What language is Cursive??

When RoboBoy was probably in 1st or 2nd grade one day out of the blue he asked me, "Mommy, what language is cursive in?" We chuckle over this, but these days cursive might as well be a foreign language. It seems that so little focus is given to teaching our children handwriting anymore. I was guilty of this myself for a while.

I felt so overwhelmed just trying to teach my kids the basics that I figured that handwriting was something that could be pushed to the background or dropped all together. I'm realizing that this is a mistake. Our kids still need to be able to read and write cursive. My dear friend shared with me the other day that a young man she knows is getting ready to get his driver's license. He doesn't know how to sign his name in cursive and therefore has no signature. Hmmm, not good!

But this got me to thinking..."Wait a minute! My kids don't yet know how to sign their names in cursive either!" This is something we need to be working on! One of the tools we will most likely use is the handwriting worksheets found at www.spellingcity.com. I've talked about these before. One of my favorite things about them is that you can customize them with whatever words your kids are working on and then print them out to have them practice. So I could make worksheets with each of their names in cursive and have them practice writing their signatures. That way, when it's their turn to get a driver's license, (gasp! not too soon, please!!) they will be ready to sign on that dotted line.