Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind (7 page)

For children, learning cursive is right up there with trick-or-treating, getting a new hamster, or writing “Clean Me!” on
the teacher’s car. They love it. Kids’ first handwriting lessons are like losing the first tooth, taking off the training
wheels, or getting bedtime extended half an hour. It’s a rite of passage from being a little kid to a big one. Few things
make children feel more grown up than writing
for the first time without picking up their pencils.

You should hear my students when they learn new cursive letters. They squeal. They ooh and aah. They laugh when I show them
that capital
in cursive looks like a 2. When I point out that the only difference between a capital
and a capital
is that little line in the middle, you’d think a flower just popped out of the tip of my overhead marker. When I showed this
year’s group that
is just a lowercase
with a tail, they applauded.

Whenever I introduce the letter formations, my students always tell me what they think the letters look like. Gina thinks
looks like a Hershey’s Kiss. To Chloe, a row of
’s resembles waves. David says the bottom of a
looks like a banana. Laura claims that the loop inside the
looks like a fish. Dylan thinks it looks like a corn dog.

The one letter that I get a bit nervous about teaching is
. It’s a tricky one. If I say, “And now we are going to make
.” I might as well cancel school for the rest of the day because half my class will be rolling on the floor. It is always
best when introducing
to say, “We are now going to learn the LETTER
.” By saying
letter
really loudly you will cut down considerably on all rolling.