New American Cursive 2: A Memoria Press Handwriting Review

Memoria Press is beginning to be a household name around here.  We have gotten the chance to review for them a couple of times before and this time we are trying out one of their cursive handwriting books, New American Cursive 2 (Scripture).   Most people have a love or hate type of a relationship when it comes to cursive handwriting, but we have really embraced it.  Even though J gets tires of it easily (he struggles with tensing up when he tries really hard), he is terribly proud of himself when he writes in cursive.  Either way, it is nice to find high quality curriculum to rely on if/when your students pursue it.

Memoria offers a complete New American Cursive penmanship program for Grade Levels 1-4 and we were given Workbook 2 with Famous Quotations and Scripture.  The book itself is spiral bound at the top so that left or right-handed students can successfully utilize it equally.  Workbook 2 begins with a 7 paged Teaching Guide that covers everything surrounding learning to write in cursive.  They discuss the value of learning cursive, posture and pencil position, testing, how to use the workbook, complementary exercises, and even the best type of music for handwriting practice!  If you don't have a clue about penmanship or teaching it, this teaching guide gives you more than enough to equip you. 



Since this is Workbook 2 in a series, it begins with a review of the entire alphabet in cursive, pencil grip, posture and correct paper placement.  The next section highlights the individual letters, two to a page, along with practice words to trace and copy.  Every few pages there is a fun or open-ended page perhaps with a writing prompt and encouraging the student to illustrate their response.  The next section focuses on the size of their writing, encouraging the correct placement of letters on baseline.  Here several creative writing, scripture and quotations exercises are introduced.  Near the end of the book there is a Handwriting Evaluation Checklist that helps you determine what your student needs to work on.  It would be a handy page to reproduce whenever you need to check on their progress.

What We Thought:
Since J is not brand new to cursive, this level was great for him.  The review reminded him of what was expected out of his handwriting and inched him a little further in refining some of his letters.  The variety of exercises was perfect!  From days of the week, relevant scriptures like obeying your parents and being kind, to the incorporation of journal writing and drawing, there was always something new to distract from the usual weariness of handwriting.  This is a great resource for strengthening  handwriting skills that have already begun, but it is even more useful for building that bond of pencil and paper with journaling, something I strongly believe in.  This program shows a lot of wisdom and forethought for various learning styles as well.

We highly recommend Memoria Press and Workbook 2 with Famous Quotations and Scripture. is worked very well for our needs.  The Crew reviewed other books in the penmanship series as well as Traditional Logic and Classical Composition.  Don't forget to check out what they thought about the rest of the products.

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CursiveLogic: A Cursive Handwriting Method Review

Cursive handwriting.  Who knew such a pretty yet simple skill would become the object of such debate in the world.  Whether or not you think it should be mandatory, I think we can agree that it is a neat skill to have.  It is certainly not something that is a huge sticking point with me so I have never made a big deal about it with my kids.  However, my 7 year old has been begging to learn cursive since he was 5.  So, why wouldn't I encourage him?  And we have included cursive in various forms every so often, but it was usually just letter by letter practice just like when he learned the print alphabet.   Our latest review is a completely different yet logical approach to cursive handwriting from CursiveLogic.   For our review we received CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack, a consumable all-in-one workbook and The Art of Cursive, a coloring book of cursive.  In addition to these two books, I was also given access to a webinar that walks you as the parent/teacher through the concept behind and various steps involved in this handwriting method.

What Makes It Different:
Instead of learning each individual letter and practicing them individually, the logic behind CursiveLogic is to create a more efficient and intuitive method that prevents boredom and accelerates learning.  The creator noticed patterns in the cursive alphabet and then started grouping letters together based on shape and teaching each group as a bunch.  This focuses on connecting the letters together and jumping right into words rather than isolating letters for a long period of time. It also makes special accommodations for left-handed writers by spiral-binding at the top rather than either side of the notebook.

Who It Is For:

The origin of this program was born from the desire to teach an adult quickly who desired the ability to sign his name.  So, it is the PERFECT solution for adults learning or even improving their cursive handwriting skills.  However, it is also ideal for kids ready to tackle cursive but might otherwise get pretty tired of letter repetition or a slow-moving approach.  It moves quickly, explaining the necessary steps for good shape and connection and dives right into writing words the first week.  It is also a multi-sensory approach that is suited to all learning styles because it includes color, movement, verbal and auditory tools, making it a more efficient use of the students' time and energy. 

  

The Art of Cursive book is a really neat addition to CursiveLogic's method.  This book is full of beautiful handwriting quotes and coloring pages.  The coloring pages, though, are made up of cursive letters in varying sizes and locations.  The book begins with an explanation of each letter group so the coloring book could stand alone in teaching cursive if you chose to do so, especially for adults.

What We Thought:

My 7 year old, like I mentioned before, had some cursive experience coming in, but very little in connecting letters into words.  From the beginning, the full-color pages and use of color coding seemed really interesting to him and kept his attention.  His handwriting proficiency always waxes and wanes with his interest level anyway, but after a couple of days he was very successfully connecting letters and starting to ask about how he would write different names.  The first half of the book focuses on lower-case and the second half is upper-case so we have more to work on but it has proven to be a much better teacher than me so we're happy!

If you are at all anxious about teaching cursive, I highly recommend giving this method a try, especially with the webinar they provided.  It gives you all the tools you need as well as a better way to teach it!  If you decide to try it yourself, you can get 20% off the workbook and webinar with code CREW2018 until March 31st.

Follow CursiveLogic on Facebook: 

• Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ilovecursive/   

Check out what other family's experiences were:

Easy Peasy Cursive: A Channie's Workbook Review

Handwriting can be a sore subject sometimes.  To kids it can feel so tedious.  Parents and teachers are continually debating the validity of learning cursive.  Especially when it might take your child an excruciating long time to finish a simple sentence or paragraph, it could be tempting to toss the whole subject.  J is somewhere in the middle on the subject.  He doesn't love handwriting for handwriting sake and can complain about it a lot, BUT he's always been very interested in cursive handwriting.  Since new stuff (books, curriculum, etc.) is always motivating to J, the Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook from Channie’s Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks looked like a great way to light a new fire in his handwriting.

Channie's was born from a mother filling a need in her son's education with a visual guide for handwriting.  Her son's teacher noted that many other students could benefit from the sheets she was creating for her son and so she decided to share with the world!  Typical handwriting sheets are just dotted lines - usually one example only - and a lot is expected from little brains to visually remember what it looks like before really learning what it feels like to write the different symbols.  Even noting the difference (in location) between uppercase and lowercase is usually a big challenge, but these workbooks shade in the area for lowercase making it very easy to follow.  In addition to cursive, Channie's also offers workbooks for print handwriting for preschoolers and up, sight word practice books, and a whole set of math workbooks too.

One of the big things with handwriting that we struggle with is getting overwhelmed.  This workbook contained 3 pages for each letter - 2 tracing and 1 on your own.  There was plenty of work that it made sense to break it up.  In his mind, completing 1 or 2 rows at a time was much easier than a whole page.  Having it all contained in a workbook was much more convenient than lone sheets of paper scattered around.  However, if you prefer single sheets, all the pages were able to be torn out if necessary, like a typical pad of paper.

Over the review period, there were many instances when he would experiment and try writing out  words on his own.  Without me even asking to evaluate, he provided me a chance to see how his writing was improving and he was retaining the cursive lettering.

If handwriting or managing visual spaces on paper is a struggle in your house, Channie's Visual Handwriting and Math Workbooks is a great place to start.  They are versatile, cheap, and effective! 

Keep up with Channie's on Social Media for their Latest Releases:

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