Children learning cursive before print?

[PneumaticTransit]

I recently met a friend of my fathers who has twin 5 year old girls. Their family is pretty well off, and they send their girls to a fancy high brow pre-school where the girls have learned to write in cursive, but they can't print. It seemed rather odd to me, and I didn't know if there was a benefit to learning cursive first??? The girls seem to have trouble reading since they can't reconize regular writing. I sort of wrote it off as it was something the school sold the parents on for bragging rights (Yes, the mother insisted her girls show me their writing.) Now I wonder if there was something more to it? Anyone know?

 

[Dare2Wish]

If I remember correctly from a class I took back in college, it is easier for young children to produce the flowing lines of cursive than it is for them to write those straight,rigid lines that printing requires. I remember going to a Montesorri school to observe their techniques and they were practicing writing cursive in the sand. Most schools still teach printing first though.

 

[angelam]

As a first grade teacher, I would say that this would be pretty confusing to the child. In the district that I teach in, we use D'Nealian style printing/cursive, and most of us want to switch back to traditional (ball/stick) printing, because for some children the fancy loops and tails of D'Nealian is confusing since they don't see words printed that way in text. Some early research showed that D'Nealian made the transition to cursive easier since the letters are slanted and have tails. There is now some research that refutes this claim. Young children are still developing their fine motor skills, and D'Nealian print (and I would imagine cursive!) is often difficult for them.

In today's society, cursive isn't often used. Environmental print (signs,etc) are in print. High school and college kids use computers to print out their papers. Forms and applications that you fill out as an adult request that you PRINT.... I think kids should be taught cursive, but definitely NOT before they learn to print. I believe it is just the school's way of trying to impress.
-Angie

 

[christinadei]

A private christian school that we were looking at for DS taught that. I think it is part of the abeka program. I'm not sure though and it didn't make much sense to me.

 

[ashjohnson80]

that seems strange to me. i never write in cursive. i haven't since elementary school. i can understand why its important to learn it, but it doesn't seem like it should be taught first. i dunno.

 

[CEDmom]

My DD just finished kindergarten and this year her teacher spent a lot of time on letter formation. The letters were still printed but were more flowy so a child could ease into cursive writing in a higher grade. This is what the public school districts are doing in our area. I believe they work on cursive writing in 1st or 2nd grade in our district.

 

[Rachie0507]

It seems strange to me for a few reasons. My biggest concern would be though for the kids learning to read. If they can't read/recognize printed letters, how do they learn to read books which uses print not cursive? It goes against the norm, which isn't always bad, I just don't see the advantage.

 

[piglet too]

Our district teaches the Kindergartners in D'Nealian as well. My DS had such a hard time since we worked with him for two years and "regular" printing. Some of his leters just don't look right, but he is trying so hard. As for reading, he does not have any problems with that at all.

 

[kidzmom3]

not to highjack your thread but a slightly funny story.

My daughter just finished the 3rd grade. Her teacher taught them cursive writing very slowly. they took a letter at time, lower case first, then they taught the capital, practice practice, move onto the next letter.

During the last week of school, the principal found out that another teacher for 3rd grade, never taught her students cursive (in her defense she used to be a kindergarten teacher, but I would think cursive writing would have been listed as part of the curriculum for 3rd)

so for the last week of the school year, my daughter went every day to the other teachers class were they did fun experiments, mini plays and arts and crafts. The poor other kids got a super crash course in cursive writing.

 

[mickeyboat]

I wonder if the child's parents are seeing D'Nelian and thinking it is cursive. I was printing some handwriting pages for my DD's the other day and I saw the D'Nelian pages and thought theywas cursive.

Denae

 

[shortbun]

My dH just finished his Masters in Ed. He says cursive is much easier for young children due to fine motor skill development issues. I say bravo to the schools starting with the easiest first so the kids can communicate by hand. Just because tradition tells us printing should be first does not mean it's necessarily the best way. My son has horrible printing. His cursive is great! Hmmmm, they could be on to something.

 

[piglet too]

I wonder if the child's parents are seeing D'Nelian and thinking it is cursive. I was printing some handwriting pages for my DD's the other day and I saw the D'Nelian pages and thought theywas cursive.

Denae

It does look a lot like cursive, and I have had people ask me if DS was already writing in cursive when they see his writing.

 

[Pinnie]

Our district went back to the old "ball/stick" method of writing because it can be taught to the "auditory" child as well as the visual. "Pull down" "lift" , etc. I have worked with numerous OTs with my special needs kids and D'Nealian is just NOT developmentally appropriate for a majority of children. IT is too visually confusing and isn't consistant with book print.

