Apparently, as noted in this article, there is insufficient time to learn cursive due to the need for teaching "anti-racist pedagogy...activism skills, [and] digital literacy.” Although I'm not quite clear on how "digital literacy' differs from regular everyday literary, I am disturbed that some "educators" believe that basic and fundamental skills need to be pushed aside so that more time can be devoted to political indoctrination. The Soviet Union's Young Pioneers would approve.
20
What surprises me is that teaching cursive has to be mandated to begin with. Not sure what prompted the elimination of this skill. Why not drop writing altogether? After all, we have voice recognition software to do that for us now.
9
Apologies if someone has said this already: Historians who wish to do primary research would probably be hard-pressed to read handwritten letters from earlier times if they had not learned cursive writing. (It's hard enough to read some contemporary cursive, whether due to poor penmanship or, for Americans, reading some European hands. And not everything important is digitized, let alone *translated* to block letters.)
14
Something hardly mentioned, except for a passing reference to major historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, would be the inability of future generations to read any handwritten documents -- deeds, diaries, letters, family papers, even entries in old family bibles. What a loss to relegate documents handwritten in cursive to the level of a foreign language! Researchers would have to rely on "experts" for translation of these older documents, rather than reading them for themselves. And documents not deemed worthy of translation could simply drop from view. This would be a dreadful loss, especially since it would be easy to keep teaching this skill. (And, as an aside -- note-takers take special note here -- one can write much faster in cursive than by printing.)
18
@Virginia Berger Re: “one can write much faster in cursive than by printing“ —
Research shows that, in our alphabet, the fastest and most legible handwriting at all is done by joining only some (not all) letters (making the easiest joins, not using the rest) and employing print-like forms of letters whose printed and cursive forms disagree.
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240538622_The_Relationship_Between_Handwriting_Style_and_Speed_and_Legibility
13
As a product of the Catholic grammar school system, this article brought back nightmares of my school years. My homework took hours to do. If the letters and numbers were not perfect meaning large letters filling the entire line and small letters being precisely half the line. I would receive a F and would have to do it again. On top of that night’s assignment. I spent hours in the principal’s office being chastised for my sloppy work. I ended up spending 40 years in healthcare always wrote my notes in block letters no mistake of what I had written. Learning cursive did help me be able to read doctor’s handwriting. As for today how often do we really have to use cursive for anything? Ninety-nine percent of anything is done on line. And in the rare case where anything I signed it is on a plastic screen which doesn’t lend itself to good hand writing anyway.
13
Cursive is conservative and Republican? Didn't Karl Marx also write in cursive?
17
People submitting comments are nostalgic for a bygone era. My daughter is 32 and never learned cursive. It is not a problem. The comments also reflect a deeper problem of how much curriculum schools need to deliver to create educated citizens able to function in the 21st century. Imagine science classes today vs 1950. Few citizens understand how government works due to inadequate civics instruction. Knowledge of statistics is necessary to read a newspaper. Most people are clueless when it comes to geography. Grammar, spelling? We should be nostalgic for old-fashioned skill based reading instruction at an early age that results in fluent readers by 4th grade. No one is really educated without that foundation. So don't waste precious classroom time on a skill that is no more than a hobby.
20
Learning cursive won’t help you read a manuscript of the Magna Carta, which is written in medieval text hand (and also written in Latin).
At any rate, I’m just as glad to see cursive go. The Palmer method degrades only too easily into something both ugly and illegible. Even when I was in college 40 years ago, if someone wanted to write legibly they used block lettering
15
Cursive writing has a major impact on the brain's development. The Rudolph Stein schools who happen to turn out brilliant children with extraordinary skills in both the arts and sciences emphases cursive writing.
24
@Samgil. Thank you for pointing that out. I kept expecting to read mentions of the studies they’ve done regarding cursive writing, learning, and brain development. Nostalgia, schmostalgia.
In the hyper-competitive school system in Palo Alto, all the tech parents were first in line to get rid of cursive writing. “No one writes any more, anyway. Teach them something of use.” But then studies were done, and they discovered that children who learned cursive writing in school, later in life did better on standardized tests, including STEM scores. They brought cursive back in a hurry.
24
If so, maybe a new generation of children can be taught to think coherently, articulate, spell properly, write in full sentences, compose both prose and poetry and read BOOKS.
Any hope for Trump?
"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." ~ FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
12
No one is passionate about printing letters. That's reason enough right there.
11
It's not coming back in any meaningful way.
4
I don't care whether cursive or manuscipt is taught, but I want something taught each year until fluency and legibility is reached. My district shows the children how to form the letters in first grade and that's it...up to the parent to do what used to be done in 2nd-5th.
11
I'm glad I learned how to write in cursive. These days, cursive is for personal use -- I always resort to printing when taking quick notes, and I keyboard if I need something to be permanent. Its interesting that emojis (basically pictographs) are more readable to the younger generation than cursive writing. I agree schools face more urgent demands than teaching this skill, but the shallow depth of knowledge exhibited by a lot of young people on a wide range of subjects and a lack of social skills sometimes makes me wonder what is being taught.
15
It was only recently that I heard that cursive writing had been discouraged and is now coming back. I was astonished that it had been an issue in the first place. It's just an example of how we continue to "dumb down" our children. To me, only knowing how to print is "dumbing down" and is the province of young children's expressions on drawings and greeting cards. not only is it a much faster and smoother way to write than printing, it is more artful, beautiful and sophisticated. Kook at your computer's choices of fonts - dozens of cursive styles. It should continue to be taught as mandatory, not elective. I was touched by the story of a legislator who said that his granddaughter couldn't read a letter from him written in cursive.
27
@styleman Cursive isn’t the only fast and smooth way to write our alphabet legibly — which is why many of the most attractive handwriting fonts on our computers are not cursive. Google “calligraphic handwriting fonts” sometime — most of them are far more legible than, and at least as attractive as, conventional cursive fonts,
6
I am happy to have learned cursive - the Palmer method, as most of us boomers were taught - back in the '60s by the good nuns at St. Frederic's Grade School. I write in cursive and it's legible and quick and fun to do.
But I think we need to leave it to actual experts - relying on actual science/research - to decide if it makes sense to continue to teach cursive. If our schools had unlimited time and resources, I'd say learning cursive would be great - it is, in a way, an art form. But if the sheer volume of topics that must be taught - from STEM subjects to cyberbullying to civics education (an area that has been decidedly lacking) - means that some subjects must be eliminated, and the science/research concludes that cursive is among those, then so be it.
I'll still keep writing - and enjoying it. :)
9
Why is this such an issue? I learnt cursive in first half of first grade. We all learnt then and loved it because it was a grown-up skill. It doesn’t take that long to learn and once you do you can perfect your handwriting style according to your aesthetic preferences. Cripes, it’s like driving stick, which takes about an hour to learn but which, apparently, 95% of Americans can’t do.
The question isn’t why learn but WHY NOT learn? It’s like knitting or origami and other nice skills to have that you can use and enjoy. Easy to get in on the ground floor, and you can develop the skill further if you like.
31
I had to write to my niece and nephew by printing when they were at camp and couldn't receive email. I find this whole idea that there is no time to teach cursive very odd. My third-grade teacher wrote in cursive on the blackboard and handouts during the last part of the third grade and it didn't take us long to imitate her writing. There are a few letters which are really different that she had to teach us. Looking back, I have changed the form of a few like b,p,x, and Q but everyone can read my writing. I don't know how we can have a generation of people who have no cursive signature. Print signatures are easier to forge. Handwriting itself is out of style but it also represents a permanent record no matter the technology. I don't see the need for long handwriting drills but it is still a skill worth knowing, just like memorizing times tables for times when, God forbid, you are without your phone.
27
I like cursive. I like block printing. I like all forms of handwriting, and I think we need to teach them more.
