Jane, Our school is an AMI Montessori school. Ds does not write in cursive, but he is learning the "italic print," or at least that's what it seems like from his description. He likes to write like this better than using the Zaner-Bloser method by which he was taught to print. Regardless, he is still a very reluctant writer, and having to write in every academic area makes ds just dread school. I think it's necessary at some point; I'm just not sure exactly what is developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old.
Ds says his notebook (that I described above) is his way of showing what he did each day (i.e., a log of his work). It isn't just a matter of jotting down one or two words to describe a lesson, though. It's more like writing a few sentences for each lesson or lists of words. Maybe he's just delayed in writing development. The teacher did say she tries to involve him in determining how much he is able to write, but he's a perfectionist. If he knows he's SUPPOSED to write the full paragraph, he'll shoot for that. The problem is he becomes very frustrated with the effort required.
The teacher knows I am concerned about his writing, but she wants to give it another week or so before we jump to any concusions. They do have an OT who can evaluate him to make sure there's no physical issue. I'm not sure if the OT can evaluate visual processing issues too, but I guess that's always a possibility. Hopefully, it's just a matter of needing more practice.
