Time for Cursive

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2002 : October : 19

Time for Cursive
By carolyn

I begin each year with a cursive letter of the day as part of morning work. I give the kids a piece of lined handwriting paper before they arrive, and I write the letter on the board with instructions for the kids to write
two lines of the letter. When the kids sat down to write, they could see several small steps for forming the letter on the board, so that they could remember how the letter was formed. By the time I have finished taking lunch money and attendance, I was ready to go over the kids' morning work, which was a few math problems, then I showed them slowly, step by step (as if they had never

heard it before. I collect all morning work. The whole process of going over a letter a day doesn't drain your academic schedule.

So that they aren't overwhelmed by the demands of cursive writing, if they aren't used to it, I scaffold. At first, I just have them write their spelling test words in cursive. Eventually, we move on to the point where we are writing complete essays in cursive. I only have one student right now who can't write very well in cursive, but he can't print very well, either.