Cursive writing - thoughts?

[Cortina]

Is this taught these days? By cursive writing I mean the writing with the loopy bs (not sure how to describe) that the older generation seem to have been routinely taught.

I personally write as Vicky Pollard might () and hoped that my children might be taught this old fashioned system?

DS's school teaches cursive writing from Year 1. He is just mastering basic writing and, bless him, is already painstakingly trying to join his letters up because This Is What's Done. IME, this is no easy feat for a lot of five-year-olds, boys especially.

I think the emphasis should be on forming letters clearly, grammar and punctuation - not on joining up. To my knowledge, there is no evidence to suggest joined up writing is faster (and isn't that the main reason for doing it?), and I know enough intelligent adults whose writing isn't joined up, or is all in capitals, or a bit messy, to feel assured that it isn't the be-all-and-end-all.

Cursive writing, done well, can look beautiful. But it shouldn't be a requirement, IMHO.

my children have all been taught it and i think it is a requirement for sat test in year 6.

However once they were in senior school there seems to be less importance put on it and mine have all 'experimented' and found their own style.

I think it does make writing much easier when it is joined up though and as they have a lot of writing to do i think it is easier to teach them one style early on.

at all those who were actually taught to do joined up writing. I never was - out of the blue on day, my teacher bollocked me for printing (despite the fact I hadn't been asked to write joined up ). I asked how to do it and she just said "Don't be so stupid - you keep your pen on the paper." So, instead of lifting my pen off the page between letters, I just drew a line from where I finished one letter to where I wanted to start the next one. No wonder my writing is appalling...

ICanDoThat - thanks for calling it "Kingston" - I have been searching for a CD with the font to print to make up worksheets for DD2 and have now found it!! (I did ask her teacher who was particularly vague and just gave me a printed sheet that I could copy)

My mum hates "that stupid writing that makes it harder" but I think that in the long run her writing will be neat. The logic seems to be there in the system - joining up as soon as possible to make writing faster rather than having to re-learn letter shapes when you start joined up writing.

Whether they teach cursive or not, I wish they would put a bit more emphasis on holding a pen correctly - DD2 holds her pen awkwardly, which I'm sure doesn't help with her accuracy, but (and I'm taking hr word for this at the mo, will check at parents' evening next week) she isn't corrected at school.

DS2 in particular is always getting his spelling tests marked as being wrong because the school seem to think he's sticking and 'i' between each letter. In fact, it's the lead in and lead out stroke of each letter, where they 'meet' , but they don't seem to have taught him how to FLOW each letter into the next as how the 'out stroke' ends is dependent on the following letter!

Exactly as Happywoman said; afaik - and I'm a secondary English teacher - a child has to be able to write joined up to get level 3 in writing (maybe a primary school teacher can verify this).

Since children should all be level 4 by the time they get to us at secondary, we simply don't care about handwriting. My attitude is that so long as I can read it, and there's no hearts to dot the "i"s , it's fine. My own handwriting is far from perfect, primarily in rebellion against the hours and hours I was forced to spend doing Nelson handwriting at school.

We let students word process a lot of their final pieces of work, mainly because it tends to be easier for lower ability and dyslexic kids. They do all have to produce one handwritten piece of coursework for their English GCSE folder though.

As far as the font is concerned, there used to be one that began with an S that you could load onto your word processing programme. It will come to me soon!

Also, have a look on sparkle box literacy (google it) there is some cursive stuff on there.

I was taught Marion Richardson handwriting at school
It made my life an utter misery for 3+ years because I couldnt do it however hard I tried.
As soon as I was allowed to ditch it I did

Mrsz that link of yours made me feel rather sick

My ds was struggling with cursive at school, now he is Home Educated his handwriting is still appalling (think 5yo style when he is actually 8) but at least I can teach him a style he has a fair chance of mastering.

Thanks to three years of being forced to write in a cursive script and his handwriting hasnt improved at all

I was thinking of Sassoon Primary Infant I think, there is a cursive one as well as one with just the flicks.

Lots of schools now seem to be teaching this cursive font right from nursery or reception. My friend's sons have been using it and although they struggled a bit at first they have quite beautiful joined up handwriting now at ages 5 and 7. They do their spelling practice in joined up and it does seem to help them to remember how to spell too.

I think we did Nelson handwriting when I was at school. We learnt to print the letters first then we learnt to put flicks on them, did loads of swirly patterns (none as complicated as your Marion ones) and finally started joining up at about age 8 I think.

DS1 has mild dyslexia (Y2). We have been advised to encourage him to use cursive writing as it helps stop the reversal of letters and the b /d confusion.

Chaz it realy does work

Thanks cloudhopper - that's really good to know.

they do this at my sons school and now he is in y2 it has really helped with his joined up writing. They call it "entry strokes" and "exit strokes".

This is an old thread, and I'm sorry to revisit it, but we're having some difficulties with cursive writing in Y4 and can't quite figure out how to overcome them.

DD is nearly 9 and still struggling with cursive writing. She does, however, excel at English, being the only child to score 100+ in her high frequency word test in class today.

Yesterday she questioned, why do we have to write joined up? I don't get it...so I went in and asked the same question of the teacher.

I was advised that it helps kids to remember spellings better and form their words more easily. Clearly then, my daughter must be the exception that proves the rule.

How, though, do I now sell this to my daughter as a positive thing? She just sees it as slowing her down and getting her nagged at.

I did say she might have to just do it, but that feels like a cop out. And if the main reason for doing it doesn't exist (ie if she doesn't need to improve her spelliing, use of words) how can she be 'told off' for not getting it right?? [frustrated emoticon]

Hope someone can help me here...