I'm in college now, and I have many peers with close to illegible handwriting. Given all the benefits shown from taking notes by hand, I think writing legibly by hand is a key skill to learn. It doesn't have to be cursive, but that said, cursive is faster and easier for some people, so teaching it is a useful way to expose kids to other forms of legible writing. No need to grade kids specifically on cursive, but a handwriting grade based on legibility and possibly speed could be helpful (whatever style the child wants).
23
After all these years, your reply answered why boys hated it! We were graded with the girls and they were more coordinated then we. Theirs looked elegant, ours was ugly.
If graded on speed and legibility, with some good abbreviations, we would have both a better grade and an understanding of what we must work on. If explained that our brain coordinated with itself the better we wrote, as jocks, many of us would have done the Palmer spirals and such with a vengeance.
And if put into making your moves in video games pads as if we had light sabers, we would have mastered it and fine printing too. And with that we would have drawn much better in art and drafting classes.
3
As a teacher, I never really understood this debate. It takes very little time to learn cursive and can easily be combined with the curriculum. I don't understand why people think it takes time away from important studies. You can learn it in 3 minutes a day for a month while combining it with the other curriculum. Most children actually enjoy learning another way to write.
51
I thanked my teachers at Westchester Lutheran School in Los Angeles for teaching me cursive in Kindergarten and first grade because I always preferred it to printing. When I was graded on penmanship I did not meet the standard Palmer metrics though. Today nearly 55 years later, I am frequently the recipient of comments on how unusual but truly legible my writing is. Also, I still write in cursive much faster than printing.
As someone who types on the computer a lot, I write less than I used to, but cursive is truly my preference for anything that is not computer typing.... I must admit to be angered when I see the inability of younger people to write legibly and the loss of cursive appears to be a factor to me. I could be labeled as old-fashioned I suppose, but to me it seems that the loss of clarity in composition goes along with the loss of handwriting skills.
When I am out in the fields and need to note something, I do not find it easier and faster to use my phone or a tablet - paper and a pen in cursive is the way to get the job done....
I guess that makes me a "Farmer for cursive"??
21
Teaching cursive to seven year olds will not automatically enable them to read primary source documents from earlier centuries. Letter forms change from decade to decade and region to region. Those who imply that elementary cursive lessons equip students for primary source research demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect in action, and show an abysmal ignorance of archival work.
I've taken graduate level paleography classes, and worked extensively in archives, and I'd argue strongly for the kind of experiential learning that makes history a living thing for students, rather than a dry collection of dates to memorize. For elementary students, history classes should include dabbling in obsolete crafts like candle-making, carpentry...and calligraphy. I'd even support students learning how to make ink, and playing around with quills, metal nibs, and fountain pens, before moving back to a modern ball point, so that they have an idea of what the physical process of writing meant for earlier generations.
But when I have to read undergraduate exams, I flinch when I reach one written in cursive. Printing is just as fast (my students have timed exams, and I know when they all finish), and much easier to read. Cursive has no practical value for communication. It is an art and a historical artifact. I am in favor of arts and history being part of elementary education. But ironically, I suspect that those who insist on mandatory cursive are opposed to all those “extras.”
12
My grandmother bought me my first pen and I remember sitting at the table in her kitchen practicing cursive writing. And I still remember Mrs. Sowers, my 2nd-grade teacher, telling a story about the small "r" when we learned to write it - about a worm needing a little house.
9
Next it will be go back to the scroll, forget the book. Very similar arguments were advanced for proficiency in Greek not that long ago. What is wrong with educating the future generations for the world of the future? I would not oppose spending a bit of time to teach students to read cursive in order to be able to read old letters etc, but to waste the time to drill them on writing it is not a wise use of valuable class time. Back to cursive -- so much silliness.
4
My 4th grade students are in awe at my cursive handwriting abilities. They beg me to teach them. I use it as a reward. "Okay," I said to one student, "If tomorrow I see you listening respectfully while Roneesha is answering a question, then I will give you a page of cursive handwriting practice."
20
Years ago in anthology I encountered the story "Fpafm" (spasm) by Wandel. In it the old custom of using an f-like character for some s characters was exploited for wonderful New Yorker humor. Not all cursive letters have remained the same.
The arguement people will want to read the original documents is elitest. If they want to read them they can easily learn to read cursive. I wasted many hours as a child learning cursive. Not much point in learning shorthand either. The skill of recording information quickly is valuable but is not cursive dependent.
4
The teaching of cursive handwriting is identified as right-wing? Oh dear, bring my fountain pen and my cocktail shaker. I value cursive, civics, grammar, debate, history (American, European and World), literature, and poetry. As a liberal, I support the liberal arts, and cultural literacy in education. Teach students to open their minds - to think and write clearly.
47
Thank you!
6
The USA has got to be the only country in the world where a significant chunk of its citizens see no value in learning to write its language in the traditional method from which evolves our personal signatures, and is so foundational to note-taking, reading source documents and personalized communication.
Is this attitude part of the spiral of American anti-intellectualism? Already, I've seen another disturbing trend besides the hail of poor punctuation and spelling - in much online commentary I'm now seeing that people don't seem to recognize when to use verbs the past tense.
34
@Mary Ann Now, since you and I both live in Seattle, we know that the real reason is that a people who cared about how they expressed their thoughts might not not so readily sign up to be code monkeys for Mr. Bezos.
5
@Mary Ann Personal signatures do not require cursive to evolve. Neither did note-taking, which (like signatures) existed along the users of our alphabet throughout centuries before the appearance of the handwriting style that we, today, call “cursive.”
3
I taught at a Hagwon(school) in South Korea. The kids knew how to write cursive perfectly. Looked like a computer did it. As usual the US is far behind.
7
Please use cursive. . if you have that skill. Most people's cursive is a series of similar loops signifying nothing.
If you are an adult and you are like me and afflicted with an illegible cursive, it's too late. Please block print.
3
The Common Core says students are to be taught to write legibly, and I can tell you that for the past ten years the quality of the "print" skills of my Freshmen have been steadily declining. State tests still require written responses, and legible handwriting skills are still very important for many careers, yet more and more I see student "printing" which isn't just sloppy...it is totally illegible! And when they've only been asked to use pencil, it is even harder to read.
I learned first to print, then to write cursive, then calligraphy. Each level seemed to me to be a new "art form" and a challenge. The same is true of learning to speak publicly (the Common Core has also eliminated required Speech classes in my state). Word choice, diction, an outline to keep me organized, ridding my delivery of fillers, making eye contact with my audience. Additionally, learning to write effectively is also a process that required that I know parts of speech, correct sentence structure and grammar, grow my vocabulary and spelling.
We aren't born with any of these skills, yet they are all important forms of communication, which no keyboard, word processor or auto-correct device can really do for us.
In our race to embrace modern technologies to simplify and speed up our output, we are doing a disservice to our children. We are failing to teach them the skills that create a solid foundation in reading, writing and speaking on which they can build.
215
@Jbergeski Since you know calligraphy as well as cursive, would you object to children being taught to read cursive and to write in calligraphy?
3
If you think it is so critically that your family learn cursive, teach it to them yourself. Teachers are asked to instruct students on all sorts of things that should be learned outside of the classroom. And for those who argue one must sign their name in cursive for it to be legal, the simple answer is it must be recognized as your own. Doesn’t have to be legible.
6
As a child of the 70s/80s, I still write almost exclusively in cursive. I've found that many, many people still appreciate a carefully penned note and all my co-workers rave about my penmanship when I write on our shared calendar. Even though my daughter was on the tail end of the not-needing-to-learn cursive trend, she still wanted me to teach her. I bought her some workbooks and a white board and she spent part of a summer between elementary school and middle school writing things like the National Anthem and other song lyrics in cursive for practice. I think it's an important tool, not just because it looks neat; but because it teaches other skills like patience and the importance of the written word. Much of the history of our ancestors is written in cursive. I definitely wouldn't want that to be lost on this next generation.
5
Cursive teaches more than writing: it teaches patience, attention to detail, and pride in performance.
Linking the fine motor control of cursive with the thought processes of the brain really deepens the neurological pathways of thinking.
