| Author | |
Barb.b
Forum All-Star
Joined: June 22 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 748
|
| Posted: Nov 15 2012 at 9:46am | IP Logged
|
 |
|
I know we've discussed this but my question is - anyone whose kid has difficulty with handwriting ever decide NOT to teach cursive. I really need to still work with ds (9) to space between words, have letters not float between the lines, small case letters be small. . . Still working on the basics of printing. Also, who knows of a good program for older kids that works on printing - especially aimed at kids with difficulty in this - so an older kid, remedial printing program.
Barb
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
juliana147
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2010
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 520
|
| Posted: Nov 15 2012 at 9:58am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Barb, we ended up doing the Getty-Dubay Italic program. To this day, ds still gets compliments on his handwriting, which had been such a struggle for him when he was younger. I used the workbooks, and also purchased the teacher manual, which had more detailed information about how to present it.
Italic flows easily from an Italic print style to an Italic cursive. Ds was fascinated enough by the historical aspects of it (Michelangelo's handwriting, for example) that we ended up studying a bit of calligraphy, too.
HTH!
__________________
- Juliana
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
juliana147
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2010
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 520
|
| Posted: Nov 15 2012 at 10:16am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Oh, and the workbooks for the series have examples of historical documents written in Italic forms. We used that as a springboard for other studies.
There is also a workbook for much older children/adults. I have that one, which I worked in, as a model for the kids.  I credit those books with igniting my love of calligraphy, even though I am much more skilled with Uncials.
__________________
- Juliana
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Nov 15 2012 at 10:02pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Wow, that sounds really cool. I too have boys who struggle with handwriting -- even my 15yo could use remediation.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Becky Parker
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 23 2005
Location: Michigan
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2582
|
| Posted: Nov 16 2012 at 7:33am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Hi Barb,
Juliana's Getty Dubay program sounds great. I have had two boys, so far, that really struggle. For the first, I got the Handwriting Without Tears book. He was older when we started it, so I went straight to the book for 6th grade. It's written for older children.
For my next son having this issue, we started with HWOT. His printing is still aweful. But, for whatever reason, his cursive is quite nice. Not perfect and not as "pretty" as my dd's who had no problem, but it's more legible than his printing. I'm just throwing that out to say that sometimes I think it's the start and stop of printing that makes their handwriting so difficult. Once they can write in cursive it really helps.
__________________
Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Erin
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 23 2005
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 5814
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 5:23am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Juliana
would you suggest then that if I print out on our startwrite program in getty-dubay or italic that my ds15 (who desperately needs improvement) would achieve the same effect as the program you used?
Perhaps I should just forget printing with this child and head straight to cursive... our oldest has the most exquisite cursive yet her printing is rather immature.
__________________
Erin
Faith Filled Days
Seven Little Australians
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
CatholicMommy
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 07 2007
Location: Indiana
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1254
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 9:18am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I agree with Becky's response - that sometimes printing is causing more problems than it is solving (and vice versa).
In this case, cursive emphasizes the whole word which is now connected to itself - it is very separate from the next word, thus it can help the child "get" that there needs to be a space - because there are separate words. Where in print every letter is individual and choices have to constantly be made about spacing (ok, now I am putting letters close but now I have to think about leaving a space when I am really thinking more about the spelling of the word or the message I am trying to convey). All while constantly picking up and putting down the pencil point.
I have really found a lot of success with the Our Lady of Victory handwriting books - because they have "practice" books for the older child (so it doesn't feel dumbed down); they have italic options; and they have a calligraphy book.
__________________
Garden of Francis
HS Elementary Montessori Training
Montessori Nuggets
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
juliana147
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2010
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 520
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 10:23am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Hi Erin, the G-D Italic books all start out with a "print" that then is joined to form a cursive. What I liked about the program, esp. in the adult books, is that they show different variations that might suit your natural inclinations- for example, how it looks written larger, smaller, spaced widely, spaced closely, slanted more prominently, etc. For a teen, I think this would be very attractive because they can make it their own.
The goal of the program at that level is legibility. I like how they talk about how legibility is a courtesy to your readers.
I would use the Write Now or Italic Letters for a teen.
I think they have samples on their website, if you want to see what it looks like. It is not the standard writing I learned in school.
HTH!
__________________
- Juliana
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
juliana147
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2010
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 520
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 10:40am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I just checked their website, and it doesn't have all of the content it had in the past. However, you can look inside Write Now on Amazon.
