Teaching Cursive in a four year old class?

Question

I'm a teacher's assistant in a Four Years Old Class. This years lesson is teaching the children cursive. My opinion I think it is too young to teach them. I learn how to write in cursive in the third grade. Can you help me on the advice!

Answer 1

I agree, I don't think it is a good idea mainly because many children at this age are still learning upper and lower case print letters. Although I have heard of introducing the idea of cursive but not really teaching them as a means to get them to understand cursive is still made up of letters.

Answer 2

Teaching them to recognize and read cursive, or teaching them to write cursive?? Either way, I think it's a bad idea.  Are you in a Montessori school? They start earlier.  I have taught my preschoolers to recognize their names in cursive, but that was just for fun.  And when they saw me do it, they wanted to learn how to write their names.  But this was after they knew how to print their names. (And they were all girls!)

If your preschoolers have so much alphabet knowledge/awareness that you're able to move onto cursive writing, I feel sorry for the children.  Drilling knowledge into a four-year-old is no way to learn.  I can't imagine a four-year-old knowing all his uppercase and lowercase letters, having letter/sound connections, and the ability to print all his upper/lowercase letters without being drilled/homeworked to death.  And if they DON'T know all the aforementioned, why are you moving onto cursive writing??  I think it's perceptive of you to question this.

Answer 3

Sorry, but "What Planet Are You Living On!!!"  4 yr olds barely know the alphabet let alone how to write the letters in print form. Abosolutely not developmentally approiate, for this age group. Not even for Montessori schools, you need to either find a different school, or make sure the director and other teachers are following the NAEYC guidelines(National Association for the Education of Young Children), they are the premier group for knowing how to educate preschool children.

Answer 4

Forget teaching them cursive.  It will only confuse them.

Answer 5

I have been teaching for 18 years and I totally agree, developmentally the children are just not ready for cursive.

Answer 6

Wow, what a bad idea.

Four year olds do not have the motor skills to do cursive.

Cursive letter recognition would be alright, but the teacher you are assisting is way overboard.

Answer 7

i agree

shouldn't they know how to read & print before moving on to cursive.  the point of teaching it in 3rd grade was that the children would have had time to develop proper writing technique therefore making the lesson easier.

Answer 8

I learned in 2nd grade...but i think the more you learn when your yound the easier it is later on....I think you should just to the alpahbet maybe not words just yet

Answer 9

That is not developmentally appropriate!  Most are still learning to print.  There is no way they should be expected to learn cursice at 4 years old!

Answer 10

There is a theory that says that cursive is actually easier to write. It is almost impossible to write a letter backwards or a word from right to left since the letters flow naturally. The problem is that nobody should be teaching formal writing lessons to 4's-many are not ready. They should have access to lots of writing materials and alphabet materials and time to explore them at their own pace.