Manuscript & Cursive - our summer project

I'm kind of a stickler for handwriting. I think it teaches more than just letter recognition and formation but organization and planning - and I'm not alone! This article talks about some differences in brain patterns associated with manuscript, cursive and typing (favorite quote: "When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas."). This article talks about how taking notes by hand is a kinesthetic learning activity which requires cognitive processing verses on a laptop where students tend to take notes verbetum. And this article talks about the benefits of cursive (spoiler: functional specialization that leads to efficiency). There's more but these are a good place to start.

I have 3 kids in public schools here in Virginia and only one of them ever spent time learning cursive (ok - the youngest is just going into 2nd grade). That one had a 3rd grade teacher who is much older. I looked into whether is was still included in the curriculum and it is - it's under English SOL 2.10 and 3.8 but since it's not tested, very little time is spent on it. Studies say that most classrooms (nationwide) devote an average of 1 hour per week to handwriting. I remember spending 15 to 30 minutes each day on handwriting AND my papers always got handwriting grades - I don't know if this was the case with my peers as I went to Catholic schools and hubby went to DOD schools.

So, this summer, I decided that we should work hard on cursive since they weren't getting it in school. I bought 3rd grade lined paper and a cursive handwriting book (from the makers of Handwriting Without Tears - it's not as formal as the cursive I learned and is very - um - vertical - rather than italicized but it's also taught in a verbal manner (for example, "magic c, up like a helicopter, keep going, slide down the pole, bump the line and travel away" is lower case d) which works for my kids, especially my son. I do a week's worth of lettering with dates on the specially lined paper and put it in the workbook for them to do in the morning before they can do what they want.

I recently made this solid elf hat for a neighbor! Visit Hamburke's on Etsy for more styles and colors