I type quickly and accurately but I love writing by hand because it is a celebration of what I am thinking.
I take notes by hand: and it really embeds the knowledge in my brain so cursive is not only an instrument of expression, it is also a way of receiving information.
I think most kids could benefit from learning it. But I wouldn't deny a kid a high school diploma because he/she couldn't master it.
176
As a graphic designer and illustrator who often creates hand-lettering, including cursive, I feel like I am one of the very few people who's work directly benefits from a knowledge of cursive... But I would strongly oppose any effort to bring mandatory lessons back into the curriculum. Teachers and students have limited time and resources... There are dozens of other subjects that would be preferable. Writing in cursive is a wonderful craft and art, but by no means is it something that every student must learn. Offer it as an elective, naturally. Do teach students how to puzzle their way through old texts. Promote calligraphy clubs at school. Encourage kids to write to their grandparents. But please don't force every child to learn a skill that very few will utilize in their lives.
102
@François
Your “force” is another’s education. Where do you think knowledge comes from? The kitchen faucet? Of course this should be taught and whether you personally spin it as “force” is your own issue.
42
@François
You seem to assume that every child will always - ALWAYS -have some device available other than a pencil and paper. And since when will they never-ever-never have to sign their own name to a legal document? Oh - sorry - forgot - fingertip on screen, eh?
42
@Patricia Pencil and paper do not require cursive; they work equally well with print-writing, italic handwriting, or any of the other forms of our handwriting.
Signatures, as noted in more than one comment here, do not depend on cursive to be legal, though many teachers of cursive have either been misinformed on the matter — presumably by their own teachers — or have positively delighted in misinforming successive generations about this aspect of the law of the land. Several elementary school teachers have told me, for instance, that they actually do not _want_ to Know whether cursive is legally required for signatures, because (they say) if they found out that it is not in fact required by law, they “would feel morally obliged to make the difficult decision of nevertheless teaching that it is required by law.” (direct quote from someone who taught both cursive and civics)
18
Actually, good penmanship is a largely lost art. If I wanted to have a classroom full of 20ish year-old kids ooh and ah, I'd simply invite my pre-baby boom mother into class and have her write a single sentence in unimaginably gorgeous cursive. In my more than 2 decades of college teaching, I've never seen writing as pleasing to the eye as my hers. On the other hand, when I read the writing of folks of her generation, it doesn't stand out quite as much.
So, let's welcome beauty back into those few realms in which we must still scrawl something out with pen, marker, or pencil.
And I can't imagine that the exercise would hurt the kids at all.
(For the record, my penmanship is terrible).
100
@ToddTsch
LOL, our kids ask me to teach our grandchildren to write in cursive because theirs is hardly readable. I enjoy it, it lets me spend more time with them and they get their favorite dishes that gran cooks for them while they are here.
24
Cursive is not a lifelong skill, it's a gigantic waste of time. My middle school teachers (in the 1990s) pitched a fit that my incoming class hadn't learned it; they told us we would HAVE to use it in high school and college. The only time I ever "needed" it was when I had to copy out the anti-cheating passage on the SAT. Just ONCE. Completely worthless.
A much, much, much more serious issue is the lack or weakness of civics instruction in school. Kids grow up not understanding what a primary election is or why gerrymandering creates more than just a stupid-looking map! Even worse than that, they are often taught patriotic mythology, a disjointed heap of feel-good fables designed to make them "good citizens", instead of factual history explained in a way that they understand why the present is the way it is.
Teach kids critical thinking. Teach them things that will immunize them against marketing, spam, scams, pseudoscience, indoctrination, disinformation on social media, and propaganda. Teach them other languages, like Chinese, which will offer the same motor skills benefits while expanding their capacity to interact with the world beyond their front door. Anything but cursive.
219
I was surprised that your article omitted the most important aspects of knowing cursive.
They have nothing to do with right-leaning politics or making America great again.
My 10 year old grandson recently took a very long time to fill out the form to open a bank account.
He had not learned cursive in school. Block printing with a pencil was even a struggle for him as well.
There was no keyboard available for this task or for many others in the course of our daily lives.
I use cursive all the time as a way to take notes in lectures, annotate papers I am reading, and to take histories from my patients in the ER.
It is fast and unencumbered by electronic devices. I use cursive for making notes in my ceramics studio where the dust would kill a computer.
There are many day-to-day practical reasons to be able to write quickly and legibly. That is why we need cursive.
208
@Steven Fisher Research on handwriting (source info on request) shows that cursive wrIters are neither as rapid nor as legible as those who use only the easiest joins (thereby joining only some letters) and use print-like forms for those letters whose printed and cursive forms disagree.
19
@Kate Gladstone: Please provide a link or citation for your claim. I have gorgeous and fluid penmanship and I take well-organized & detailed notes in a lecture or meeting situation faster than anyone except a professional stenographer.
35
My father and grandfather both got good mileage from Pitman shorthand.
12
“Add typing skills, anti-racist pedagogy, add activism skills, add digital literacy,” she said. “There are so many other things.”
I won't comment on the need to teach cursive writing. But "anti-racist pedagogy," and "activism skills" in third grade? And people wonder why kids are getting such a lousy education in the public schools?
6
I could not agree more. It is sad when American public schools start sounding more like Soviet indoctrination centers.
5
More stupid clinging to the past. Cursive had to do with needing to keep pen to paper in the era of ink wells and fountain pens. teach it as an elective at the most, but certainly don't require it. You aren't allowed to use it on any forms anyway, so why bother?
5
Your newspaper published a similar article Sept 4 2009, by Inga Dubay and Barbara Getty.....since when, I believe, these two women have started a system of teaching Italic Handwriting; I found this out by doing very little digging about. I cannot check it now but it may be worth your readers' time to check this out; by no means is cursive the only handwriting in the world. And I haven't had time to 'read all about it' as it's tax prep time here - so over to you.
1
@Elizabeth Barry, Canada Inga and Barbara (whom I know well) actually started their system decades before (not after) writing and illustrating their excellent NEW YORK TIMES piece, which can be read at graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/08/opinion/OPED-WRITING.1.pdf — their method, Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting, makes its Internet home at handwritingsuccess.com (where the firm is now managed by Inga’s son Jonathan, who grew up on Getty-Dubay Italic.) If you reach Jonathan, say “Hello” to him from me.
2
Those of you who insist on a strong divide between artistic skills and "practical life skills," where the latter means whatever you do in your own job, deserve the world we live in, and I hope DJT and his ilk drag you into the philistine hell you belong in. No apologies for the tone of this comment -- you deserve what your weak, passive attitudes have wrought in our education system.
2
This all makes me feel quite the progressive. I am a Baby Boomer, rigorously trained in cursive, but by the time I got to college I had given up cursive for my own peculiar brand of printing. My reasons were both practical and aesthetic. My cursive handwriting was so bad that it was barely legible and so ugly it was embarrassing.I had never seen the word dysgraphia before reading this article, but anyone seeing my signature would have little trouble believing that I am among those afflicted. My new system, although still not pretty can at least be easily read. As far as note taking is concerned, I had no trouble keeping up either as an undergrad or graduate student. But the course I found most useful in preparing for college and later life was typing. Modern students are greatly aided by being trained to use keyboards. I am continually amazed watching millennials' fingers fly around computer keyboards, their thumbal dexterity on cell phones seems miraculous.
4
This could've been a short article -Forget politics , nostalgia, the rest and focus on the mountains of credible research showing learning is significantly better when notes are taken in cursive instead of on a keyboard
15
@susie The superior already found for a hand written versus keyboard is no taking has, so far, included no evidence showing any superiority for note-taking done in cursive over note-taking done in any of the other forms of our handwriting. In fact, in all the studies of hand written versus keyboarded note-taking taking done to date, the subjects were college students — very few of whom, as it happens, write in cursive.
