Actually, I'm glad to hear that this isn't just my kids. One of my failures as a homeschool mom was to teach my kids cursive. I bought the workbooks. I even did music therapy with them, but neither of them mastered writing in Cursive comfortably. For both of them, it was an extremely painful experience that made all of their schoolwork take 10 times as long and it was very labor-intensive. Printing was only slightly easier. I finally gave up and taught them both to type. My daughter learned to type properly, but my son resisted even that.
Once they could type, they could write. Their creativity flowed. They wrote stories, novels, poetry--and even schoolwork--with ease. *g* They both still love to write.
I never gave up completely. I was afraid they'd suffer for their lack of being able to write in cursive (and especially to read it) so when they were pre-teens/early teens, I got another set of workbooks for kids with writing difficulties and we worked through those. It really didn't help. As a last resort, I bought my daughter yet another third-grade cursive workbook when she was maybe 16 or 17, and she did work through this as well.
I decided it wasn't worth the hassle with my son. Neither of them can read cursive, though both can (finally) sign their names.
I also always hated writing in longhand. Except for schoolwork in the elementary grades, I rarely, if ever, chose to write in cursive on my own. For one thing, few people have legible cursive writing. To make it neat and legible (a must for me, since what's the purpose of writing, if nobody can read it?), you really have to slow down quite a bit.
We receive cards, letters, and other things written in cursive, and even *I* struggle to read them. I don't know why anyone bothers if they're going to write in cursive, honestly. *g*
I can read my own cursive writing, but anyone else's? Usually I struggle through it like it's a secret code. For one thing, my generation (1960s) was taught an entirely different cursive than my mother's generation 1930s & 40s), so anyone who was 20 years older or so wrote in a completely different way. Then they had a whole new series of cursive writing around the time my kids were learning.
There were actually about four different styles of cursive around when I was teaching my kids. When my daughter was at school, they didn't really do handwriting instruction, which was awful, because nobody taught her to form letters properly, so she made many letters from the wrong starting point (i.e. the letters looked right in the end, but were awkwardly "drawn" as though they were artwork, not a letter).
lyraeinne's teacher told me that her daughter was learning the D'Nealian (sp?) method, which was much harder. (It included different ways of forming the letters so that cursive would be easier--lots of curlicues and flourishes.) When I chose for my own kids, I bought the Italic Cursive series (a big mistake, but also supposed to be easier for kids with handwriting difficulties--it wasn't), and then later changed to more traditional workbooks--most specifically a very simple series that, again, was supposed to be for children with difficulties.
Even if they were comfortable with their workbooks, they couldn't read my cursive writing and especially not that of their grandparents.
I don't regret the passing of cursive. I'm just glad it's not just my kids. *g*
no subject
Once they could type, they could write. Their creativity flowed. They wrote stories, novels, poetry--and even schoolwork--with ease. *g* They both still love to write.
I never gave up completely. I was afraid they'd suffer for their lack of being able to write in cursive (and especially to read it) so when they were pre-teens/early teens, I got another set of workbooks for kids with writing difficulties and we worked through those. It really didn't help. As a last resort, I bought my daughter yet another third-grade cursive workbook when she was maybe 16 or 17, and she did work through this as well.
I decided it wasn't worth the hassle with my son. Neither of them can read cursive, though both can (finally) sign their names.
I also always hated writing in longhand. Except for schoolwork in the elementary grades, I rarely, if ever, chose to write in cursive on my own. For one thing, few people have legible cursive writing. To make it neat and legible (a must for me, since what's the purpose of writing, if nobody can read it?), you really have to slow down quite a bit.
We receive cards, letters, and other things written in cursive, and even *I* struggle to read them. I don't know why anyone bothers if they're going to write in cursive, honestly. *g*
I can read my own cursive writing, but anyone else's? Usually I struggle through it like it's a secret code. For one thing, my generation (1960s) was taught an entirely different cursive than my mother's generation 1930s & 40s), so anyone who was 20 years older or so wrote in a completely different way. Then they had a whole new series of cursive writing around the time my kids were learning.
There were actually about four different styles of cursive around when I was teaching my kids. When my daughter was at school, they didn't really do handwriting instruction, which was awful, because nobody taught her to form letters properly, so she made many letters from the wrong starting point (i.e. the letters looked right in the end, but were awkwardly "drawn" as though they were artwork, not a letter).
Even if they were comfortable with their workbooks, they couldn't read my cursive writing and especially not that of their grandparents.
I don't regret the passing of cursive. I'm just glad it's not just my kids. *g*