Cursive Writing

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.