LEARNED FROM EXPERIENCE

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Home : 2004 : August : 20

LEARNED FROM EXPERIENCE
By HEIDI

My first year teaching grade 4 and 5, I was always printing on the board, just because I wasn't comfortable with my own handwriting going uphill or downhill every time I tried to use cursive on the board. AT the end of the
year, I was at a transition meeting with middle school teachers who were going to be "receiving" my grade 5 students. They emphasized, "Don't you guys teach them cursive?" They told me students get to their school and tell the teachers they don't know how to write in cursive. We quickly cleared that up and I told them that students have all worked on cursive since grade 3, but 4 and

5 especially had to use cursive.

The next year I started the year with only cursive on my boards and I told students that I expected cursive (unless the child had an LD making it a barrier to their learning). They moaned and groaned and when I did ask them to copy a sentence from the board they really groaned about it. In fact, it was painfully slow and drove me batty at the start of the year. But I stuck to my guns and the kids got good at it. they picked up speed. All assignments (even long ones) were in cursive. I reminded them at the end of the year and they launghed about it. Key to success is haveing posters up to show the letters and maybe even having it taped to their desks on a nameplate or strip.