Its an unavoidable fact that we do most of our communication through computers these days and thus, home-school children will most likely remind parents of this fact when its time to study cursive. However, home-schoolers need to know that keyboards have not made good old pen-and-paper writing obsolete. We still write checks, notes, letters, memos, and more every day in todays fast-pace work environment. Learning how to write is an invaluable skill and one that refines motor skills and reading abilities in the process.
The three major elements that make up cursive are letter formation, letter size, and letter slant. Home-school students should learn cursive in that order. Start off with providing your students with a guide conveying the proper way to write each letter. Then, provide them with some writing samples illustrating some common cursive mistakes. Have your students correct these samples.
You should encourage each home-school student to develop his or her personal style. Cursive should not mimic the sample writing you provide. Some students will have thin, gaunt letters; others will have squat, jolly letters. Whats important here is not that each home-school child conforms to a set standard, but that their letters are uniform across words. Praise your child for developing a unique font. Legibility is the only thing that should limit the home-school students imagination.
To ensure that your home-school students are writing proper slant, write lines through the center of each letter. Symmetry is important here as well as consistency in slant from letter to letter. The angle should be uniform across letters and words. If it helps, you can have the home-school student slant his or her paper to encourage proper slant.
Mimi Rothschild
Original source: http://www.articlesbase.com/homeschooling-articles/handwriting-cursive-in-the-homeschool-141249.html
