When writing gets a little loopy

When I was in second grade, I distinctly remember the teacher from third grade visiting our class to teach a lesson. As she wrote on the blackboard, a slight gasp arose from the class. She asked us what was wrong, and one of my classmates said she wrote really pretty, but we couldn't read her writing. It was because she wrote in cursive.

I am sure that some sort of teacher-to-teacher conference took place later that day, because the next day our second grade teacher started teaching us cursive writing. But I don't think she was happy about it.

When my son entered second grade I asked the teacher if they did anything with cursive and she responded in the negative. I wasn't shocked by this news - classrooms have been removing handwriting from their curriculum for years - but I told her that I thought it was a shame that they didn't even go over letter recognition. After all, even the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series of books had sections in cursive.

So, like a lot of parents, I taught my son cursive. He's not great at it, because we don't practice it enough, but he can read cursive and he definitely likes writing that way. There is something about cursive - the ability to connect all the letters in the word that children really enjoy.

I need to start practicing cursive again with my son. And I really mean that the two of us need to practice together. Like many adults, I write in a mix of cursive and print that can get very sloppy. Maybe it is time for me to slow down and work on my loops again.

How would you describe your own handwriting? Tell me in the comments.