So, is there still a need to teach cursive handwriting?
Based on this story, the question is up in the air. Kids today are more fluent on keyboards, and national penmanship skills continue to decline. Couple that with the increased emphasis on academics in schools, and handwriting lessons seem doomed.
Boy. I hate to see an artistic skill dropped by thw wayside. Just like arguments about calculators, there remain — and, I daresay, will always remain — instances where technical goodies like computers and calculators are either not available, or else are far less convenient to use.
On the other hand, as someone who almost never writes in cursive — I returned to “block lettering” as my default as soon as I was allowed to, and thus, paradoxically, can still handwrite beautifully — I’m not sure I have much standing in the debate. Certainly 99% of the words I write are keyed in, and the remaining 1% are written longhand, not in cursive.
This would be an interesting one to flash-forward fifty years out to see where things are. Will cursive handwriting largely die out? Will it become a sign of culture and class? Or will a good reason to continue to teach it be discovered.
It’s odd thinking that Katherine might not be taught something in school that I was taught.
(via Sake of Argument)
I hate cursive! It kept me from getting straight As every year of elementary school.
Die, cursive, die!
I haven’t used cursive since 4th grade, so no big loss.
I wish people could understand my cursive, then perhaps I would write in it. Till that day I will have to stick with something that makes my handwriting at least half legible.
I agree 100% with de-emphasizing – indeed, de-mythologizing – that third-rate, third-grade classroom “god” called “cursive.” “Cursive” as we know it does far more harm than good. (Worse, imposing it tempts teachers to tell lies – e.g., “signatures require cursive.” NOT TRUE, folks! Yes, I have checked this out with lawyers. Your third-grade teacher, or hers, or someone who taught her third-grade teacher, believed a convenient lie – convenient for teachers to tell – and passed it on.)
Though I earn a large portion of my income teaching MDs to write clearly, easily, at emergency-room speed, the almighty fetish of “cursive” simply doesn’t come into that. Few if any of my successful students join all their letters, let alone loop letter-stems or put frills and other weird shapes into their capitals.
But I don’t believe in 100% pure “printing,” either (nor do I believe in moving it all to keyboards, shorthand, or dictaphones.) The fastest, most legible handwriters don’t do a pure “printing” any more than they do a pure “cursive.”
To see what has helped my physician-students and me (a lifelong dyslexic dysgraphic till I got away from this “printing-then-cursive” nonsense and learned about something that actually WORKS), visit the Handwriting Repair web-site at http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair – and have fun!
Hate cursive? You can now buy (individually or in bulk) “I Hate Cursive” buttons from my friend Zomb. For details and a picture of the button, visit http://www.HandwritingRepair.info/WritingRebels.html or http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
That’s fun enough that I won’t treat the comment as an “unsolicited commercial link” — but it’s borderline. 🙂
On the other hand, I was noticing the cursive letter cards up over the chalkboard in Katherine’s new third grade classroom the other day. It brought back a lot of memories, and the particular “system” appears to be essentially what I was taught Way Back When.
And, for what it’s worth, Katherine as been eager to learn cursive (including doing some self-teaching) for a while. It’s “big kid writing” to her, thus a sign of status.
Thanks, Dave! By the way, the web-site in my 2004 comment has died (server went out of business) — people reading that comment should visit my web-site’s new home instead.