3
@susie
really, I couldn't believe, that someone believes quitting writing can do any good to the development of a person. It's like saying a sportsman to do quit running, because we all will be moving on those cool scooters in the future. I am a millennial too, like that teacher. And I spend evenings writing in my notebook in cursive. Not on my laptop, which I hate to see after the whole day of chats, blogs and other marketing stuff I do. I feel so much relaxed and happy, as I can do that. When will people understand that being digital doesn't mean being progressive?
7
@susie The superiority already found for a hand written versus keyboard in note-taking has, so far, included no evidence showing any superiority for note-taking done in cursive over note-taking done in any of the other forms of our handwriting. In fact, in all the studies of hand written versus keyboarded note-taking taking done to date, the subjects were college students — very few of whom, as it happens, write in cursive.
2
Good. I'm glad. It's one ting to send a quick text saying :Thks for the gift. xx name here; and quite another to receive in the mailbox a note card or letter even, on nice stationery, stating thank you written in cursive or "script," as we called it. There is the time one takes to do so that speaks of actual gratitude or getting in touch, and showing you care. The quick texts do not do the same. I say the old way in this case is worth keeping or bringing back. Think of all those messages sent by raven in Game of Thrones, hand written by quills, a person sitting at a desk or table, Tapping their chin, thinking about what they would write first, and then signing the note with a flourish, waiting for the ink to dry the beautiful script, and a wax stamped seal before rolling it up. Beautiful. Would a text have that same effect? It's comparing paper plates with real dishes. No comparison. Let's not get so lazy we can't even write out names in script anymore. As a writer and author I like to write in longhand, script of course, first. At least my short stories and ideas, if not the whole manuscript like I used to. There is a mind body creative connection when you move the pen on the page that you just do not get with a computer or phone.
4
@Nancy Delancey I assume you could say the same about delivering handwritten notes by raven, rather than relying on the U.S. Mail.
I am more or less in favor of teaching cursive( no grades!)
It also occurred to me that lamenting the fact that new generations will not be able to decipher old manuscripts and the like - - might have a parallel in those who are equally upset that so few Americans, children or adults, can understand any sort of scientific reports. We are, on the whole, are very illiterate in very important subjects. Arguably cursive writing is not on the top of that list - - but that doesn't mean it should be off the list.
4
There are a lot of fallacious reasons expressed in these comments for teaching cursive.
1. People who don't learn to write cursive can't read it and will, therefore, no be able to read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Nonsense. I didn't learn cursive, and I have no trouble at all reading it, although I have to admit some of the ancient stylistic elements in the ancient documents is a bit troublesome -- but my cursive-trained friends seem to find it a bit odd, anyway. And there are plenty of typeset versions of both documents that can be read by that rare person who REALLY can't read cursive.
2. The only alternative to taking notes in cursive is tapping at a keyboard or a glass screen. Nonsense. I take notes by printing all the time. With a pen. (I'm an optimist, so I rarely use a pencil.)
3. If you don't teach cursive, people will be entirely devoid of hand-eye coordination. Nonsense. There are a gazillion ways to teach eye-hand coordination, most of them far more useful than learning an ancient form that is retained largely for nostalgic reasons.
I'll continue in a reply to this one...
10
Finally, I am very happy I didn't have to learn cursive. I'm a lefty. Printing was hard enough, making all those smudges. I'm old enough that we had to learn to write with fountain pens and then cartridge pens. Both made a mess for us lefties. Ball-point pens were banned (for no reason I can think of, other than they were too newfangled and, dad-gummit, we learned to write with fountain pens and quills!...)
I was spared the misery of being a lefty forced to write cursive because I skipped the grade where cursive was taught. Believe it or not, my teachers thought catching me up with a year's worth of math, in particular, but also the science and social studies, was far more important. I'm glad they weren't as hung up on nostalgia as are so many commenters here.
3
I teach middle school. Students can't sign their names anymore because they never learned cursive. I, for one, am glad it's coming back.
18
I never learned cursive because I'm a leftie and changed schools at an awkward time. I sign in fast, illegible printing and it works just fine.
6
@Jordan There are a number of benefits for cursive writing. After a job interview, for example, sending out a hand-written thank-you note to a prospective employer will mean so much more to that person than a computer-generated letter. What do you think that human resources manager or line manager will remember more? And if a relative sends a gift to a niece or nephew or grandchild, that thank-you note in cursive writing will be cherished and saved for many years. A computer letter may be thrown away, and a phone call forgotten.
3
@Selvin Gootar That handwritten thank-you will be as cherished (and as likely to be saved) if the handwriting style is other than cursive. If a friend, relative, or prospective employee thanked you in such handwriting as you see here — https://www.italic-handwriting.org/exemplars — would you hesitate to save it because its penmanship wad italic handwriting rather than cursive handwriting?
3
Instruction in cursive was once vitally important—and remains so in the minds of many folks commenting here—because it used to be a vitally important information technology. Illegible writing could undermine crucial systems for organizing, retrieving, and disseminating information: the US Mail, card catalogs, ledgers, etc. But just as we taught timely and important information skills back then, let's teach them now. I understand the romance of manuscript, but time spent teaching cursive takes away from time spent on more relevant digital skills. The call to be good stewards of our information systems is no less important today than it was in the analog age—yesterday's good penmanship is today's good digital information literacy.
7
@Jim, you make an important point: that standardized cursive handwriting once represented an improved way to communicate. That fact is lost in the article and in many of the other comments, including my own. Thank you for reminding us of this.
2
"Noelle Mapes, a third-grade teacher at a public school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, said the agenda to include cursive classes 'feels like a big nostalgia move.'
“'I’m a millennial teacher, so it almost feels like a boomer effort,' she said."
Hey, you know what, Noelle, I'm a millennial, and I only have access to certain kinds of emotional language in handwriting. You can call that "nostalgia," but I'd be in a bad place without cursive in my skill set.
11
Interesting article. Did an informal test to see how printing compared to cursive. Randomly opened a novel, set timer, and began copying. No significant difference between printing and cursive.
What I did notice might point to ergonomics. After just a few minutes of forcing myself to print, it felt like my hand was going to fall off! Perhaps fatigue goes to how people taught. At elementary school on an air base, we had to draw circles and up/down lines with a bean-bag thing under our wrists. Was that training larger muscle groups in arm and shoulder rather than just using fingers? Can only speak for myself, but for me-- cursive seemed easier. Printing (using fingers to move the pencil) quickly led to fatigue. For someone else, perhaps the results would be the opposite.
One final thought. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the article mentions the *politics* of handwriting? We aren’t debating *what* we write anymore, just arguing about how we write it? Sincerely hope such quibbling goes the way of quills and parchment. I think we have far more serious issues to worry about.
4
@B_Bocq “Circles and up-down lines,” as you note, are indeed far from optimal ergonomically — which is, for instance why italic uses a slight slant and oval movements instead: italic-handwriting.orh, it would be interesting to see you expand your comparison of cursive and printing to include italic.
1
Two arguments for cursive are simple and compelling:
1. If we do not write fluently by hand, our writing depends on digital devices controlled or monitored by corporations and the state. And if we are to write by hand, cursive is by far the most efficient way for most people to do so.
2. The historical record of the United States (and much of the rest of the world) between 1600 and 2000 is hugely dependent on documents written in cursive. If we know cursive, we can read them. If we do not, we cede access to a vast swath of our history to trained specialists whose agendas may not be our own.
Keep teaching cursive.
27
@Jurretta If “cursive is the most efficient way for most people to write fluently by hand,” why do the most fluent and legible handwriters not comply with the norms of cursive? See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240538622_The_Relationship_Between_Handwriting_Style_and_Speed_and_Legibility
Further: why do most handwriting teachers not use cursive as their own handwriting?
In 2012, handwriting teachers were surveyed at a conference hosted by Zaner-Bloser, a publisher of cursive textbooks. Only 37% wrote in cursive; another 8% printed. The majority — 55% — wrote a hybrid: some elements resembling print-writing, others resembling cursive. (Survey results are at http://www.hw21summit.com/media/zb/hw21/files/H2937N_post_event_stats.pdf )
When even most handwriting teachers do not themselves use cursive, why mandate it?
