The Victory of Cursive

A great transformation has occurred for our John: he loves writing!

John (9) has been learning cursive probably since last year, but we recently put renewed effort into it and he has 'taken off'. One day, when I left him in Daddy's supervision, finishing up his independent work while I took the littles to swim class, I came home to find John had written the below beautiful essay. 

This may not seem like much for this or that child who loves writing, but this is the boy who still fought and bucked to write anything. Just writing the one creative sentence per day for spelling was a cause of agony for him. I had to approve of his daily sentence because he would try to write the minimum number of words he could get away with and have the sentence still count.

John was so pleased with the accomplishment of writing his own essay, he was beaming . . . and his Mama got tears in her eyes.

The next morning, John asked before breakfast was even cleaned up, "Mama? Can I start writing essays? In cursive? I want to write one every day."

I was left stammering while John raced off and wrote the below.

Mary and John begged me to look up the history of cursive (there is one?), so I found this neat presentation (click here), which inspired Mary to run off and write a (printed) essay on the subject.

Next, John asked me permission to start using cursive on his worksheets and for spelling dictation--anything he has to write during school. I said, of course! I explained that cursive is actually way easier to write than print or block letters once one masters it.

The following morning, John skipped his breakfast to hole himself up and start writing long, cursive letters to his CCE teachers.

It is possible that Pod People have come and replaced John, but I like to think that our third grader has experienced a combination of an increase of fine motor skill and the diligence of practicing his cursive letters.