Quick question for elementary teachers:

CleoKitty · January 2012

If a transfer student were to come to your school with very neat handwriting, but a different type (ie: Zaner Bloser vs. D'Nealian vs. Handwriting Without Tears style) would they have to change their writing? As long as it was neat and legible would it matter or would they need to conform to the handwriting that your school uses? If they continued to write in the way they were taught would that be counted against them in their schoolwork/grading?

surprise3rd · January 2012

It would be fine, they would not have to learn a different style, and it would not be counted against them.

goofyteacher · January 2012

No they would not have to learn a new style or have it counted against them in their school work. I am more concerned about WHAT they are writing then how.

rebs · January 2012

Nope, as long as it was neat, legible and did not take forever to write then I would not worry about it.

My only caution is this (as I know you are homeschooling Miles right now), when do you plan to send him back to school? We teach handwriting in grades 3 & 4. If a kid were to come in grade 4 they might find it confusing to be learning a different style. If you know where you are planning to send him I would find out what they use and go with that program.

JenniC1135 · January 2012

Not an issue at all.

CleoKitty · January 2012

rebs:
Nope, as long as it was neat, legible and did not take forever to write then I would not worry about it.

My only caution is this (as I know you are homeschooling Miles right now), when do you plan to send him back to school? We teach handwriting in grades 3 & 4. If a kid were to come in grade 4 they might find it confusing to be learning a different style. If you know where you are planning to send him I would find out what they use and go with that program.

I'm not sure. At this point we're just taking it one year at a time. This year has gone very smoothly thus far and so unless some unforeseen drastic event happens we've decided to continue next year for second grade as well. At this point I don't imagine him going back to school until at least 3rd or 4th grade, very possibly even later than that.

His preschool used Zaner-Bloser and his public school kindergarten used HWOT. He struggled with both. This year I showed him several different kinds of handwriting and let him choose which one he liked best. He ended up switching to D'Nealian, spent about three days re-learning his letters and now writes beautifully but I do wonder just a tiny bit what will happen if/when he returns to public school.

Angela814 · January 2012

I didn't realize there were so many styles of handwriting. From this website I found, they all look pretty similar in final appearance anyway. I don't think I'd worry about it. Isn't the most important part of learning to write, learning how to write readable words? (How many adults have illegible handwriting?)

DD1's school does HWT. I *think* that I must have learned Zaner-Bloser style. DD1 struggles with writing her lowercase letters, but I'm not sure changing writing styles would help. Her biggest problem is her unwillingness to make a mistake.

Lisa102304 · January 2012

surprise3rd:
It would be fine, they would not have to learn a different style, and it would not be counted against them.

This.

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