Homeschool Discoveries

Miss M asked to start learning cursive last year as a first grader.  Considering that for most of the previous two years she complained about having to write almost anything, this really took me by surprise.  I am one of those adults who never writes in “pure” cursive — I hated cursive penmanship practice in grade school, and my current handwriting is my own blend of printing and cursive (though I think it leans more to the “printing” side of things). I was perfectly willing to let Miss M wait until at least third grade to learn cursive, if not later.

Not wanting to miss this moment of her interest, however, I bought her “A Reason for Handwriting” book C a little over a year ago.  She spent last spring dabbling in learning her cursive letters.  The first section of the book is dedicated to first practicing each individual letter, adding in a few simple words once enough letters are learned.  After a break for the summer, I reviewed with Miss M the letters she had learned the previous spring, and she finished learning the rest of the alphabet.

Then the real fun begins.  🙂 The second section of the book contains 32 weeks of lessons, each featuring a Bible verse. Days 1 through 3 of each week’s lesson contain individual practice words from the verse.  Day 4 is tracing the verse, while Day 5 is writing the verse out on a piece of handwriting paper with a decorative border (the border paper is provided in the back of the workbook). I assign Miss M cursive practice every day, and occasionally I have her “double up” somewhere in days 1 through 3 or skip the tracing day if we don’t have five full/regular school days in a particular week.

While Miss M still usually chooses to print in the rest of her school work, I can really see her cursive improving.  It will be better than mine pretty soon!

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