Memoria Press & New American Cursive 1 Review
I absolutely love Memoria Press so when I was given the opportunity to review their New American Cursive 1 from their New American Cursive series I was excited!
Now, honestly I wasn’t expecting anything too different but I was absolutely wrong. Here are a few things that stand out to me about this program. My son enjoyed it! He despises handwriting practice but actually enjoys writing cursive. Go figure! It allows for individuality. Every other cursive program I’ve seen seems to completely do away with your own style and has a lot of fluff. This program doesn’t. The letters are so simple they recommend starting in first grade. However, I actually showed my 4 year old how to make some of them and he did a great job at it! I read that it actually has 26 fewer strokes than the 3 top cursive programs. This is really beneficial for boys, I think. They don’t want flowery handwriting. It also allows for faster, legible writing.
We ended our school year starting this program and went into an abbreviated schedule for summer with doing this program about 3 days a week. I didn’t make my son sit still a very long time (10 minutes is a marathon for him) but he was able to complete a page neatly in about 5-10 minutes. If he was sloppy I made him erase and redo so after a few of those he quit rushing it and did his best. It took less time in the long run!
He enjoyed that Mr. Meerkat showed him how to make the letters with arrows and numbers. You were supposed to trace with your finger first, saying the letter and then trace the dotted lines with your pencil, then actually write your own. Honestly, I was pleased with the progress he made in such a short time. Due to summer vacation and the fact that I learned I was expecting a few weeks ago an have not felt up to any extras the cursive has been put on a back burner for right now. In a few weeks when I’m feeling better we will pick it back up.
I also noticed that it helped to improve his printing (which was interesting to say the least, lol). I’m not sure if its just a 7 year old boy thing or just him but writing is akin to torture 🙂
I also wanted to mention that Memoria Press has several more books in the New American Cursive series. There is New American Cursive 2 (Famous Americans), New American Cursive 2 (Scripture), New American Cursive 3 (Scripture & Lessons on Manners), New American Cursive 3 (Famous Quotes & Lessons on Manners). You can download samples of each book on their website to see if its something you might like! There is also a downloadable New American Cursive StartWrite Software.
I have been very pleased with all the Memoria Press I have been privileged to try and I strongly encourage you to check them out! Check out the others reviews below!