[quacked]

> I find this strange. I have a lot of penmanship homework from my two years (!!) of kindergarten and first grade.

I'll have to see if I can find the studies, but a lot of researchers have been finding that rushing to introduce kids to things doesn't make a great impact and in fact sometimes holds them back from lifetime achievement. (This does not apply to true prodigies.) Off the top of my head, some researchers have found that penmanship isn't that useful at an age where fine motor skills still need a lot of development, and the Soviet union found that waiting an extra 2-3 years to introduce children to math resulted in better, faster, more confident math students.

[all2]

I'm wary of any educational information coming out of the USSR. Good to know, though. It makes sense that trying to force development where the child isn't ready for it will cause them to struggle.

[quacked]

If it makes any difference, the information I got was from ex-USSR citizens who went through the process as kids and then raised their kids in the US system. It's been corroborated by both Russian professors (of the Russian language) and engineers in the aerospace industry.