In my How to Teach Cursive Writing series, I discovered I was making the assumption that teachers already know how to write in cursive. Thanks to a reader’s email, I realized that today one cannot make that assumption with teachers under age 35.
Additonally, there are adults who were briefly exposed to cursive when young, but never mastered it due to insufficient instruction in school. Some of these people really want to learn cursive themselves.
Here are some ideas to start with if you find yourself in either position:
Crimson Wife
Thanks to Crimson Wife, a professional homeschooling mother of three, posting on cursive writing, I came upon a site she recommends called Peterson Directed Handwriting . If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will find four links to four easily-opening online cursive workbooks in Adobe Acrobat. If you need precise instruction in which direction and stroke to move your pen for each letter, start with Cursive Step 1. This looks like a reasonably good place to start if you need this sort of help.
What both every teacher and writer of cursive need to know first is where to place the pen or pencil to start each letter, and which direction the strokes go. Peterson Directed Handwriting does a good job of this.
Once correct letter formation is completely mastered, one can start working on neatness. In the beginning, however, neatness is not important. What is important is mastering correct letter formation, proportion, and slant (more on each of these issues in upcoming posts).
My next post will deal with preparing your own practice paper, so anyone needing to learn on their own, as well as teachers who need to prepare their own cursive master worksheets for teaching will find this useful.
–Lynne Diligent
Other Posts on Cursive Writing by Lynne Diligent:
Why Britain Made a Change to Vertical Handwriting
Part I: What NOT to Do When Teaching Cursive in the Classroom
Part 3: How to Prepare the Paper to Make Your Own Cursive Masters
Tags: a place to start for self-teaching of cursive handwriting as an adult, many teachers under 35 never mastered cursive writing themselves so they can't use it or teach it, mastering correct letter formation in cursive writing, mastering correct slant in cursive writing, neatness is not important when starting work on learning cursive writing, Peterson Directed Handwriting
September 3, 2013 at 4:03 pm |
Moving among different school districts is one challenge/problem in learning and maintaining decent cursive. I grew up in Europe (French-speaking Switzerland) where we learned both cursive and calligraphy. When we moved to Canada, neither was accepted by teachers in grades 6 to 12 in British Columbia, Ontario and Manitoba. In each province, not only was I at best greeted with puzzlement (why do you write like that?), I was never given any instruction on the local preference, though my “writing” (no-one used the word cursive) was roundly criticized at each move. As a result, I gave up trying to write legibly except for myself.
September 3, 2013 at 9:36 pm |
Oh, George, that’s terrible! It’s also completely understandable why you developed a negative attitude. It’s too bad someone didn’t take you under their wing in Canada and help you. The problems you were having could have been corrected in three months if you had the right person helping you. Thank you for sharing this insightful story from your youth.
October 9, 2013 at 6:52 pm |
I am a graduate of Animal Science from the university of agriculture in Nigeria. I really want to build a career in teaching handwriting here in Nigeria. I want to know how and where to get the knowledge abroad while here in Nigeria. I will be glad if you reply this email soonest. Thanks and God bless
May 29, 2015 at 3:42 am |
I’m an American, 65 years old, and have always been impressed by the penmanship/handwriting of many people from the UK; my second-grade teacher was English, and she had beautiful, very neat handwriting. While my “lettering”[as in drafting] has always drawn complements, my handwriting has left much to be desired, so I’m interested in improving it.