Does your child's school teach cursive?

[ancoda]

I am a homeschooling mom so I do not always know what is going on at the public schools around me. I mostly just teach what feels right for my family and me.

Recently I was on another forum for parents and they were talking about that a lot of schools are dropping teaching cursive since it is not really needed any more since everyone mostly uses computers. This just seemed strange to me, so I thought I would ask all of you that have kids in public or private schools. Does your school still teach cursive, if it does at what grade level is it taught? I am pretty sure when I was in school we started around the end of 2nd or the beginning of 3rd.

Also whether or not cursive is taught in your child's school, is there any emphasis put on good penmanship at your child's school? This was another part of the discussion on the other forum also that so long as teachers can make out what the students are writing they really do not try to improve their penmanship at all.
I do feel that nice penmanship is a good thing to work toward and do plan to at least introduce cursive to my children. They will also be introduced to calligraphy at some point, just because I think it is fun.

[limabean]

Cursive is taught in 3rd grade in my district. My DS is only in 1st, but I student taught 3rd, and by the spring they were expected to do all their classwork in cursive. I felt bad for a few of the kids who had a really hard time with it -- it slowed them down SO much and caused lots of tears.

I think that kids obviously need to learn how to at least read cursive, but to have it be such a strict requirement that ALL the work needs to be done in cursive at age 8 or 9 seems pretty harsh to me.

[EFmom]

They're taught cursive for about half an hour in third grade. There is very little emphasis on penmanship in our public school.

I went to a very repressive catholic school a long, long time ago, and the nuns were obsessed with penmanship. We spent endless long hours copying religious passages using the Palmer method and got graded on penmanship.

My kids both have lovely handwriting, and mine is atrocious, so maybe they are on to something these days.

[JollyGG]

Yep. My son just started learning it this week. He's in third. I am so excited. He really struggles with handwriting and I really think that cursive fits better with the way he wants to form his letters (he wants to start at the bottom for some letters verses the top where he should for printing). I also believe it will make his writing quicker once he gets the hang of it which will be really nice for him as well.

[meemee]

yup 3rd grade here too. not sure how much emphasis they put on it, but they do have to learn it.

[elmh23]

Dd is only in Kindergarten at a private school, but I know they've talked about learning cursive later on (the do d'Nealian, which lends its self well to learning cursive.) I'm pretty sure it will be 2nd or 3rd grade when they do it. I remember learning in 3rd.

[Cekimon]

we are still in preschool but i'm always picking the brains of moms with older kids in elementary. one was saying that at her older son's school, they start off teaching them to write their letters from the beginning with the loopty-loos prepping them to go right into cursive. i guess it all depends on the district? if i were homeschooling, (and it's still an option depending on how things go!) i would do the cursive. it just seems like something everyone should know regardless of computers and typing being the norm.

[blizzard_babe]

In our district, we teach but it's not really assessed. I don't know any teachers who would score down an assignment for not being written in cursive. If a student's writing is illegible or impedes reader access to what they're trying to say (like you have to work so hard to decipher it, you miss the meaning... or one student who wrote so tiny that anyone over the age of 40 needed a magnifying glass ), then yeah. Work on penmanship.

Otherwise... my philosophy is to teach it as an optional way of "dressing up" letters... everyone learns it on some rudimentary level but it's up to the student if they want to use it. I never use cursive and my quality of life has not suffered for it, nor would it really improve if I wrote in beautiful cursive on a regular basis. Still, some people like to write in cursive, so everyone should probably at least know how to read it.

[AndrewsMother]

My sons private school teaches print in PK4, and by the end of kindergarten the children are learn cursive writing.

[MattBronsil]

Easiest time to teach it is when they start learning to write in pre-k, before print. I would imagine most schools teach it, but later than that. Just an assumption, though.

[Peony]

DD1 goes to a private school, they start cursive in 3rd grade. She started in 1st grade though since she is dyslexic.

[34me]

My older 2 learned in third grade. I harped on penmanship because my dh's is awful. Dd is good, ds is awful, his name even looks misspelled and he doesn't write a capital G correctly which is important as it's the first letter in our last name. Ds#2's school doesn't teach it. He's in 6th grade and doesn't have a signature. I really need to get on that.

[Geofizz]

DD loves it. They're doing one letter a day in 3rd grade now, and it's taught 1-on-1 with the teacher. This is now the first time any teacher has watched how DD holds a pencil, noticed that she forms most of her printed letters incorrectly. So we're seeing cursive as both a fresh start as well as something that may very well help her printing. None of this would be the case, though, if she didn't love it.

[ollyoxenfree]

My dc attended Montessori schools, so they learned cursive from the beginning (pre-kindergarten age). I think it's taught usually taught in 3rd grade in the public schools. I recall the excitement when they were allowed to "graduate" from using a pencil to a pen.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by AndrewsMother

My sons private school teaches print in PK4, and by the end of kindergarten the children are learn cursive writing.

Same thing here. They start teaching handwriting (cursive) in Kindy. They used Handwriting without Tears in dd's school, IIRC. And yes, in 3rd grade (and in 1st and 2nd as well), one of dd's homework assignments every night is orthography. She has quite nice penmanship for her age. I'm quite "old-school" and I find that I like the emphasis on handwriting. Such a dying art.

[AndrewsMother]

Originally Posted by velochic

Same thing here. They start teaching handwriting (cursive) in Kindy. They used Handwriting without Tears in dd's school, IIRC. And yes, in 3rd grade (and in 1st and 2nd as well), one of dd's homework assignments every night is orthography. She has quite nice penmanship for her age. I'm quite "old-school" and I find that I like the emphasis on handwriting. Such a dying art.

Ds's school also uses handwriting without tears, but I do believe that they use the same or a similar curriculum. Ds's school is only IB during the 11th and 12th grade. Before that they use IPC, and the programme of set in place byt the French Ministry of National Education.

I hope that our school teaches Orthography.

[Aeress]

I learned cursive in 4th grade. In fact, I was going to skip cursive as part of our homeschooling until I started reading about the Montessori approach and realized it made sense to add in. I wish we had started it early.

I think the denelian (sp?) is a better way to introduce print because it makes the transition to cursive easier and it also helps children who confuse letters. We are using Hand Writing Without Tears very loosely.

[Alyantavid]

Our school does, in third grade also. My son's been wanting to do it forever so he started at home about a year ago. I don't think they mark them down for how well they do it though, as long as they have the basics and the teacher could read it.

[Thalia the Muse]

Just another data point -- California public school, they had cursive last year in third grade. She developed nice handwriting, but their homework is still in printing.

[SubliminalDarkness]

Yes, in 3rd grade. DS1 is learning it now.