May 25, 2016 Still, I wanted to find a handwriting guide that would give my letters that little something extra. Enter, The Spencerian Penmanship Program! What is “Spencerian Penmanship”? In short, Spencer was a man obsessed with penmanship (lucky for us). His “Spencerian Script” became the standard for teaching students handwriting in the mid-1800s. Learning How to Write Spencerian Script DVD – $35 (55 minutes) Michael’s first DVD covers the tools and techniques necessary to learn the methods of writing this vintage form of penmanship.
Well, I for one have always adored the physical motion of handwriting. I worked hard on my penmanship in my college years and have often had compliments on my handwriting.
That said, I also changed it somewhat in recent years using GettyDubay resources. The thing I learned from GettyDubay is to write in a more even style and to increase legibility by reducing the height and descent of ascenders and descenders. So, for example, the tail of the 'p' is much shorter so it doesn't descend into the next line of writing, making things crabbed up and confusing. My writing was always legible, but this made it even more so, and also gave me 'permission' to do things I had innovated on since my penmanship classes of grade school. For example, to use the 's' shape in cursive, instead of the little sailboat shape.
Or the 'r' instead of the cursive r that gets confused with n too easily.I love messing around with handwriting, and with calligraphy as well, which is also instructive but it is not a good way to learn to write beautifully while writing quickly-the strokes are different.GettyDubay looks an awful lot like the program mentioned in this thread that starts with a B but it is more widely known in the homeschool world.Also, if you learn to write GettyDubay style, you can do so with a calligraphy pen and get a lot of oohs and ahhs! I tried the Spencerian penmanship books along with my children. We used beautiful glass Dipping pens and the ink bled through and made a bit of a mess of the booklet, causing a bit of frustration for all of us.
I think the kids did not have a delicate enough touch to avoid these problems plus the glass pens delivered a lit of ink in a rather inpredictable fashion. Probably shouldn't have taken on both new tasks simultaneously.:001smile:I now have the remainingbooks listed in the for sale board. Ds worked through the first few (three or four?) Mott Media Spencerian books several years ago. He used a pencil. Sure, a fountain pen would have been more authentic, but my goal wasn't calligraphy, but a generally smoother, more elegant script.
I found the book about.how. to use the workbooks unnecessarily complex and not as helpful as I would have liked.
But it did improve his (already decent) handwriting. When he chooses to have really lovely script, he can, though we haven't officially practiced in years now.My kids do also have fountain pens. They have Pelikan (Pelikano?) Jr fountain pens. About $12 from Amazon. Slightly smaller than standard fountain pens, cheap, and durable. I've been happy with them.
But I can see why the flow of ink would be too much for the tiny spaces and the quality of paper in the MM Spencerian workbooks. I guess I could try to find one and use the two together to see.;)There was another company that was trying to get off the ground with another, slightly updated Spencerian workbook. It looked more useable, but it was more expensive and I'm not sure the company ever really worked out. Ds worked through the first few (three or four?) Mott Media Spencerian books several years ago.
He used a pencil. Sure, a fountain pen would have been more authentic, but my goal wasn't calligraphy, but a generally smoother, more elegant script. I found the book about.how. to use the workbooks unnecessarily complex and not as helpful as I would have liked. But it did improve his (already decent) handwriting. When he chooses to have really lovely script, he can, though we haven't officially practiced in years now.My kids do also have fountain pens. They have Pelikan (Pelikano?) Jr fountain pens.
About $12 from Amazon. Slightly smaller than standard fountain pens, cheap, and durable. I've been happy with them. But I can see why the flow of ink would be too much for the tiny spaces and the quality of paper in the MM Spencerian workbooks. I guess I could try to find one and use the two together to see.;)There was another company that was trying to get off the ground with another, slightly updated Spencerian workbook. It looked more useable, but it was more expensive and I'm not sure the company ever really worked out.Would this be conducive to teaching a class of say.4? Ages 12, 11, 9, & 8?
The 12 and 9 year olds have the most cursive skills, and the 11 & 8 year olds are about on the same level (since the 11 year old forgot everything). Ds worked through the first few (three or four?) Mott Media Spencerian books several years ago. He used a pencil. Sure, a fountain pen would have been more authentic, but my goal wasn't calligraphy, but a generally smoother, more elegant script. I found the book about.how.
to use the workbooks unnecessarily complex and not as helpful as I would have liked. But it did improve his (already decent) handwriting. When he chooses to have really lovely script, he can, though we haven't officially practiced in years now.My kids do also have fountain pens. They have Pelikan (Pelikano?) Jr fountain pens. About $12 from Amazon. Slightly smaller than standard fountain pens, cheap, and durable.
I've been happy with them. But I can see why the flow of ink would be too much for the tiny spaces and the quality of paper in the MM Spencerian workbooks. I guess I could try to find one and use the two together to see.;)There was another company that was trying to get off the ground with another, slightly updated Spencerian workbook. It looked more useable, but it was more expensive and I'm not sure the company ever really worked out.Was it SmithHand?