Review of CursiveLogic

Michael (10) has dysgraphia, so writing is one of those subjects that does not come easily to him - handwriting that is. He struggles to form letters and his hand tires easily. For these reasons, I had always looked forward to his learning cursive. It is held that cursive is better for dysgraphic kids because the continuous letter strokes are less physically draining for them to form. As with all kids, though, it can be a struggle to find the right cursive program. I initially had grand ideas of Spencerian cursive for all of my kids (that gorgeous penmanship that you are likely to see in your great-grandmother's letters), but quickly realized that that was a pipe dream, especially for Michael. After trying several cursive programs and realizing that Michael was still not writing in cursive (even a year after his twin sister had made that switch), I was really excited to find that there is a new program that seems tailor made for kids like him!

CursiveLogic  sent us their beautiful CursiveLogic Workbook to try out. The first thing that Michael and I noticed about this handwriting program was that the color coding:

With CursiveLogic, letters are grouped by shape. The first shape, the oval letters, are orange. Students see them in orange and write them in orange. There are three other shapes in the program, and all of the letters in the alphabet are grouped into one of the four letter shapes.

As you can see above, CursiveLogic teaches its letters in "strings," rather than as individual letters. In this way, students learn to connect letters right away, rather than by writing whole lines of discrete letters. The bottom line is that they are really *writing* cursive much sooner than with other programs!

The neatest and most effective part of the program from my perspective is its verbal component. As students learn the manual part of the program, they learn a verbal phrase to accompany it. That combination really solidifies the process for them and aids significantly in retention.

What We Thought

Michael loved this program. Because he is older and this is not his first crack at cursive, he blew through this workbook quickly. I let him go at his own pace (I didn't, for instance, say, "You've done enough cursive today. It's time to stop."). It was so much fun, and so easy on his hands, that he didn't want to stop. You can see from the above picture that the font is very simple. Five years ago that would have put me off. I wanted a beautiful old-fashioned font for my children's cursive. Reality is reality, though. Some kids just can't write that way. In a world where cursive is increasingly not taught at all, the CursiveLogic font is a great compromise. If you have a reluctant cursive writer, this program is a terrific option.

The CursiveLogic Workbook costs $29.00 and can be adapted to suit the needs of students 7-adult. 

To read the reviews of 99 other CursiveLogic users, click the banner below.