Do your schools teach printing first or cursive first?

[justlearning]

I was just talking with a friend of mine about how a charter school in our district changed their curriculum over the summer, so they are now teaching kids to write cursive first rather than print. She said that her kindergartner is doing great learning to write cursive.

I googled it and came up with this link, which explains what my friend described as the rationale for teaching cursive first: http://www.swrtraining.com/id17.html

Here's the main rationale: "Historically cursive was taught first to our nation's children. Today, reading and dyslexia experts are rediscovering that teaching cursive first--before print or manuscript--improves long-term penmanship skills, helps children learn to read, virtually eliminates reversals, and enables children to read what is written by others."

So, do any of your schools teach cursive first? My son's in 2nd grade and still printing only.

[ett]

DS2 is in second grade and has only done printing up until now.

[crl]

Printing first. I'm not sure when or if they teach cursive. DS is interested in it though.

Catherine

[wolverine2]

I think cursive is not such a priority anymore in schools. At the school I work at, they introduce it in 3rd grade, but then they don't ever work on it again. Maybe because typing becomes so important?

[justlearning]

I think cursive is not such a priority anymore in schools. At the school I work at, they introduce it in 3rd grade, but then they don't ever work on it again. Maybe because typing becomes so important?

That's what I thought before too. But I think the idea that teaching cursive first can help kids to read better (and have fewer problems with dyslexia) is interesting. Has anyone else heard about this?

[Gena]

Schools here teach printing first. Cursive is generally taught in 3rd grade.

I know that some school districts (not in my immediate area, but in the larger region) no longer teach cursive writing at all.

DS has been able to read cursive writing for a couple of years. I was quite startled when I discovered that he could. (Like his other reading skills, it wasn't taught, but something he picked up as part of his hyperlexia.)

[egoldber]

Our district teaches print first and then cursive in third grade. But I don't think they really emphasize it in any way.

I thought my older DD would hate learning cursive. She has fine motor issues and *I* hated it :o , but she loved learning it.

[Corie]

I've never heard of teaching kids how to write cursive first.

In Rhode Island, DD learned cursive in the 2nd grade.

Here in Ohio, she will learn cursive again because they teach it here
in the 3rd grade.

[gordo]

My school teaches print first but I have read many articles that cursive is more developmentally appropriate to learn first. Children are better at the curved lines versus the straight lines.

[Kindra178]

Montessori schools teach cursive first. My ds is in his second year of primary (age 4) and is learning cursive. The rationale is that cursive is easier and goes with the natural flow of hand movements. I will note that in his first year of primary he learned to print all of his letters.

[jenmcadams]

Printing first; cursive in 3rd grade and after the first month or so, they don't use it again...

[maiaann]

Same here as most of the other posts. Print first, cursive is introduced in 3rd grade. I learned cursive in 3rd grade too, so times haven't changed too much. ;)

[spanannie]

Print first, cursive starting in 2nd grade. DS just started 2nd grade and can't wait!

[MelissaTC]

M is learning now in 3rd grade.

[smilequeen]

They learn printing first, D'Nealian style. It is more curvy and is supposed to transition more easily into cursive.

[luza]

They learn printing first, D'Nealian style. It is more curvy and is supposed to transition more easily into cursive.

:yeahthat:

[giavila]

They learn printing first, D'Nealian style. It is more curvy and is supposed to transition more easily into cursive.

Our school does (Zaner) print in Kindergarten and D'Nealian in first. My dd is in 1st so not sure if cursive comes next year or in 3rd.

[JBaxter]

We are a print first area.

[kijip]

It's entirely unclear to me how much handwriting schools here teach. They don't seem to get a lot of the practice that I got in the same district. We are doing both with T at homeschool, focusing in on improving the quality of his handwriting.

[MMEand1]

This is interesting to me. My DS is in 2nd and they are still doing print. My DD is in K and they do print as well. When my DS was in K, they taught the D'Nealian handwriting method. My DD is doing block print, so I asked her teacher and she told me that the school district decided to do away with the D'Nealian style. Funny how they changed it!

[babyready]

The public schools here do print first but my nephew is at a Montessori school and they teach cursive first.