Do Schools Teach 'Joined Up' Handwriting These Days?

Oreo

Day one?
Four year olds can’t usually write or spell anything.

I still have a copy of a poem my daughter copied out when she was 4. She wanted to go into the handwriting competition that my son had at his school. All 4 of them could read and write before the age of 5.

CW52

Back in ‘my day’ we called it ‘real writing’ 😮 I now live in Australia and our grandchildren call it cursive but I don’t think it’s taught 🤔. One of the things I found strange was that they had to earn a ‘Pen Licence’. Before they were allowed to write with a ballpoint pen (or a Biro as we knew them!)

Earn a pen licence - because your handwriting, whatever style had to be legible before you got a pen. It’s like a driving licence. You have to learn how to drive before you have a licence to drive a car.
Both theoretically a good idea.

When I was at infants school we called it 'real' writing.
I'm sure different areas called it different things.

Cursive handwriting aids spelling skills.

I'm glad you said that, Seagull72. One of the key components of good spelling is the muscle memory promoted by writing spellings by hand as every word has a unique sequence of movements involved in spelling it. That's why fluent handwriters can be fluent as the muscle memory associated with each word takes over, no need to think of the individual letters, just 'think' the word and the muscles take over 😁

I'm sure that touch typists develop the same sort of muscle memory for words, but it's harder for the 'hunt & peckers' (like me 😆)

Research has shown that students who hand write their notes have some advantage over those who type them when it comes to remembering the material. Also, as I saw pointed out recently, students with laptops have more opportunity for distraction from the job in hand...

I'm in rare agreement with BigLouis pointing out that we're rather stymied when technology fails. In the recent world wide outage of Microsoft based IT systems airlines resorted to writing out boarding cards by hand and doctors did the same with prescriptions. It's a good job they'd learned handwriting...

My Dh had an aunt who taught English Literature at a private school in Glasgow and her handwriting was immaculate, my DCs used love getting a card from her, because it made them feel special. My eldest DS is left handed but his cursive writing is perfect, which is head teacher told us was unusual for a left handed writer

Sparklefizz

Grannynannywanny

I remember a few years back when my granddaughter was 7 and I wrote a message on her birthday card. Thinking I was making it easier for her to read I didn’t use my usual cursive writing. She read the message and after a pause said “I wonder why your teacher didn’t show you how to join up your letters Gran, I can show you if you like” 😆

Love it!

My daughter carefully taught her daughter to write all the letters before she started school. She came home and told her mum off for not teaching her to do the curls and flicks!

Yes, in the primary school our grandson is leaving today.

Redhead56

It was called cursive writing years ago.

They still teach children to leave "tails" on their letters at my grandchildren's primary school, this later enables them to join letters together.

Seagull72 Cursive handwriting aids spelling skills.

Yes, if I can't remember a spelling when I'm typing I stop and write out the word, my brain remembers the spelling that way.
Children are taught to use a tripod grip in primary schools today, my 5 year old grandson's report said that he was using it.

When I started primary school in 1950, I had to take a piece of slate, a slate pencil and a small bottle of water to clean the slate after using it. I can't remember what I was taught first, if it was numbers or letters. I remember when I began to write it was with a pencil and then the class moved on to a pen with a nib and ink in the inkwell on the desk. There were many splodges of ink on our paper which I think was stiff material

Yes I was taught copperplate writing in primary school. As someone mentioned earlier, the pen dod not leave the paper until the word was completed. I agree that the birth certicates etc of years gone by, have beautiful easy to read writing

Ashcombe

Nowadays, schools are following the practice of other countries, GrannyRose15, in teaching cursive writing almost from the start. That has been the case for a few years, according to my DD2, who has been teaching in primary for more than 20 years and is now a Headteacher.

I’m really glad to hear that. Unfortunately my grandsons aren’t at one of those schools. They really struggle with cursive because it hasn’t been taught properly.

Oreo

Day one?
Four year olds can’t usually write or spell anything.

My grandson could

My grandsons were taught cursive writing from first year in school. But some of them had more emphasis on the joined up bits than actual formation of letters. Spelling was hard to decipher due to tiny sized writing . One is now 19 and his hand writing is almost illegible. Maybe teach them to actually write before teaching cursive? I learnt to use italics but only after few years at school.

I’m well into my 80s and never heard it called cursive writing until quite recently - and even then I thought it was an American expression. I’m sure we used to call it double writing and started to do this in the junior school. (Incidentally, why do all Americans seem to write with the same style? Is/was there a common handbook throughout the entire country?)

I’m old enough to remember that it was called cursive before it was called joined-up. My nieces and nephew were taught ‘joined-up’ writing in the ‘70s. I thought they were being talked down to when they were told to call it ‘joined-up’.

Yes, it’s taught although not the copperplate version that I had beaten into me in the early. 60s, thank God. I had ( and still have ) beautiful handwriting but was told, at secondary school, to tone down the ‘fancy’ writing style as it was no good for exams.

It was joined up writing when I was taught it.
First we learned hoe to put "tails" on the letters, then how to join the tail to the next letter.

Yes, it is.

“Cursive”, “joined up” - does it matter? We get the gist, surely.

My 15 year-old can read cursive but my 14 year-old can't. If I write a note in cursive the 15 year-old translates.

My fourteen year old grandsons handwriting is atrocious- obviously he wasn’t made to write neatly it looks like a very young child’s. To much work on computers lol

Could be that he as dyspraxia. That is the cause of DS's and my very poor handwriting - and typing.

'Cursive' ay?
If there's one thing I dislike, it's new words for the same thing.

Oreo

Day one?
Four year olds can’t usually write or spell anything.

They are writing sentences by 5

Our school teaches cursive but it starts with lead lines and they don't join up straight away