School grade year level

My kids, who were in the US at the time, started on cursive in the second half of Second Grade.

They teach joined up-writing in the UK, but it's not fancy and loopy like cursive.  Basically, when children start writing in the early years, they form their letters like normal printed letters, but with a flick.  By Year 2, they are using the flicks to join the letters together.  It seems to be a very natural progression from printing to doing joined up.

Both my kids learned that same method here in the US. It's called the Denelian (sp?) method. When learning to write their letters they're taught how to write them with a little tail sorta thing on each letter so they can later be taught how to join them together.

My kids were both still taught cursive writing (with all the loopy stuff) in the second half of the second grade but neither of them really use it and it's not required. When I was in school we were required to write in cursive and with ink pens. Now it seems all their work is done in pencil and printed writing or on computer.

Interesting I remember in 2nd grade being introduced to cursive (loopey) writting, and by 3rd grade it was required that we use it, and we were graded on it.  (Right on our report cards it said handwritting: grade X) it was taught as being totally different from print.  By high school though it was up to us to decide which style (print or cursive) we wanted to use.

We were not allowed to use pens till 5 th grade but by 7th they were required except for math where they were never allowed.

Hee hee - I used to really tick off my maths teachers by TYPING my assignments on a typewriter!