Cursive First?

[boigrrrlwonder]

I've heard a lot of benefits of teaching cursive before print. Currently, my daughter and I occasionally talk about phonemes. We play starfall sometimes and talk about the words in the books we read. She can recognize a printed alphabet. At 2.5, though, she doesn't have the fine motor skills for writing at all. Since she knows what the printed alphabet looks like and is learning phonemes, should I be showing her the cursive alphabet now? Or is it okay to wait until I teach her to write?

[theretohere]

Originally Posted by boigrrrlwonder

I've heard a lot of benefits of teaching cursive before print. Currently, my daughter and I occasionally talk about phonemes. We play starfall sometimes and talk about the words in the books we read. She can recognize a printed alphabet. At 2.5, though, she doesn't have the fine motor skills for writing at all. Since she knows what the printed alphabet looks like and is learning phonemes, should I be showing her the cursive alphabet now? Or is it okay to wait until I teach her to write?

I teach cursive before printing. That being said, cursive is easiest to learn to read as you learn to write it, so I wouldn't worry about it now.

[bandgeek]

It certainly can't hurt to expose her to cursive, but I wouldn't worry about trying to teach it right now. I think it makes most sense when it's run together in words, not broken down into individual letters, so I agree with the pp that it would be easiest to learn to read it as you're learning to write it.

I didn't teach cursive first, but I started encouraging writing when DS could 1) hold a pencil correctly and 2) showed an interest in learning. He was about 4 when both of those happened (at about the same time too!).

[magentamomma]

My dyslexic girls were taught cursive as a way to remediate, because when the letters are linked they can't flip or move around the way rint letters can. They went from 6 words a minute to 50 something in the space of a year.

[Peony]

Originally Posted by magentamomma

My dyslexic girls were taught cursive as a way to remediate, because when the letters are linked they can't flip or move around the way rint letters can. They went from 6 words a minute to 50 something in the space of a year.

This is why we went with cursive first as well. DD1 is dyslexic, print letters are way too easy for her to mess up, but she doesn't have that problem with cursive. I'm sold on cursive first and plan to teach it to DD2 this way as well. In print though, as she is learning to write it, not before she is writing, is is tricky to read until you are writing it yourself.

[Shelsi]

I know this is an older thread but I just wanted to mention there's always D'Nealian style handwriting which is what they teach in the public schools here. It's sort of a cross between print and cursive. I don't really like it personally but my ds, who didn't have very good fine motor skills, did pick up on it much easier than regular ball and stick style printing. We just pulled him out of public school a few days ago and I still haven't decided what style to have him write in but I think we'll go back to ball and stick since he has the motor skills for it now and it's really what I know best and how I write.