xela | Entries tagged with skills

chrysaphi's journal brought to my attention the fact that there is more than one kind of cursive writing. (Yes, about half a second after having the revelation, I had one of those "well that's blindingly obvious" moments.) I was taught the standard American loopy cursive in second grade. I've never been able to write legibly since. Perhaps if I had been taught the roundhand that's apparently taught in many English schools I could read my own writing. I'm half tempted to try to learn it even now.

Note how much more like the the normal letterforms you're used to seeing in print these letters are. And how much more like the hand printed letterforms most children know how to form already when they start learning cursive. I'm confident that the energy I spent learning loopy cursive badly in the second grade would have been more than enough to learn roundhand well. (The image above is part of an illustration at http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/english/bibliography/handwriting/new_web_pages/rhand.htm, which is linked from one of the references in the original thread in chrysaphi's journal: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/english/bibliography/handwriting/new_web_pages/acquisition.htm. ) The original thread also links to a rather garish page of basic pointers on penmanship, But parents of small children may be interested in the elementary school teaching materials, apparently widely used in English schools, he is also responsible for.