A Word In The Hand ...

My baby who rarely holds a pencil correctly knows how to write (and read) in cursive???

OK, I have to back up for this to make any sense. First, Samuel has had some difficulty with his fine motor skills. A teacher, occupational therapist, and I have tried different strategies to teach Samuel the routine early childhood cutting, crayoning (is that really a verb?) and drawing skills. He still hasn't settled on any particular grip, but can be coaxed into the proper "tripod" grip if given a short pencil with one of those little rubber grips.

About a year ago, Samuel discovered serifs, those little extra lines used in most text type to help hold the eye on the line while reading. He'd write large, misshaped letters -- and carefully inscribe the serifs on every letter that could possibly have them.

Right now, Samuel "should" be writing simple, all upper case letters. I had seen signs that Samuel was reading cursive and was trying to write that way, but had been assuming that he was essentially drawing the shapes he was seeing. Yesterday, while working on a thank-you card, he insisted on restarting the "thank you" that I was helping him print. He went further down the page and wrote it in cursive. Then added his own note "nice" although the latter was virtually unreadable.

We have a great program for writing, Handwriting Without Tears. Incorporating this wild leap ahead with developing the basic skills he needs will be very challenging.