Anyone start cursive "early" without using Cursive First?

[kalanamak]

We are most of the way through Z-B printing, and kiddo *loves* handwriting (wonders never cease). He is copying all the nice beautiful cursive capital letters he can find and wants to go on with it. He is just 6.
I don't really want to start buying a new direction of curriculum....anyone just forge on with Z-B cursive early? What book to buy? Thanks

[one l michele]

he was a K'er but really wanted to learn cursive. My youngest I'm teaching this way from the start. I do not use workbooks, instead pick a style you like and figure out the sequence you want to teach them and start doing it. We use Calvert Script, but in HWOT sequence.

[jeri]

Now I'm doing it all over again with my ESL 8 yo dd, my ESL 7 yo ds adn 5 yo bio ds. They are all doing great! I used Cursive First but agree with the earlier poster--just pick a style and teach it.

jeri

[Novafan]

We do cursive "early." My 1st DS started in 1st grade (he's now in 3rd) and my 2nd DS started in preschool (Montessori) at age 4, because that's just how they do it. He's homeschooled now and a 1st grader and he still needs some fine tuning on his cursive, but we are using Cursive Connections. I highly recommend it.

[Jean in IN]

I taught my first 2 without a cursive curriculum. We use SWR, so as I was teaching them sounds I would teach them how to write the sounds.
With my 3rd, I had CF but basically did the same thing except now she had worksheets to practice on.
don't know if that answers your question. I haven't ever seen Z-B cursive, but I would imagine that if he's interested you could just keep going with what's working

[Cadam]

dd wanted to learn cursive so we just started her in the HWOT cursive book. No big deal! She loves it.

[Surfside Academy]

I'm doing cursive with my ds who is in kindergarten and he's doing fine. I originally started with Cursive First but for us, it just had way too many beginning and ending strokes so I switched to HWOT. The writing is more vertical than most but I'm not really a stickler for style. I have seen the New American Cursive from Memoria Press and really wish it had been available when earlier. It looks great and it's geared more for K-2nd graders.

[Medieval Mom]

We just started cursive with ds5. I REALLY wanted to try Cursive First, but my dh convinced me to try it on my own by using the Zaner-Bloser website to make my own handwriting practice sheets. I introduce one new lowercase letter a day, based on the order in which they are introduced in the slate work of McGuffey's Eclectic Primer (because we have it...). So, after "a" and "t" we practice "at". Add "r" and "rat". Add "c" and "cat". And so forth. We're only on week two, but I'm amazed at how well he's doing! He ESPECIALLY loves joining all the letters together, i.e. "ssssssss".

Here's a link to the ZB handwriting page generator. What fun!
http://www.zaner-bloser.com/educator/products/handwriting/index.aspx?id=4296

[Paintedlady]

My ds really wanted to learn cursive last year (1st grade) so once I felt comfortable that he knew how to print correctly, we started him on HWT cursive. He just finished the orange book and is working his way through the blue now.

I'd say if he's interested, let him go at his own pace and don't worry about his age.

[kalanamak]

Here's a link to the ZB handwriting page generator. What fun!
http://www.zaner-bloser.com/educator/products/handwriting/index.aspx?id=4296


Terrific. I can test the waters to see if this is a sustained interest. He keep leaping up and shouting whenever he sees cursive, and it is making me jumpy.

[Medieval Mom]

I found another link worth looking at : http://www.kidzone.ws/cursive/index.htm

We tried it out today, and my son loves it so much that he gave me a big hug, many kisses, and said, "This is fun!":hurray: It only covers the lowercase letters, but that's the place to start, anyway.