Comments on: Print vs. Cursive first?

By: Amber(Homeschool Diva)

Amber(Homeschool Diva) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:36:32 +0000

Give it a go Heather. My son learned print first and then went to cursive and found cursive tons easier for him.

My daughter has picked up print just through osmosis, but I am formally teaching her cursive first and will go back and refine the print.

The research I did said that kids are resilient and able to handle the dichotomy between the two and no damage is done, Many many people start with cursive and then go to print, and I believe most European students do this well.

Hope that helps. I am using handwriting without tears and it is wonderful for both print and cursive.
Hope that helps.

By: heather

heather — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:26:39 +0000

If a child learns a little bit of print, is it harder for that child to do cursive? Or is it better to just stick with the print to begin with to not confuse the child-or does it not confuse the child? The child being 5 years old?

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:51:56 +0000

My daughter knew how to print(quite sloppy, but still readable) before starting kinder, so I went ahead and started her with the K5 abeka cursive. She has done a great job with the cursive and it has improved her print greatly. I really don’t have an opinion either way, but from my own personal experience, I’m glad we started out with cursive.

By: Amber(Homeschool Diva)

Amber(Homeschool Diva) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:32:45 +0000

Yes, Amanda, my new birthday camera and learning basic codex is filling my artistic itch this month:-) Those tootsies are my soon to be 5 year old little girls. Thanks for the compliment and thanks for keeping it simple on the writing issue. Both are good and needed:-)

By: amanda

amanda — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:59:32 +0000

We learned both manuscript and cursive and have found both useful at different times.

Totally off subject, your blog is lovely. Having fun playing with the design?
amanda

By: Amber(Homeschool Diva)

Amber(Homeschool Diva) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:30:39 +0000

I am using Writing Without Tears but have heard that Writing for a Purpose is very good as well as Abeka’s Cursive at Kindergarten.
Hope that helps.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:03:39 +0000

What writing Curriculum do you use?

By: Amber(Homeschool Diva)

Amber(Homeschool Diva) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:31:36 +0000

My oldest had that problem too, but it only lasted a bit and now he doesn’t even notice it.

Here are some interesting articles:
http://www.nathhan.com/mcinnis.htm
http://www.abeka.com/Resources/PDFs/CursiveFly.pdf

So, there are strong opinions on both sides. I realized today, that our son could read the cursive writing just as well as the print in his copy work with no help from me. I think kids don’t find things as difficult as we assume they may. Those are just my 2 cents on the topic. So far:-) I may think differently when it comes time for the next one. She seems to do print without any hesitation, but that is also her personality. She is always up for a challenge and enjoys it, so maybe this is a personality issue as well.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:28:07 +0000

I’m interested to know what others think about this…. I am starting K with my oldest son. Is there a correlation with handwriting and learning letters and other language arts… phonics, spelling, etc? I already noticed that certain fonts confuse him with reading (ie. the 2 ways to write the letter a).