3
There are a lot of important topics that schools ought to teach children before sending them on. Writing and reading cursive is not at the top of the list. I have an executive level job and I struggle to find a time in the last 20 years when reading/writing cursive would have been helpful. Advanced math beyond calculus too, for that matter. If someone on my team took meeting notes in cursive and not neatly printed letters, they will no longer be assigned that task. Meanwhile, I have no idea how to rebuild a small engine, grow a plant, or fix a leaky pipe. I wish I had taken more of the life skills classes offered by my high school and less of the AP classes.
If everything is important, nothing is important and nothing gets done. Let’s be practical and drop the nostalgia so that schools can focus on getting thru the bare minimum and at least doing that well.
Besides, Google will have learned how to read cursive by then
6
There's no need to mix politics into the debate about cursive. Here's a more direct, non-partisan reason to reintroduce it. Numerous studies have shown that lecture material is retained more successfully in the memory when notes are taken by hand rather than with a laptop keyboard. But today's college students have trouble taking notes because they don't know cursive. Imagine trying to keep up with a lecturer while writing each letter out individually. Whether or not cursive helps develop the brains of elementary school students, it definitely helps develop the brains (or at least the study habits) of college student, and for that reason alone it's worthwhile.
11
@Richard In the studies of note-taking methods (handwritten versus typing), the handwriters indeed outdid the keyboarders .... yet most of the handwriters were not using cursive, but printing or some mix of cursive and printed elements, because they were college students — and that’s how most college students write today, when they write by hand.
To use the results as support for cursive is therefore, at best, disingenuous.
5
Children are still taught to write; it’s just non-connected printing, not connected cursive. Many commenters are acting as though pencils have been banned from schools!
As a middle school teacher, typing skills are a more pressing issue than cursive. Wealthy students can often type on keyboards with proper finger position and without looking, while students from fewer family resources often only have keyboards on cell phones or tablets (no laptop or desktop at home) and thus can only type with two fingers as though they are texting.
New York State has (had?) a goal of completing all state testing for 3rd through 8th graders on computers by 2020. I’m not sure if that’s still on, given that this month’s computer-based ELA tests caused the computer program to crash due to too much traffic. Overall, though, if computer-based testing is the way of the future, then schools need to prioritize teaching typing.
In spite of these alarmist comments, most students can write by hand much faster than they can type. Students with less access to tech at home will be disproportionately penalized when they are forced to type their state exam essays.
5
It's a good thing the boomer generation is doing genealogy. Hopefully they are transcribing original written records and accurately citing sources in their work.
Transcriptions on genealogy platforms can contain multiple errors, and without the ability to read original documents young people are completely eliminated from creating proven family line descent.
They'll be relying on online trees put together by people who did no research and contain not one iota of truth.
If genealogy businesses want to stay in business, they'd best get in line supporting the cursive movement. Very few, in the future, will be able to pay NEHGS to do the research for them.
1
@Myrasgrandotter I do genealogy with my teenage nephew. He is a student in a storied public school system and reads Italian and Hebrew, but cannot read script. He cannot read a 1940 census, or his grandfather's letters from World War II, or his grandmother's recipes.
Most doing genealogy are just doing a quick computer search of indices and then adding those records or "shaining leaves" to their trees. I believe Ancestry hires overseas indexers who have excellent 21st century English skills but cannot read 19th century script. The 1850 census was the first to list all household members, and I spent two years searching for a "Julius" who was transcribed in index as "Tubbs."
8
@M.R. Sullivan
Exactly, Mr. Sullivan.
Family history, written in cursive, is a devastating casualty of the loss of cursive literacy.
I was privileged to see a Shakespeare original portfolio several years ago.
What a loss that today's young might never be able to read the original written words of Hamlet, even if it's in front of their eyes.
Bless you for preserving your family history for your son and his future descendants. Hopefully his children will be able to read their great-grandfather's letters.
4
I spent my first few decades as a hospital nurse writing notes in charts by hand with a pen and deciphering the stereotypical scrawl of handwriting by physicians as well, which could be dangerous as illegible notes could cause patient safety and care errors. The introduction of the electronic health record (computerized) has had the benefit of notes and orders being legible, and many charting areas are simply a click and choose a drop-down choice.
I now teach in a college of nursing using an efficient and excellent online learning management system. The detriments of not having to manually write in print or cursive, though, but solely relying on computer keyboards, are students (and several co-faculty!) do not have to spell words correctly or know correct grammar anymore, as there are applications that perform these for them.
We may be transitioning to "writing" in a completely digital world, but I have personally experienced electronic health records and computer systems shutting-down and watched the perplexed and panicked faces of (younger) staff and students when they ask, "What do we do now?!" I replied,"We have back-up printed charts and plain paper and we use several fingers (not just thumbs like texting on a phone) to hold an implement called a pen, and we manually write!"
Work or school will not be canceled if computers are down. The young teacher in the article referring to writing as nostalgic and typing skills as paramount needs to know this.
14
I still have my father and mother’s passports with the big red letter J in them together with their Nazi-added middle names of Israel and Sara.
They reside in a cigar box underneath my bed.
The passports are interesting in a menacing way: sturdy brown covers, thick, expensive paper, sharp, brightly lighted photos, lots of swastikas, very modern typography, official looking stamps and elaborate handwriting; all obviously signifying the desire of German officialdom to put their best menacing foot forward in representing Hitler and Nazi Germany to the world.
You could not beat the Nazis when it came down to typography and excellent penmanship.
4
so, the Constitution was written in cursive and that makes being able to read it in cursive an attribute of being American? Well, the lists of slaves that plantation owners kept was written cursive, too.... I guess that makes keeping lists of human subjugation a truly American attribute as well.
5
I don't really care if kids write or print. What bothers me is that they barely understand how to put a sentence together, or how to spell. Grammar must not be taught at all anymore, and even those who go on to college and get advanced degrees seem not to understand how to structure a sentence. I was a paralegal for years, and I have seen some appallingly written briefs. Apparently, law schools don't even require writing skills anymore. I hear Trump speak with his garbled syntax and his limited vocabulary, and I wonder is that our future? Inarticulate and confused communication? I know I'm one of those "grammar Nazis" that people make fun of, but I can't help it. It bugs me.
17
Oh for heaven's sake. No, students today mostly cannot read and write cursive. They also can't use a typewriter or a slide ruler or drive a stick. These are all skills that used to be essential for success and no longer are.
And while it was silly to include activism in the list of new things that should be taught, the teacher's point is still valid: there are a whole host of new things that we need to be teaching kids in order for them to be successful. We won't have time for them unless we drop antiquated skills like cursive. To her list, I would add the ability to evaluate online information sources for reliability and quality. Students need to be able to spot fake news at an early age or our problems as a nation will only grow. We also need to teach students to manage their time, attention and focus in a much more intensive way than we ever did in the past, as there are exponentially more demands on their attention than before.
If you want to develop hand-eye coordination and dexterity, teach print writing, fully-fund proper art classes from kindergarten on, and add robotics, sewing, and computer hardware. If you want people to be able to read old documents, offer cursive and calligraphy as a high school art elective.
Children these days don't need cursive. The sky is not falling.
8
I've noticed that a lot of younger people hold a pen or pencil with their thumb pointing up rather than towards the writing end. No wonder they have trouble writing.
3
There are many times when keyboards, computers, and outlets are unavailable. Also, all types of writing are not the same. Handwriting can often work as part of the process of formulating ideas and polishing wording. It is rarely about the times in life when you are needing the skill to read historical documents. More often it would be to write yourself a quick note to remember something when you are without electronics. Or to read a note from your grandmother (and write a quick note back to her).
2
@Burnham Holmes Writing a quick note does not depend on the letters being cursive.
