Any advice on teaching cursive writing?

[hsmommyto1]

I just started 3rd grade with my DD this year, and she's having trouble picking up on cursive writing. Any tips on how to make it easier for her? Are the Handwriting without Tears workbooks really any good?

Jamie

[canadian gardener]

I've heard good stuff about that Handwriting without Tears program, it always got good reviews with Mary Pride.

I found out about it after I used something close to the Italic cursive with mine. I think Italic is also called Portland method.

Neither kid was happy making the change from printing, and the Italic method simply teaches them to join the bottoms. Looks neat and tidy.

But that was when they were in Gr 7 and 9, and we began homeschooling and were still printing everything and getting away with it at school which bugged me a bit.

The Italic book was called Write Now or some such name, but it wasn't that useful as a method. I helped them develop a cursive look to their printing, by sloping the letters, and joining the bottoms. It worked and they are both ok. You can read their writing although it still isn't a good looking script.

But that might be my fault. I didn't use the book in slavish detail, and perhaps more practice and so forth would have produced a better script.

Once they got to the point it was sloping a bit, and joined at the bottom I called it done and concentrated on filling in math gaps etc.

[zakity]

I used one of the workbooks from Getty Dubay for handwriting for my child with developmental delays. It might be something to look into.

Link: http://www.cep.pdx.edu/titles/italic..._in_series.htm