I saw the print part of the book on there, but didn't see much of the cursive. However, I wasn't signed in.
The Italic letters book leans more toward calligraphy. Write Now is more of an everyday handwriting book.
HTH, again!
eta: one downside is that italic can look "childish" while you are learning the letterforms. This is where I find seeing the historical examples, and knowing how it can be personalized, helpful.
__________________
- Juliana
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 11:16am | IP Logged
|
|
|
The G-D writing sounds a lot like the "join-up" writing my oldest daughter learned in English school. There they don't ever do cursive, but they learn a print with little "flicks" at the end of each letter which they later learn to "join up." I have to say that this gave my daughter fits, though I can't now remember exactly why -- all my kids have struggled mightily with handwriting, in or out of school, and having her handwriting constantly commented on by teachers was probably the major component of her stress about it, rather than the method itself.
Still, the look of this kind of writing is really nice, and it does seem easier in that the child doesn't have to learn to read what looks like a totally different alphabet, which my 8- and 10-year-olds struggle with somewhat in learning cursive ("I just wrote this, but I don't know what it says, because I can't read cursive . . . ").
Sally
PS: I really do like this idea of this for a teenager. Thank you for the suggestion!
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
juliana147
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2010
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 520
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 11:22am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Interesting, Sally!
Does she make her a's with a flat top? To me, that is a hallmark of Italic.
eta... here is a review of the series, and the Write Now book.
__________________
- Juliana
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
pmeilaen
Forum All-Star
Joined: Sept 07 2008
Location: New York
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 565
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 2:50pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Barb.b wrote:
I know we've discussed this but my question is - anyone whose kid has difficulty with handwriting ever decide NOT to teach cursive. I really need to still work with ds (9) to space between words, have letters not float between the lines, small case letters be small. . .
Barb |
|
|
My daughter, now 10, has had similar problems. We have found the handwriting booklets from Universal Publishing very helpful. She is using them this school year for the first time and all of a sudden her handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds. They offer two choices: regular and catholic. Each page practices the strokes and has interesting copywork. There is a check-up category on each page where you can evaluate letter spacing, joinings, alignment, slant, and word spacing. We are using Book E right now, not the catholic version, which has a U.S. geography theme (with some other things sprinkled in). You can see sample pages here.
__________________
Eva
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: Nov 17 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
juliana147 wrote:
Interesting, Sally!
Does she make her a's with a flat top? To me, that is a hallmark of Italic.
eta... here is a review of the series, and the Write Now book.
|
|
|
No, she doesn't. But then, the teachers were always onto her about her handwriting . . .
Seriously, the English join-up writing isn't really italic, per se; it's just a curvier print with flicks on the ends so that you can keep going into the next letter without lifting your pencil.
I was telling my 10yo just the other day that the reason that cursive came into vogue -- and I really had just read this somewhere, though I can't now remember where -- was that *fountain pens* had come into widespread use, and that finding a way to write without having to lift the pen from the paper until the end of the word had become important, to minimize ink-blotching. I think that cursive has been a good exercise for this particular child (one of my handwriting-strugglers), because his tendency when printing is to sort of write a letter, then go back and add on whatever it's missing: say, he writes an h and it looks more like an n, so he goes back and doctors it with a longer stick on top (giving all his writing the rustic look of bent-wood furniture). This slows him down hugely when he's writing at any length. Cursive *has* been good for him in that it's forced him to keep the pencil moving in a fluid way from one letter to the next. His control isn't wonderful, but it's improving. At the very least, I'm hoping he'll emerge with a useful hybrid of print and cursive, which allows him to write quickly and fluidly.
I am wishing that I had begun this with my 15yo much earlier -- we did do a remedial year of cursive in maybe 7th grade, but it really didn't help much. For him I'm thinking that a course in italics might be a good thing. Right now he's getting by with a script of all-caps -- his regular print is completely unreadable, and when he wanted to do the ACT with the essay, I spazzed out, probably really alarmingly, now that I think of it. "You're a smart person, but the people reading this exam are going to think you're ILLITERATE, because you CAN'T WRITE." So the all-caps was the compromise, and it worked all right, but I just keep thinking there must be a better way . . .
So I am really going to look into some of these resources. This has been a very, very helpful conversation.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: handwriting