I am also being trained in the "Handwriting Without Tears" method this summer for those children with some fine motor issues. I love this method that our OTs use!

pinnie

 

[RealMickeysGirl]

It is funny to me that there is a new way of teaching writing now. I remember being in first grade - and my mom had taught me to write most letters before starting school - and having my teacher constantly correcting me for the way I made my letters. Most of them looked like the D'Nealian letters on the sample sheet I just looked up on the internet. It would have caused me much less tension if this were available back in 1964.

My teacher fussed and fussed that my small "a" didn't look like a circle and stick.

 

[Brier Rose]

We homeschool using Abeka, and last year when my DS started K5 they were really pushing learning cursive first. Honestly I thought it would be to hard, so I went against their suggestions and ordered the manuscript lesson plans. Ds was doing OK with it, but not great.

This year, we are still using Abeka, but are going with the DVD classes, so I wouldn't have had a choice between the two styles of writing. We got the sample DVD, and one of the classes on there is about 5 minutes of cursive practice. I can say this with all honesty, what my DS learned in 5 min. of watching and practicing with that, has stuck with him better than what it took me weeks to drill into him while teaching him manuscript.

Even now, if he sits to write on his own, he will write those few cursive letters he learned over and over. I wouldn't have believed it!

Truthfully, while I'm excited to see how well he learns with the full cursive curriculum, I'm also concerned about some of the points that have been made here, like how this will affect learning to read and recognize print.

I do however feel 100% confident in Abeka's ability to put it all together, so I guess we'll have to just wait and see.

 

[pixiedust23]

I am actually currently working on my masters of education and in our child and adolescent development class this was touched upon. It is easier for children to learn how to write in cursive first b/c the cursive is very similar to scribbles and the way a child learns how to draw. Print is very rigid and much more difficult.

 

[CEDmom]

My DD just finished kindergarten and this year her teacher spent a lot of time on letter formation. The letters were still printed but were more flowy so a child could ease into cursive writing in a higher grade. This is what the public school districts are doing in our area. I believe they work on cursive writing in 1st or 2nd grade in our district.

 

[swilphil]

I can see how learning cursive or D'Nealian would be easier for kids than the ball and stick method when teaching writing. Don't kids need to learn how to READ printed letters first though.

 

[angelam]

I did a search on the web, and this came up from a parent group who isn't very happy with the way things are going in their school district. Interestingly, this is what it said about cursive first...

When the experts said, "We will teach your children cursive writing in Kindergarten. Studies show that children learn to write easier and faster if they learn cursive before printing," we sat back. Before this failed and was abandoned, several hundred unfortunate children were quickly behind in reading and writing because of the confusion between cursive writing and printed material. -www.teachutahkids.com

You can find "research" that "supports" just about anything. I just know that from my own experience teaching D'Nealian, which with all of the loops and curves, is close to cursive, it is not really easier for kids to learn. We have occupational and physical therapists who wish we would go back to traditional priniting because many children lack the fine motor control to do D'Nealian. I often have kids ask me why some of the letters that we print look different than the ones in books (like "i" for example has a "tail", making it look somewhat like a "j". ) Many districts went to D'Nealian based on "research" that said it was easier to learn cursive. There is now research saying it doesn't really make a difference. Based on experience, I would have to agree that it doesn't matter because my son went a school from K-2nd that used the traditional ball/stick method, and transferred to a school using D'Nealian in third grade. He had no problem adapting and has beautiful cursive and learned it quickly.

The process of teaching reading and writing are intertwined. I believe that it is very important for kids to read and write in the same format (print), so that they can feel successful. Some children may make the transfer easily, and that is great, but think about the other children who, for whatever reason, the transfer does not come so easily. Even if you want to stick to the argument that it is "easier" for them to learn cursive before print, would you want to put a potential roadblock in their ability to learn how to read?

-Angie

 

[PneumaticTransit]

I just looked up D'Nealian on the web, and that wasn't what these girls learned. It was definitely cursive, they wrote out a prayer for me to read and it was the same way I would write cursive.

When they wanted to read to me from a book, they seemed to struggle with sounding out the words because they couldn't reconize the letters. I really think their parents wanting the bragging rights instead of thinking about how learning this way would affect their reading. Their mother also had them play the piano for me while she gushed that they were learning 4 bars instead of 3 like the way she learned (or something like that, I don't know anything about reading music) which also led me believe they are raising "trophy children". I'm not saying they don't love their kids, but these are way overscheduled 5 year olds.

I didn't have any problem learning cursive after learning print. Our school started handwriting class in Kindergarten, started cursive in 2nd.