Cursive Writing

My coworker was just saying that she doesn't know how to write cursive, that even when they were teaching it in school she kept failing that part.... My Director was actually surprised that they still teach it in school...

However, I just think it is important to teach. It is also building strong fine motor skills....

Learning cursive is another way of reinforcing reading and writing skills. It is usually taught in third grade. If those reading and writing skills are not solid by the end of third grade it becomes much harder for the student to absorb that material. I think it would be a very sad thing to lose for a lot of children.

There are plenty of "useless" things I learned in school, but taking all of the classes out that weren't "practical" would have left me with a lot less education! For instance, a class I took on Benjamin Franklin.. not relevant to my real life experience thus far, but it taught essay/research skills. Or, a class on writing about my dreams; I don't do that on a regular basis but it helped creative writing. Or, theater class? Chorus? Band? I don't sing, act or play an instrument in life but the discipline taught by each of those is something you carry with you.

Things like cursive shouldn't necessarily be thrown out just because they're not practical in the literal sense. Why not just throw in a segment on cursive in elementary school, then move on... it can at least still hone in on some handwriting skills. And handwriting is NOT going away, not entirely! You still have post-its to use! :P


Edited because of spelling errors... which I learned to notice in every class ever, probably including cursive.

My daughter's school has already stopped teaching it. Maybe she will never have a need to write it, but how will they learn to read it? There are still many things written in cursive.

If you think about it, only old people write that way now. So, it will just die. It's not a problem, I don't think. I don't think people handwritten anything anymore. Everything is electronic now in my world.

"everything is electronic now in my world". Yeppers. And how secure is this electricity that we are ALL addicted to? Will we always be able to afford it? Will it always be available? Eliminating cursive writing training is about as far-sighted as a hare walking into a fox den!

-Debra

They can still write. Lol. Cursive is stupid. I though sp when I was learning it as a kid. I have always printed my letters. I never took up writing in cursive, I agree with the movement because I think cursive writing is lame. So, that's my stand on the topic. No one is losing anything. Intelligence is not being lost. The ability to write letters is not being lost. No one is losing anything. I can't understand why this is so emotional for people. Who cares? Its nothing.

We can stop teaching them math while we're at it since we have calculators and all that.

That would be super. Math has been useless to me.

We don't teach penmanship in NYC schools. We don't even teach letter formation explicitly to kindergarteners. The premise is that through exposure to letters and words and literacy they learn letter formation. Truth be told my kids learned to write on their own because I do my job as a parent and they are surrounded by letters and words and know what an A looks like and they can replicate the letter on their own without letter formation practice. The problem is that not all parents do that. My 6 yr old who is just going into 1st grade can write in cursive already because she was interested and I bought her a book and my 5th grader knows how to write cursive because I think it is important and got him a book. I also printed out sheets for him to practice his name. I think if something is important to you as a parent then you have to do your job as a parent and teach your kids. Parents are a child's first teachers. With the focus in schools being test scores and No Child Left Behind parents have to pick up the slack. If it is important to you then teach it to your kids, along with teaching them respect and sympathy for others and empathy and morals. Parents aren't teaching their kids those things either. There are only so many hours in the day and in the grand scheme of things cursive isn't something we have an hour in the day or even a week to focus on in the classroom.

They stopped teaching it years ago in our schools & I didn't think much about it until now. My 16 year old "signs" his name by "printing really sloppy" according to him.

His new problem is his inability to read cursive writing. He is doing courthouse research - looking at old deeds (working w/ land surveyor) and is having a heck of a time reading the old documents that were written in cursive writing - from before computers or typewriters, even! This is a critical skill he needs to do this type of work.

We can stop teaching them math while we're at it since we have calculators and all that.

For real. Our kids are becoming more and more stupid, because we're requiring less and less. We are slowing becoming one of the most lazy and stupid countries in the world!

Yes, we most definitely are. But, not because of cursive writing. Lol.

BUT we ARE, and one thing that writing by hand DOES DO is imprint spelling, grammar, composition, and all those other skills on your brain b/c of the very physical act of writing it with your hand. There are different neuro pathways used when you are working at a computer than when you do things by your own HAND on paper. Even MATH.

So that's what we're missing here (although some other posters have brought this up -- thank you!)

There may be a decreasing "value" in the cursive itself (I said "MAY")...but the benefits of just working through this skill (and many OTHER so-called "antiquated" skills) is that you are developing a way of THINKING, a way of reasoning, another way of learning HOW to LEARN.

The reason I write better than most of my colleagues at work? I did it, all the time. For handwriting, for spelling, for fun, for entertainment.

The reason I can visually "see" if a document or graphic design is lined up, pleasing to the eye, effective? I spent time pasting up copy by hand in school, and when I got a job pasting up ads on a Mac, I could meld the hand-done skills that trained my eye with the computer skills to do some very detailed work better and faster than my contemporaries.

And now I work with databases all the time, even though I was an English major. I taught myself most of my data skills on the job, on the fly.

These "useless processes / practices" make your brain FLEXIBLE, TRAINABLE, and CREATIVE. There's an intangible value there that we are missing. And we're going to miss it a LOT more when kids don't have these things and grow up without these qualities.

Make sense? :huh:

OK...rant over. Sorry, I'm very passionate about this.

And if you wanna read a good book that talks about these kinds of things, read "The Gutenberg Elegies" by Sven Birketts. He wrote it before cell phones and the internet were so common, but he predicted everything we're already seeing.

they've already stopped teaching it in my area.

In mine as well. They did a semester on it in 3rd grade. More a lesson in learning to read lesson. Then they've never used it again.

I only cursive in cards and writing checks and it had become a print/cursive hybrid really. And terrible! My writing was way nicer before I spent all my time at a keyboard

I learned cursive, and I never use it. I have very speedy print writing that runs together somewhat anyway. I should also note that I figured out how to read cursive well before I started writing in it.

I honestly see no reason to keep teaching it. Every job that I've worked requires print.

removed. how often does anyone actually write in cursive? The only time I do is for my signature and even then it's not really required, some people just print. 3, 4, 5th grade, which ever is was, was the most time I spent writing in cursive and that was just one class for a little while; when they stopped and moved on to another subject I stopped writing in cursive. I remember the teacher said once you get into jr high, high school and so on everyone would be required to write in curisve most of the time...liars.. not once did I write in cursive. I'll admit, I sort of lost my touch, I can write, but it's not as pretty.