1
This is so goofy. I've often wondered about styles of handwriting. Now at age 70 I've totally given up on it, it's much easier to dictate, don't hurt my hands and goes fast. but it is funny that on different occasions in my life, my handwriting has changed to suit my mood. sometimes my handwriting would look exactly like my father's aggressive and smooth. Other times it would look like my mother's, classic French. Sometimes it would be big and loopy, sometimes tiny and cramped. All I have to do is go back and look at my journals and I can almost see the effect of the subject matter on Style. To this day I cannot decipher my French aunt's handwriting. Nobody can, but then she's also a doctor. My grandson however, is at age 11 one of the smartest people I've ever met and cannot write in cursive at all.
1
If cursive is such a "divisive" topic and SOOO 19th Century, how about teaching kids to at least PRINT. I see so many students' printing that is illegible, sloppy and jerky that schools should at least spend time teaching kids how to write, whether print or cursive! I teach middle schoolers whose printing is all over the place -jumbled, not in a straight line, letters that are different sizes - just NO semblance of neatness. I guess neat and tidy are also 19th C. principles. Who needs them when we can type everything on a keyboard! Hey, you have to THINK when writing! What a concept!!
2
Great idea. We should also insist that all students learn to drive a horse and buggy, and wash their clothes by beating them on a rock down by the stream. Progress!
6
There are a number of handwriting styles out there. The one taught in North America in the mid century was Anglais. Ugly.
But the foundation of handwriting is the writing instrument and the paper. If you have to grind a ball point or pencil across paper with no tooth, the result will be ugly.
Teach Italic with a broad nib.
1
This is a wonderful resurrection. But why restrict oneself to the Cursive style? Practising any style of handwriting whether Cursive, Print or D'Nealian is good for all the reasons mentioned in the article. At this point, I confess that I handwrite in a composition book almost every day. It's mostly copying out quotes that appeal to me or putting down thoughts that I would like to revisit later. While all this sounds quaint, the interesting thing is that I have found a therapeutic benefit in that when I handwrite I find myself reflecting on the things I am writing about as opposed to the situation when I am racing to send out yet another text message. In short, handwriting is conducive to ordering one's thoughts and the resulting peace of mind. In this day of the iPhone when many are typing and that too in compressed English devoid of musicality of language, there lies an oasis in which one can take the the time to write as much as one would like to, where one can synchronize the eye and hand to carefully form one's letters and, where one can reflect upon what one has written. It is a wonderful place in which to seek refuge from our relentless, remorseless electronic keyboard typing pursuits.
2
As the college admissions scandal revealed, too much of school today is aimed at external rewards: getting into college and obtaining a "good" job, where "good" is defined by its status, prestige, pay and power.
Research shows that people in such jobs are not only more likely to be unhappy, but also to cut corners in all areas of life.
We should encourage students to pursue a different course: to aim at internal rewards: discovering and cultivating one's inner motivation. This is the prime function of art.
Middle-eastern and eastern cultures have the advantage that writing is itself an art. While this is not the case with roman letters, we should insist on the inclusion in today's curriculum of art, literature, and music.
Otherwise, we can have no right to object to a public life dominated by Trump and his cabinet of cheats, liars, and bullies.
2
@VCR Re: “Middle-eastern and eastern cultures have the advantage that writing is itself an art. While this is not the case with roman letters” — Who says? Roman-letter calligraphy is an ancient, and well-regarded, division of the art of lettering in western civilization.
1
@VCR
This set me off to look at some info about languages with different characters or symbols. What I picked up is -- there is upset in China and Japans that kids are forgetting how to write characters ( of course there are thousands vs our 26) - character amnesia.
1
Cursive is built by righties for righties. I jumped from a B student to an A student in English as soon as I got a word processor. Gene Kelly might have been able to match Fred Astair step for step, backwards an in high-heels, but I can't.
4
I’m afraid you meant to say Ginger Rogers, but I’m thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Gene Kelly dancing in a ball gown and heels!
4
Being left-handed, I received failing grads in handwriting throughout grade school during the 'forties. Some of those papers survived among my mother's files. Yes, the letters lean to the left instead of the right(a portent of my future political orientation?), but the text is legible and literate.
3
Hand writing gathers the mind, brings attention to one task, one letter at a time; pauses the brain in its compulsion to get on with the next thing; and can offer that unmeasurable but growing sense of achievement that art can give.
My usual handwriting is awkward. But when I take the time to write better, I feel better, and those who receive it surely have a slight increase in a sense of an orderly island in the world.
My 95 year old sister cannot see well at all, but her notes are beautiful. This pleases and stirs me in ways I cannot put into words.
8
We cannot abandon analog ways of communication in a digital age..
Signatures have become so unintelligible that they have devolved into leaving your mark with no identifying informational content.
Without the development of hand motors skills, even the manner in which people hold a pencil is a form of torture and the formation of printed letters becomes an onerous task. The pencil (or pen) loses its power of expression as an instrument of art when reduced to discrete lettering The development of cursive /could be viewed as a natural evolution to effectively use the pencil (or pen) as a communications tool. Are we willing to regress? Has "carpel tunnel syndrome of the thump" become synonymous with "writer's cramps"? Is cursive destined for the "dustbin of history" like Latin? Will future generations need translators to read the original documents of the founding of our nation?
3
I was appalled to learn that my grandsons (ages 11-16) spent only a few hours learning handwriting, compared to the hundreds if not thousands of hours I had to study it. I have had to print cards to them since they can't read cursive well.
There are times when cursive writing is the best tool one has to jot down notes quickly. I'm glad to learn it's coming back.
7
Much of the argument against writing cursive seems to be that if it's digital, it's therefore better (or at least way cooler). It reminds me of arguments that online shopping should have the advantage of being free of sales tax, because it was good for online vendors, and, well, it was online.
Now that our lives are controlled by Google, Amazon, and Facebook, any notions of privacy are quaint anachronism, and children are persecuted to suicide on social media, we're all so much happier, aren't we?
2
@Frank O The woes conferred by Google, Amazon, and Facebook would not disappear if their owners and customers all learned cursive handwriting.
1
There are times when writing something down is more practical than pulling out a tech device. Marking notes with one's own shorthand and webbing outlines are examples of writing being more practical than typing. How many times has a tech device used an incorrect word when spell correcting? In addition, when writing, the fluid movement of cursive writing is faster than printing. Schools threw out the baby with the bathwater when they got rid of cursive writing.
Many historical letters and documents, are written in cursive. There are very old libraries I have visited that still keep their cursive written index cards for old documents. Cursive writing can be incorporated into teaching spelling (another ignored skill), so that it does not become, as some consider, a waste of time.
We have a wealth of information and history from handwritten letters that erased emails will never provide for future generations. Lets think before we jump into becoming totally dependent on tech devices.
9
@Zoned But why do you assume that our handwriting, to confer all these very real benefits, must be in cursive?
2
@Kate Gladstone
It's a matter of choice. Some like cursive better and they should have the opportunity to learn it.
2
No mention in the article about the ability to read historical documents in the future???
I suppose the self-identified millennial teacher isn't interested in history, or she somehow doesn't believe it will be relevant in the future?
I rarely use cursive for anything but my signature these days, but I am glad I can read original documents and primary sources without needing someone else's interpretation. I had no idea this would be a rare skill in the future. Then again, I find actual paper maps awfully handy.
10
Eons ago, we learned Cursive in 1st grade. My teacher, who was an ancient disciplinarian, asked me to stay in at recess & teach Richard to make a capital I while she went out with the other kids. Dutifully, I showed Richard how to make an I, and he then picked up chalk & filled every board in the room.
I never understood why Mme Battleaxe was so upset when she returned & saw that Richard's I's put the bottom swirl to the right,not the left. I knew it was an I, she knew it was an I. What was the big deal?
Years later, when I transferred from teaching 7th grade to 3rd, my Horror was 3rd grade was where kids learned Cursive. Spell that Curse-ive.
3
I used to teach at the junior college level. The students didn't and couldn't read, write, think and speak properly. They also didn't even take the time to check how they spelled. I was teaching in a professional career program,and wondered how those not wanting to keep this career would move on to university!
6
@Majortrout
I teach in a community college and couldn't agree more.
