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Let's be realistic ~ if you teach a kid to type in the first grade you'll need to retrain him by the third, then the fifth, and maybe by high school.

Cursive is the same way, but printing is different, and learning to read cursive is also different.

My kids today type 100 to 150 wpm all the time ~ any keyboard ~ any system. We used Mavis Beacon, a couple of other packages that teach you to track and type random numbers and letters, and my own system.

I made it to 238 WPM in high school which qualified me for international speed typing competition ~ but I graduated that year and went to work in an auto factory to earn money for college.

I never made better than a D or -+ in cursive in my entire school career. Just wasn't my thing ~ total waste of time for me AND they never taught me how to read other people's handwriting. That came years later reviewing cases in dispute in Postal Headquarters.

So, my thoughts on cursive ~ quit teaching it but teach the kids how to read it. Also, teach printing by hand ~with a leroy set. Teach typing starting in maybe 5th grade. Any earlier typing should be the prerogative of the parents ~ it's their kid ~ they got the time to waste. 5th grade is an island of stability of the ever growing bones, sinews and muscles of the chillun' so that's a good time to pin down the basics of keyboard hygiene ~ fingers on the key ~ something under the bottom ~ type like the wind.

Cut out the posture thing ~ that's all wrong. You cannot type fast if you are sitting up.

All children and adults should know how to print.

So...If printing is taught properly, the transition to cursive is mere a matter of connecting the letters. It should take the child less than 2 **minutes** to master cursive. It makes me wonder. What on earth are government schools **doing** if they can't find the time to teach cursive? Hey! They should be teaching printing. The transition to cursive should be automatic.

In my homeschool, I first taught my children printing and moving on to cursive was absolutely effortless and took** no** time at all. All 3, as adults, have beautifully legible printing and cursive.

While certainly not an essential in life, being able to leave a clearly readable note ( in cursive or print) when needed is a nice skill to to have, and very much appreciated by those who must read the note. We don't always have a printer in a back pocket or car glove compartment.

One thing I learned as an undergrad science major was that manually writing out biochemical pathways, or long lists of anatomical muscles was very helpful in memorizing massive amount of material quickly. There is something about that tactile connection of the hand to the brain. So....When my kids were in the early grades of homeschooling, I combined penmanship with their spelling exercises. It helped them learn the spelling words more quickly and more permanently and we killed two birds with one stone.

One more anecdote:

I was the owner and professional in a health clinic. One day, my assistant wrote a note for a patient explaining that he was late for work because he had been in my office. A few hours later I got a phone call from the employer. The note my assistant had written had hand writing that was so illegible that the employer did not believe that it had come from a professional office, even though it was on our letter head. (This was in the early 80s before the era personal computers and I was still too poor and too new in my profession to be able to afford an electric typewriter. ) Also... we still had paper charts and all of our financial records were still kept in bound ledgers and entered by hand. After that I only hired people who could print or write **very** legibly.