Cursive Handwriting in Schools

I was taught cursive writing in the '40s and my writing is almost illegible - but I'm very fast (and I can read it). It didn't help my exam results in later life.
My children learned like the Ladybird books and have much clearer handwriting than me.

I recognise the page of lines drawn, Yennifer, with the height of different letters. I was taught to print first. I can still do it pretty quickly. Then we had dip pens and were taught Palace Script (like engraved invitations.) It looked beautiful. I lost that when I made notes at university, and ballpoint pens helped to ruin my writing, because there are no changes in up and down strokes.

My DGS is left-handed and so I have been helping with some quick drying ink pens to stop smudging. Writing without lines is much harder to keep neat.

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I think the school was called Senrab previously, Bluesapphire? I had a friend who taught there. I was teaching at Portway Primary in Newham, near Stratford, East London. We were filmed for the Open University one day as we were “team teaching” in an open plan area and it was all very innovative . 1969!!!

MawB my dad, my sister, one of my sons and one of my daughters and I all had/have similar writing despite attending different schools. I really have to look closely to guess who it’s from. I recall one time recently when the list came and I thought ‘Hmm, I don’t remember writing to myself.’ It was actually from my son.

My brother has the most beautiful, elegant handwriting. Trouble is, it’s near illegible!

I do scribble a lot, notes, lists etc but wouldn't write anything lengthy by hand now as I'd use the PC.

suedonim my eldest daughter and myself have identical writing I often wonder when I wrote that when I get a birthday card from her it’s like I ve written it myself funny isn’t it my other two are quite different

My old school adopted the style Yennifer shows almost 20 years ago as good results were observed from a feeder infants school. Teachers were required to use the same style on boards and in marking. It was very good for my handwriting which had never been neat despite being taught cursive.
I think the style the OP shows is pretty awful with all those curly upper case letters. In the one I taught, capitals were never joined.

It does help letter formation because apart from the x you don't have to take your pencil off the page. I must admit I find it a struggle sometimes as my writing wasn't joined up but practise makes perfect. Our school changed to it so children who have already learned to write are now learning cursive and it's hard to reteach writing style x

If I see adults printing not joining up I think it looks really childish I truly admit I m being wrongly judgemental but that’s the first thing that comes into my mind
It’s also so time consuming to take the pen off after each letter it’s so much easier to move along in a continuous flow
When did this teaching printing take place as I learned joined up in the 50 s my children did joined up in the 70 s and my grandkids have learnt joined up in the 2000 s ?

An OT once told me that children with illegible writing need fine motor skills help first but not before more practice with gross motor skills and whole body awareness. It all refined down to be able to write neatly and legibly. So those PE lessons weren’t wasted. ?

BlueBelle When did this teaching printing take place as I learned joined up in the 50 s my children did joined up in the 70 s and my grandkids have learnt joined up in the 2000 s ?
As I discovered when I looked at my old handwriting it seems a lot of children were taught single letters first and then had to learn a different style later to join the letters. You can see this very clearly in my two handwriting examples, one aged 6 with single letters and the other aged 8 when I must have learnt cursive.

Bluebelle, yes, it does take you by surprise to get a letter from yourself!

I can’t remember how I learnt, nor how my dc learnt to write. There might be a few old books in the attic that has their handwriting in.

Both my granddaughters are being taught to write like that - with tails on -. One is 8, the other 5 yrs old.

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FFS do you people never give up?
You
Are
Wasting
Your
Time
(And mine, which is more important) ???????

Free essay examples say there are a whole philosophy in writing cursive

Are there? ?????????.

I was taught cursive writing in (Scottish) primary school in the 50's. During my PGCE year I 'relearned' using what is referred to here as the Marion Richard's style although I 've never heard that label.
That's the semi-italic style I adopted and taught for many years. I much prefer it its clean lines to the fussy old-fashioned traditional cursive.

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Like this at earlier stages but adapting later to a semi-italic style without fussy embellishments.

I think children have been taught to write letters with tails & hooks to enable easy joined up for a long time. My children certainly did in the 70s & 80s and also all the grandchildren of various ages. I was at school in the 50s and like others learned printing first and a fancy joined up style later - we virtually had to learn letter formation twice. It seems sensible to learn one style from the start even if it looks weird to us in the early stages.

I was initially taught plain, ‘round’ handwriting, which was later joined up.
At 9 we moved area and my new school taught the (to my family) old-fashioned ‘loopy’ handwriting.

Roll on 2 years and my senior school wanted us writing italic, with italic fountain pens.
3 styles in 4 years - I can honestly say my handwriting never recovered. I still remember the red ink comments beneath my homework - ‘Writing MUST improve!’

On the way to learning cursive handwriting in the 1940s, we began with 'pot-hooks', the building blocks of many letters. Then we had to learn to make the letters and join them up. I was never very good at that, and by the time I was 15, I was losing marks for my illegible writing. The rubric on all Scottish exam papers was, unforgettably:
'Marks will be deducted for bad spelling, bad punctuation and for writing that is difficult to read'.
My dad bought me a book on italic writing which I enjoyed and took to calligraphy enthusiastically. My teachers were pleasantly surprised that my writing had suddenly become legible, if unconventional.

Many years ago a.friend gave me some exercise books to practice handwriting with my children, they were used in Steiner schools , I seem to remember they had different coloured covers with tiny dots , very slim paper backs . The idea was to use tracing paper over the scripts . Does anyone know what they were called as I would love to use them with my grandchildren.

I was taught italic , we used proper pens with an ink pot. If I can write with a proper pen my handwriting is fine , give me a Biro and it's illegible .