Perhaps this has to do with a generation raised on tech where they don't write, google everything rather than learn to research and don't read. The result is lack of critical thinking skills, curiosity or a real desire to learn. While tech has brought great things in our lives, it has not enhance educational skills that students will need in the future.
8
There are really only a few people against it. It clearly helps brain development. When both parties agree on something, this should be celebrated. My cursive is lousy and I only print and mostly type. But it benefitted me with forming letters and will help my daughter who has the same issue. And there are now apps that change cursive into typed print when writing on the iPad.
4
@Not Pierre Re: “It clearly helps brain development” — research, please? Author and title (or a link) will do.
2
Interesting how such a simple thing became so politicized. The trouble is, like piano lessons, it isn't enough to teach something if the learner doesn't practice.
5
... and here's one more thing to "bring back" to younger generations:
How to tell time by reading a "real" clock - there are still thousands, if not millions of them, out there in public places and, yes, still on people's wrists. I was a school librarian a few years back and was shocked to see how many students couldn't tell time or read a clock; they depended on their cell phones and computers for the time.
15
@CommonSense'18
And for awhile, Velcro replaced shoelaces in a lot of children's shoes...so they did not have to learn how to tie shoes! Not that it is a debilitating omission, but what a crutch.
7
We moved several times when I was in grade school, so I was taught several styles of cursive writing. The result was poor writing. Then in college, I had to write so fast while taking notes, my writing got worse. Finally, a few years after college, I gave up on cursive and began printing when I wrote, except for my signature.
When I got older, I became interested in genealogy, and started reading old records. Many of those old records were not written in cursive, but in a variety of styles of printing.
People who advocate for going back to cursive writing as a way to go back to a traditional way of writing may not know that.
Now, I type almost everything I write. One of the most useful classes I took in high school was touch typing. I'd rather see schools teach that then cursive.
2
Sorry, "activism skills"? Nice punchline, NY Times.
Teach handwriting instead, both print and cursive. We now have enough research to show that our brains need the connection to the hand that "digital literacy"-style typing doesn't only not provide, but breaks down.
Signed,
A parent and artist
20
'Activism skills'?
Boy, I am old at 86!
3
It's about time.
6
Pushing 70 now, I haven't used cursive since high school. Fortunately I could always print quickly and legibly. Having taught middle school for thirty years however, I applaud any focus on penmanship. Perhaps I'm overly generalizing, but I found during my final years teaching that too many of my students had poor handwriting. Yes, there are computers, but sometimes the best technology is pen and paper.
14
Cursive is often a better choice with kids with handwriting difficulties. Because you are not picking up your pencil tip off the page and putting it down again, writing is smoother and more fluent. Kids with printing difficulties often hesitate when printing, because they can't quickly remember where to put their pencil tip down to start the next letter. Thus the reversals. They often start some letters from the bottom and others from the top, or use other habits that are inefficient from a motor plan point of view. A good cursive program will start all letters from the bottom.
8
@Syliva Starting all letters from the bottom falls mightily when the letter follows a b/o/v/w (as these don’t end at the bottom). Bottom-upwards cursive programs, therefore, require cursive letters to change their shapes and start elsewhere (not at the bottom) whenever the previous letter happens to be one of those four.
The vaunted benefits of ceaseless pen-on-paper (never allowing the pen to lift within a word) do not apply when a combination of letters would have to be joined in a complicated, curvaceous way (as in “pa” and “the” and “qu”) that takes more time than Simply letting the pen leave the paper as it moves from one letter to the next: permitting a straight line (the shortest distance) instead of complex compound curves.
Perhaps this explains why the fastest, yet most legible, writers in are alphabet are found to join only some (not all) of the letters: see “The Relationship between Handwriting Style and Speed and Legibility” at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240538622_The_Relationship_Between_Handwriting_Style_and_Speed_and_Legibility
1
The NYT reported after the Year Of The Brain the two most important recommendations the neuroscientists has were.
1. For 14 year olds to college, start schools at 10 am when they are awake.
2. Bring back cursive. ~ It integrates the various parts of the brain as it processes new information leading to both better understanding and better recall in a much better and faster way than printing or typing.
Recommendation I would add is to have a pad computer that would recognize our handwriting and convert it to text.
Girls got all the good grades and praise in k-5! Their eye hand coordination was much better at this age. It seems gibberish inconveniently forgotten that girls are 2-3 years more mature by school age than boys up to and thru college and who knows how much later.
Sketching I suspect should be taught along with cursive. Both definitely increase thinking, recall, and communication.
8
@Ramon Reiser Please provide a link to the report, or at least a date.
2
Modern children without their smart phones are utterly helpless.There is a real need for cursive writing
10
How staggeringly insular! Cursive writing = America?
Hellooooo yo' ol' southerners! Cursive writing occurred in other places too.
Cursive writing is fine, but the bane of my young life was the slope card, a piece of cardboard with slanting lines printed on it that you were meant to follow.
My writing never did: it tended to the perpendicular.
The day I finished Year 6 (1962), I asked Mum for matches & I burned it: no slope cards in high school!! Yay!!
My brother learned some sort of ugly, jerky writing that was half printing & half cursive. Nasty & non-flowing.
These days neither of us can think & write simultaneously unless it's with a keyboard.
BTW if you really want to encourage eye-hand-pen coordination, teach kids to draw!
4
Palmer or Spencer style?
5
How much code is written in cursive? Maybe we should be preparing our children for 21st century careers instead of 19th.
3
Teach cursive! It was ridiculous that it wasn’t included in the Common Core.
7
A blank page is like dusk just before the stars come out. A blank screen with a blinking dot is like a countdown to oblivion.
3
When an electro-magnetic pulse from a Russian/Chinese bomb takes out the grid and computers no longer function, Lt. A will still need to communicate with Col. B and General C. But in a society in which no-one knows how to write legibly with a pen, the information-flow and chain-of-command orders are going to be laughably unintelligible (as we all go to the grave whining about our cellphone keyboards not working). Basic grammar and punctuation are already a problem for my students in the military. Take away their keyboards and force them to use a skill that nobody has taught them and you'll have a triple disaster on your hands. Keep America Fluent!
J
4
@Jerry and Peter Definitely, Keep America Fluent! However, not all cursive handwriting is fluent ... and not all fluent handwriting is cursive: an issue that the NEW YORK TIMES has covered elsewhere in great detail — graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/08/opinion/OPED-WRITING.1.pdf
See also: briem.net, italic-handwriting.org, studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/hwlesson.html, BFHhandwriting.com, handwritingsuccess.com, Lexercise.com, HandwritingThatWorks.com, freehandwriting.net/educational.html, and https://youtu.be/nvVgoo6it1g
1
Fair or not, there is a common assumption that an adult who can't write reasonably well in cursive is stupid and/or ill-educated. Thus, if one purpose of childhood education is to prepare children for a successful adult life, cursive writing is as least as important as all the social skills taught in schools.
As to Ms. Mapes (the last few paragraphs), she provides another good reason for teaching cursive: there will be less time for a THIRD grade teacher to indoctrinate (brain wash?) her young students in "anti-racist pedagogy" and "activism skills". In third grade???? It is no wonder American students are so woefully uncompetitive when an elementary school teacher thinks such political topics should be taught at the expense of basic "reading, writing and arithmetic."
8
I didn’t care for that either, and thought it looked goofy.
But the point might well be made that schools do far too good a job of teaching racism skills—you’ve “got to be carefully taught,” you know—as well as apathy and quietism. Not to mention consumerism, and the propaganda that too often passes for “American history,” around the country.
Personally, I’d have said teach some music, or some art, and definitely some sex ed. Yes, in third grade.
3
@Robert Atkinson
Lawyers? Doctors? Are they evaluated on their penmanship?
Magna Carta was written in cursive? I assume that the image at https://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/heritage/cathedral-library/magna-carta is an accurate representation of one of the original copies of the Magna Carta. That's not cursive.
