where dd attended Nursery introduced this with great enthusiasm last year. Parents were invited to a "workshop" where we watched a video from Teachers TV about what looked like a very organised and well-resourced school where it seemed to have worked particularly well, but as far as I could see at dd's school the kids didn't really understand what they were supposed to be doing at all, and were just adding ticks and flicks all over the place in a confused attempt to make their letters "cursive". Dd was only writing a few words at the time, but they went from quite promising to completely illegible very quickly.

However when it is implemented well by teachers who have the time to explain it properly to the children it's probably absolutely fine, and it is supposed to be very helpful for kids with dyslexia. If you are able to give your dcs a bit of help with it at home I'm sure it will all fall into place. But I share your misgivings.

I think handwriting is important, i'm just not sure that cursive handwriting is.
Or I'm not sure that the programme they've chosen is well thought out.

I'm concerned about the level of fixation there appears to be about writing having to be joined.
Particularly where the programme is failing to be clear about how to join the cursive singular letters when the endings don't naturally meet the next cursive start.
It relies heavily on the ability of the teachers to talk the children through and unlearn some of the letter joins and learn new connections.

Most of the teachers I have come across are dedicated and will do their best but they are already pushed for time with large numbers of children to try to give time to and I am conerned that the amount of time that this new style of writing must take in the young years is stealing time focused on creativity, grammar, puncuation and don't get me started on spelling- a child in year four had a spelling marked incorrect due to the flick of a cursive join which the teacher thought was another letter!
Someone earlier mentioned that their children had very 'small' neat writing.
This is what i have noted about my older children's writing and I'm guessing that is reduces the strain of cramping muscles to curtail the amount of movement in the pen, It is perilously close to a GP scrawl though it's very small.

My DS learnt cursive script from reception (now in year one). At first, I shared your concern re his writing development but now it has all "dropped into place". Although far from perfect, he now has legible joined up writing and finds it natural to write in cursive script.

What I wonder though is how affected by not being able to do it for a longer time, each child is?
And what about the numbers of children who don't find it easy? Are they the same number as those who would have found printing difficult or is there a raised level of children who struggle with the handwriting for a prelonged time before it drops into place?

Like Pixie said i'd rather a child wrote the word exstatic and mispelled it in print than wrote happy in beautiful cursive- what are we perhaps losing in the classroom in order to gain joined up handwriting.

Is the cursive handwriting tested at speed to see what happens when the pupils write under pressure- as the writing decreases in size i suspect that at speed we will see a remarkable difference in it's 'neatness'
I believe all this has been 'Done' before in the 50's when handwriting styles were taught. What eveidence has been collected from this era and teaching to generate this NEW idea?
It seems to me just another FAD of innovative, ofsted busting, if it aint broke fix it anyway just so you can be seen to be doing something, rubbish.

I think that writing at speed is where cursive really comes into its own actually.

However, it does seem more logical to me to teach children basic letter formation before introducing them to the idea of joining, particularly as most of the letters they will encounter as they are learning to read and write will be printed, not cursive. And where resources are stretched so that teachers don't have the time to really work with the kids on explaining and practising entry and exit strokes I would think it could be disastrously confusing for some children.

Interesting discussion here.

GandalfGrey, in the 1950s, it was more common to teach printing when children started school, with joined writing taught towards the end of year 2 (before children went up to the juniors). Common handwriting styles were italic script and Marion Richardson. I have a feeling that Marion Richardson may have developed her joined writing script in answer to problems experienced with cursive writing.

The obvious problem with teaching cursive letters unjoined, but with entry strokes starting on the line, is that when children start to join, the entry stroke needs to be from previous letter and not from the line. It is OK when the previous letter finishes on the line but, if it doesn't and the child tries to go back to the line they will have what almost looks like an extra letter between the two.

The only way round it would be to be taught the joins individually from letters that do not finish on the line.