Handwriting does not come naturally for my third-grader. It’s always been a struggle for him. So, when asked to review the CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack and The Art of Cursive from CursiveLogic, I was hoping it would be a good fit.
What Was Included?
I received an adult coloring book, The Art of Cursive, and a spiral bound CursiveLogic workbook. I also received digital access to a training webinar explaining how to teach cursive with their material (the Quick-Start pack is the webinar + workbook).
What’s Different About CursiveLogic?
When I taught my oldest cursive, the book we used went through one letter at a time. She practiced making each letter in isolation, and then learned how to connect them.
CursiveLogic is different. It teaches connected letters right from the start. These letter strings mean students are writing words early in the program.
CursiveLogic uses a shape based approach for letter formation that really caught the attention of my math-loving son. My son who previously hated any time spent in handwriting didn’t mind working through a couple of pages each day.
The lower-case alphabet is taught first. This makes a lot of sense, because the majority of letters you write are lower-case. They’ve taken the entire lower-case alphabet and divided the letters into four key shapes. Each has a catch-phrase to help students remember.
So when practicing the orange oval letters, my son would say, “Over, Back-Trace” as he wrote each letter. So, “Over, Back-trace a. Over, Back-Trace C.”
He didn’t like having to say it at first, but he was surprised at how quickly he started remembering how to form the letters. When you add a multi-sensory component to learning, it really does make it easier to learn.
Another thing about this workbook that caught my eye was the way it was set up. It’s bound at the top so left-handed and right-handed students can easily use it without resting an elbow on the spiral. It’s also printed differently than most workbooks. Instead of flipping the pages, you just go from the front of one to the front of a next. When you reach the end, you flip the entire book over and do each of the back pages.
How Did We Use These Products?
Since my oldest already knew cursive, but rarely uses it, I thought the adult coloring book would be a good fit for her. It’s not product meant to teach cursive, but rather to practice the skill.
She thought the designs were pretty. Here is a one of the pictures, when she was part-way through it. You can see the letters make up part of the image, so she practiced forming them while coloring.
My third-grader used the CursiveLogic workbook. If you follow the recommended schedule, it takes ten weeks. However, he doesn’t have much writing stamina, so we are moving through at a much slower pace. The lessons are broken into days, and there are several pages each day. That was too much, so we moved to a page a day (sometimes two if the first page was more instruction and less writing). This was a better pace.
And, it’s working! Here’s a picture of his printing handwriting from earlier in the year, followed by a picture from this cursive workbook. The cursive isn’t perfect, but it’s so much better. He’s writing more smoothly, spacing things more consistently, and not having to think as much about the actual formation of each letter. I love that!
What I Thought Of CursiveLogic Materials
I really thought the workbook was a great fit for my son. He loves math and logic way more than he loves reading and writing, but this step-by-step shape-based approach to learning handwriting really appealed to him.
The multi-sensory approach made it easy to learn the letters, and while he isn’t quite ready to start writing everything in cursive, he’s getting there. He’ll continue working through the lessons and I anticipate his handwriting being much more legible by the time we’re done.
I would recommend this product if you have a child ready to learn cursive.
If you’d like to order the CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack (the workbook + webinar), the vendor has made a special discount available. If you use the code CREW2018, you will save 20%. This code is valid through the end of March.
To see what other families thought of the CursiveLogic Quick-Start Pack and The Art of Cursive, please click on the banner below.
