Cursive Logic

by Linda Shrewsbury Author

A few years ago, I volunteered in a local literacy program as a reading tutor for Josh, a 23-year-old student with learning disabilities. One day, Josh told me he wanted to learn cursive so he could sign his name. My first thought was, “At his age, Josh doesn’t have time to learn penmanship the way grade school kids do—letter by letter, day by day, for months.” And I didn’t see that process boosting his ego either. It was such a simple wish. I was touched and determined to find a way to help. I wanted to shorten the cursive-instruction time frame. At home, I wrote the lowercase cursive alphabet on a large sheet of paper and just looked at the letters for a long time. Suddenly, I saw a pattern I hadn’t noticed before. Each letter seemed to fit into one of four distinct categories, which I call oval, loop, swing, and mound. I wondered if seeing this pattern would help Josh. Maybe learning small variations on a few shapes would feel less overwhelming than the chore of practicing 26 individual letters. When I explained the patterns to Josh, his response was intuitive and fast. He caught on to forming the entire lowercase alphabet in 45 minutes and became so enthusiastic about his success that learning his uppercase initials was easy. After just one session, Josh signed his name. After teaching more students from many different background all with similar results, I realized I was onto something—a greatly simplified way to help students master cursive handwriting. CursiveLogic’s process teaches the entire lowercase alphabet in four lessons, greatly shortening the time required to master cursive handwriting. Learning cursive doesn’t have to be tedious. Instead, students can quickly feel the satisfaction of signing their names in beautiful, cursive letters.