Why only cursive alphabet in 3-6 classroom?

[Qbear'smama]

We are looking for a pre-to- elementary school for our almost-3 dd. We went to a great Montessori school and really liked the 3-6 classroom, but I was sort of bothered by the fact that the movable alphabet and sandpaper letters were only in cursive. The teacher said they are available in both, but that in their classroom they only used the cursive and that the children never learned the printed alphabet but went straight to cursive. She gave a few reasons, but I was thinking that dd knows and can identify all the non-cursive letters and can write a few and that cursive letters would totally confuse her. Does anyone have an explanation why 'printed' letters would be skipped entirely? Apart from this, I really liked what this school and the 3-6 classroom had to offer. Thoughts?

[spedteacher30]

our school doesn't teach to write the printed alphabet, but obviously, the children have to learn to recognize it, since it is the basis of reading.

I am not too worried about it, though, since learning cursive straight off means that he won't have to learn to write twice.

[Lillianna]

There should be a smaller print alphabet that is called "the phonogram alphabet" and used for reading work (with phonograms - explorations, spelling and memorization). The child can learn both of these "languages" simultaneously but we do teach writing with the cursive letters because the child is in a sensitive period for movement and can achieve a very nice competence with handwriting if offered this opportunity at this age. Cursive is more aligned with children's early drawing patterns at this age - the tendency is for circular, continuous movement across the page rather than the pick up and strike movements of print.

[Qbear'smama]

Thanks, Lillianna. That makes sense and I see what you mean about cursive being more in keeping with their drawing patterns. I didn't see any other letters but of course it makes sense that they would need to know both to read.