Handwriting: Home School Cursive
Although we do most of our written communication these days through a computer keyboard, that doesn't mean that learning how to write in cursive is an outdated skill. Learning how to write is not only beneficial for the completion of actual writing tasks, but it strengthens and hones fine motor skills as well.
There are three major components that make up cursive: letter formation, letter size, and letter slant. Students need to learn how they can maintain the correct size and slant among words as well as formulate the individual letters consistently. Some home school children will write with big loopy letters and others will have more meticulous rigid forms. You should encourage each home school child to personalize his or her writing style. Conforming isn't the name of the game. As long as students can remain consistent in their writing from word to word and composition to composition, it doesn't matter if their cursive looks the same as another home school student's cursive.
Start off with letter formation, then move on to spacing and finally, slant. To practice letter formation, you can give the children copies of a sentence that you have purposefully written in poor cursive. Have the children correct your poor letter formations. To practice spacing, use a popsicle stick in between words. Work on slant by drawing lines through the center of each letter. The lines should be perfectly parallel. You can also have the child slant the actual page in order to work on slant.
You can teach the letters in groups. Start with the small round letters (a,o,p) and then move on to slightly more complex letters (p,q,d,b). Work your way through the alphabet in terms of complexity, not order. When home school students have learned all the letters, you can then move on to words. When students are able to master more complex words, you can then work on speed. Have children time themselves to see how fast they can write a shopping list or letter to a friend.
Using these tips, your student will be writing cursive in no time!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.
Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Daily Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.