Do Schools Teach 'Joined Up' Handwriting These Days?

I honestly imagined others would say they were also made to hold their pens in the "right" way, too, although whoever tied my arm took it to extremes.
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MissAdventure
That’s shocking, but our COG would have been at primary school in the 50s and 60’s. I wonder how he got away with it.

I had my hand tied around my back, to make me use my right hand!

My mum had to go down to the school about it.

Late 60s, early 70s this would have been.

MissAdventure

I'm always surprised to see people hold pens (and cutlery) in strange ways.

It would have been pounced on and corrected at school (and home!) back in the olden days.

Our chair of governors must have missed the pouncers and correctors, he’s in his seventies..

I'm always surprised to see people hold pens (and cutlery) in strange ways.

It would have been pounced on and corrected at school (and home!) back in the olden days.

Mollygo

Primrose53
Our chair of governors holds his pen the way you describe. He had no idea what we meant by tripod grip. His writing is neat, even so.

Doesn’t it look odd and clumsy though?

I don't know about other countries but Finland haven't taught cursive for years

Primrose53
Our chair of governors holds his pen the way you describe. He had no idea what we meant by tripod grip. His writing is neat, even so.

Never mind cursive, joined up or whatever we call it - have you seen the way some kids hold pens? We recently saw a youngish solicitor who held her pen in a very strange way that I have seen before in younger people.

Instead of holding it between thumb and first finger she held it between first and second finger sticking up in a vertical position.

Lankyladman

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

I think cursive is what American children is taught. Quite a few letters are now different from before, and it's pretty curly under the line. British children, the ones who aren't taught cursive, use the joined up method which is just taking unjoined letters (slightly extended), and adding a line to join them to the next letter!

I could read and write before I started primary school - not all children can. Some take longer to learn than others, in the same way that some children learn to walk, or ride a bike or acquire countless other skills at a younger age than others. It's not a competition. Teaching methods are constantly evolving. Just because your grandchild may be taught differently from the way you were doesn't make it 'wrong'.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Yes, it is.

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’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.

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’.

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?)

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.

Oreo

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

My grandson could

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.