Cursive Handwriting Practice

       Teaching in a Catholic school, we still believe in teaching cursive handwriting.  This is not a lost art.  We still need to read the written word.  There are a multitude of historical documents that need to be presented to the youth of today and in the future.  How will our descendants be able to read any personal notes or letters from people in their past?  How will children of the future be able to appreciate our country's historical documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights if they can not read cursive handwriting?  What a shame for this to happen!
   So, as a 5th grade teacher, I give my students meaningful cursive handwriting practice.  Twice a week, I write, in my BEST cursive handwriting, a paragraph pertaining to a lesson that was given that week.  I have been incorporating my Religion lessons. The students copy the information on the bottom portion of the page.  
    We use a S+ , S, and N scale to access handwriting.
Here are some examples of student work this year.

      As you can see, my students are at various stages of cursive handwriting proficiency.  As we know, cursive handwriting takes great eye - hand coordination and concentration.   Handwriting is always a work in progress.  It takes practice.
     I do think cursive handwriting is well worth the effort.  It should not be a dying art.

Do you teaching Cursive handwriting in your class?

Please leave a comment if you get the chance.  I enjoy hearing from you.
Enjoy the cooler October weather.

        Hop on over to teachingblogaddict.com to see all the other freebies in this week's collection, Oct. 2, 2015.  Here is the link:
teachingblogaddict.com


Beti