For several years now, I have been extremely concerned about the dying art of penmanship. It seems that hand-written communication is passé, even among the smallest of children. I believe there is a strong connection between retention of material learned and handwriting. For that reason, I don’t allow my kids to type their schoolwork. The only time they are able to type a paper is after the rough draft has been done by hand and edited. Because of how important I feel good penmanship is, I was overjoyed to receive PreScripts Cursive Passages and Illuminations (Age 9-high school) to use with my kids and review. Published by Classical Conversations, ‘a leader in the home-centered education movement,’ this penmanship practice workbook not only will give your child opportunity to hone his/her handwriting but also will give him/her the chance to read excerpts from some of the great documents and speeches of our American history.
This workbook, containing 144 pages, has been a fun part of our summer schooling. I have been emphasizing the historical value of the passages with my kids because we are going to be studying American History this coming school year. My 13 year old and my 16 year old have been using it for several weeks. I really appreciate the fact that families are allowed to copy the pages for use with multiple children. With this workbook, especially, it is great to have the freedom to copy the pages if one of my perfectionists wants to re-do a page! Each passage is written in a beautiful cursive script. Unlike most copywork-type workbooks, these passages are written with blank lines between each line so that the copying can be done immediately under the words that are being copied. That is very helpful for tracking and accurate copying. Each passage begins with a different style illuminated letter. These are the ornate letters that,many years ago, were used frequently at the beginning of a passage. Both of my kids are really interested in art, so these letters intrigued them. On the page following each passage, the illuminated letter from the passage is reprinted with ample space for your child to try and recreate the illuminated letter.
Because I wanted to keep our studies a bit more interest-directed this summer, I let each child choose the passage and illuminated letter he/she wants to work on everyday. It typically takes each of them around 30 minutes to do a careful job of copying the passage (some take less time) and to try and sketch the illuminated letter. This has been a great first activity for the morning. Because the passages included are very powerful, we have been able to get into some great discussions about our founding fathers, why this country came into existence, and about the ideals of some of our greatest presidents. I felt a little bit old (ahem) when I discovered that many of the later passages were from speeches that I heard when they were given originally. That definitely was entertaining to my kids!
We have had a great experience with PreScripts Cursive Passages and Illuminations. I highly recommend it to anyone who desires to give penmanship practice that is more than just copying meaningless sentences. There is some real meat to this curriculum. Retailing for $12.99, it is a fabulous value.
My friends on the Schoolhouse Review Crew have been using this product from Classical Conversations as well as several other products from this publisher. To read their reviews, click on the banner below.
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