Homeschooling

Over the past year my lad has been learning cursive, predominately using CursiveLogic to do so.  He has been cementing his lowercase skills and complaining that he needs to learn his uppercase letters. Recently I received the CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack and The Art of Cursive.  My son said “YAY!!!   I can learn my uppercase letters!”

Among my homeschool friends I’ve had people ask why I’m teaching cursive to my son since it’s no longer taught in most public schools.   I tell them it’s good for his brain and he needs to learn to sign his signature well.  As I was working through this review I thought it would be good to discuss why learning cursive is so important as well as discuss why CursiveLogic works so well.  

Did you know that teaching cursive has the following benefits?  It helps to develop fine motor skills, reinforces skills learned (such as how to spell words), confidence in signing legal documents (needing to provide a signature), good cursive is an art form (so not my chicken scratch), and if you learn to write it, you can learn to read it which gives you access to historical documents.  Many people still write in cursive, therefore why restrict yourself to only reading printing?  It’s an important skill that we shouldn’t so easily lose. 

The CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack

This pack includes a video to teach you how to use CursiveLogic, as well as the CursiveLogic book.  

The Video:

One of the changes that CursiveLogic did to the program from the past, was to add a teacher training video.  This is a video that goes through their methodology.  Here we learn why they chose different colours for learning cursive, and why they group letters as they do. We also learn why they use a catch phrase to help students learn or improve their skills in cursive.  “The goal of CursiveLogic is even, automatic handwriting.  Even means the student makes the same shape every time.”    They explain everything so that the teacher has a good grounding in the reasoning behind their methodology.  From why they group letters as they do, to why lower case letters are taught first and so on.   Just so you know… your average student should be able to master the lowercase letters within a week or two, just needing practice to fine tune their writing.   They are uniform and easy to master, cover 95% of all writing, and therefore builds confidence.   This video walks you through all the lessons and is about an hour long.

The System:

• Shape-based approach… if you look at the orange string above you can see how they have similar shape.
• Four letter strings that each share a common shape 
• Students learn to connect letters right from the start
• CursiveLogic uses multisensory approach that uses color, movement, verbal, and auditory tools – appeals to all learning styles
• Students write real words the first week. This means they are putting into practice their skills immediately.
• A logical approach that is easy for students to understand.

Lower case letters (four lessons) are taught first as they make up the bulk of the writing people do. Upper case letters (6 lessons) follow.

The Steps are easy to remember: Make sure you have the proper posture, have paper and pencil/pen. Hold your pen in a triangle hold. The book gives instructions on the best grip and method of writing, even to how to angle the paper for best writing. Each string has a similar methodology to it: use your finger to trace the letter, as you start your letter, say the steps needed to make the letter. For example in the orange string you would say “over, back-trace” Each string has it’s own catch phrase.

Our Usage of the Book:

Lowercase letters are in the first half of the book, just flip a page for the next part.  When you get to the close of the lowercase  lessons, you flip the page around and start working on the Uppercase Letters. 

The lad wanted this review JUST so he could learn the upper case letters really well.  I asked him though to practice his lower case just to refresh his memory. Once he breezed through this I left him to fly with the Upper Case Letters.

The practice lines are well spaced, but my lad for some reason gets twisted in a knot over tracing letters or using practice lines with the middle line in it, so he likes to practice on scrap paper.   Gives him lots of room to make the letters as big as he wants and then as he grows proficient to then fit them into your standard lined paper.    I was happy to see his willingness to make his own sentences after just starting with the first string of capital letters.  Seeing his confidence blossom with his uppercase letters is wonderful!  

The Art of Cursive Logic:

Did you know that CursiveLogic also has a colouring book?  I know!  Rather neat eh?  Here’s a video giving you a bit of the background and purpose of their colouring book. Imagine a colouring book that includes the shapes and letters of writing.

I happen to like colouring so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  It is meant for adults rather than children, but if you have a detail oriented child, this colouring book would give them just the right amount of challenge. It was rather fun to do the different shapes in their own colour.  I learned that if I want to make the letter shapes, marker works best.  Using pencil crayon means I’m mostly colouring, whereas using a marker ensures I’m making the shapes of the letters readily.    OH… and cool thing.. each page is made two-sided.  One with the art work, and on the backside, practice letters or quotes. Ergo if as an adult you are learning cursive (or just wanting to touch up your skills) you could use the backsides to learn.  OR.. if you wanted to give your children extra practice you could colour your page and then give the backside to your children. 

CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack The Art of Cursive CursiveLogic Products and Pricing: see here. Sale: ends March 31. Save 20% on the Quick-start pack use this code: CREW2018 Reviewed for: Homeschool Review Crew.

100 members of the crew used CursiveLogic.  You can read their reviews here.

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