3
@Alan Rosenthal--https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/2015-parliament-in-the-making/2015-historic-anniversaries/magna-carta/the-making-of-magna-carta-/
The copy at Durham Cathedral is not one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta that survive. Two copies are at the British Library, one in Salisbury cathedral, and one in Lincoln castle. The four are indeed written in cursive. The link above describes exactly how they were made.
2
@Alan Rosenthal The Magna Carta is written in Latin. Not too many public schools teach Latin these days. When I was a reluctant Latin student I swore I would never say this, but it has its uses and benefits.
2
No one needs cursive anymore. The clock moves forward. But it could be relegated to art class (remember that ?) like calligraphy.
2
Most of the younger people I work with can't even print neatly, handwriting orders being part of our job. Knowing how to sort of type on a keyboard is not a substitute for legible handwriting. Practicing cursive writing was built into our school work by requiring handwritten book reports and essays. For a teacher to say they 'can't find time' to teach it is a ridiculous copout. Can we please quit dumming down our youth to the point where no one knows how to do anything physical anymore. Shop classes, practical instruction, all gone. We are raising a nation of kids who think they know everything and can do nothing.
8
@Karen Re: “Can we please quit dumming down” — a good place to start would be with spelling. The word “dumb” (especially when this adjective is used as a verb) poses difficulty to many who pride themselves on their intellect and education.
1
Whence did the wond’rous mystic art arise
Of painting speech and speaking to the eye?
That we by tracing magic lines are taught
How both to colour and embody thought?
Thomas Astle
The Origins and Process of Writing, 1803
From: The Axemaker’s Gift
Chapter One~Title Page
James Burke and Robert Ornstein
9
@L. W. Either you or your source document misquoted the last line of the original quatrain. It runs, correctly, “How to embody, how to colour, thought?”
1
I can’t believe this is even an issue anymore. Learning cursive was a pointless waste of time when I was forced to do it back in the 80s. I rarely meet anyone who still uses it. And of course it’s even more pointless today where almost all important documents are typed.
My understanding is that the main reason cursive exists is that keeping your pen on the paper for a continuous motion meant less drips and blots for quill pen users. At this point that hasn’t been a concern for over a century. Stop wasting kids’ time on this stuff.
6
Cursive script is only marginally more useful than hieroglyphics. It's 2019 - literally anything of importance is typed. Or, God forbid, done in print letters which have the amazing advantage of actually being legible.
5
@Sam Someday you may want to go through old family documents or letters. You will wish you could read cursive.
2
It is somewhat dumb founding to think that children today do not know how to write or read cursive script. I think I spent years practicing cursive writing in elementary school long ago. I was never very good at but no one in the 1960s would imagine that it is dying out. Well, the scifi fiction and movies of that age surely would have assume the death of something as primitive as communicating with idiosyncratic hand written messages. But as the article suggests there is a serious cost to giving up script. All the documents that made America including not only the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution but so much of our great literature was written by hand. Penmanship was a treasured a very valuable art when Thomas Jefferson hand wrote the Declaration. Abraham Lincoln, who was not a brilliant pensman, wrote out the Emancipation Proclamation as well as the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. The Gettysburg Address was handwritten and so was the Declaration of the Rights of Man in France establishing the basis of universal human rights in Europe in the 1790s. I believe Albert Einstein penned the Theory of Relativity in 1905 as well as his General Theory of Relativity in 1915. James Joyce wrote in longhand all of his books including Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Shakespeare penned all the plays and poems he ever wrote. The same for all the great Russian novelists of the 19th century. If we give up cursive, we lose it all.
8
@Yankelnevich No, we do not "lose it all." The text is very easily typed and printed by hand. There is no additional meaning to be read into the words of these or any other documents just because they are in cursive.
2
@Yankelnevich Re: “Penmanship was a treasured a very valuable art when Thomas Jefferson hand wrote the Declaration” — Though the Declaration of Independence was indeed authored by Jefferson, the famous handwritten copy was professionally prepared for signatures, not by Jefferson, but by a professional scribe named Timothy Matlack: https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9061831/declaration-of-independence-handwritten — the professionally perfect cursive copy took so long to produce that, as usual in such jobs of the era, it wasn’t ready for the delegates’ signatures until weeks after the document had been typeset and released to the public in printed (not handwritten) form.
Jefferson’s own handwriting (as seen on his drafts for the Declaration) was rapid, efficient, yet unlikely to pass muster among today’s crusaders for cursive, because of its striking and nearly print-like simplicity of form and motion: https://www.monticello.org/site/blog-and-community/posts/good-bad-and-ugly-look-penmanship
To argue that, “if we give up cursive, we lose it all” is like arguing that we must ride horses to work because Jefferson, Lincoln, and 19th-century Russians did so.
2
Basic English skills writing and reading are becoming extinct in todays' youth.The culture of the internet and rap and political indoctrination are corrupting younger generations ability to function normally in society.Drug use is becoming routine in teenage years when the brain has not fully developed .Many schools are closing and jobs aren't available without an education.
2
If the next generation is not able to read cursive, whatever troubles they'll have will be compounded. The handwritten documents and letters of the 20th century will seem as quaint and far away as Beowulf, but the need for those documents (lab notes, field notes, instructions, memos, letters, accounting, etc.) will continue to have an effect. Handwriting links us to the past.
Unfortunately, this country devalues history, which is one reason we keep making stupid decisions: we are, as a nation, uninformed about where we come from, how knowledge develops (over centuries, not just decades or years).
8
@Sarah D. So, teach them to read cursive (it takes an hour or less to learn this skill, if one reads print), and teach them to write more sensibly themselves.
1
There is something beyond sad, when I have to hand block print a note to my young internist or to my niece's school teachers in their 30s. Neither group can read or write cursive.
One teacher emailed me back writing she does not read or write cursive, so all correspondences must be email. How convenient for her. She can dodge the phone voicemail and ignore the school email. Her signature is a mishmash of block letter and an attempt to link the letters together so it passes as cursive.
The expat communities' kids where I live, ALL have beautiful cursive handwriting. English isn't their main language back home. The parents believe cursive means you are literate and educated. I've seen expat first graders, who have handwriting that rivals my grandmother's Palmer Script.
So imagine the local teachers' surprise, who hand block print with a script that looks like they wrote it with their left foot, that the expat parents treat them like semi-illiterate yokels.
One parent asked me, "How is it possible you can graduate with two masters degrees, and have the printing of a third grader? I have coworkers who can not read a hand written note. That's criminal. Why would parents allow that?"
America's glorious race to the bottom.
31
@Ford313
Absolutely. I think the same people who think it is a waste of time also think learning a second language is a waste of time. More time for mind-dumbing video games.
11
@Ford313
I'm dumbfounded by the teacher's reply: she admits that she can't read a note in cursive and doesn't apparently even have the skills for a telephone conversation ( you're lucky she didn't demand all attempts at communication be by texting, the constant- avoidant way of evading communication).
8
It's time some teachers learn about cognitive development. The one who said "I think you can do it in other ways that don’t involve ‘skill and drill.'" knows absolutely nothing about it. Skill and drill is an effective method of learning. It's how people learn how to play the piano; it's how baseball players learn how to hit a ball. Skill and drill strengthens neural pathways in the brain; strengthening those pathways is called "learning."
Teaching cursive isn't a "nostalgia move." Writing in cursive is much faster than printing. Reading cursive opens up an entire world of historic documents (not just the Constitution) to readers. Where would historians be if they couldn't read cursive? (And don't be shortsighted and say that most children don't grow up to be historians. Most children don't grow up to be mathematicians, but we still teach them algebra.)
18
@Libby Re: “Writing in cursive is much faster than printing” — writing in italic is faster than either, according to a U.K. study of over 20000 students aged 7 through 19. (Source info on request.) Secersl writing styles were examined — cursive, printing, italic, and a U.K. style called “Marion Richardson Writing.” The average speed of the italic writers was very near the highest speed for writers in any of the other groups — and all of the italic writers, even the fastest, were more legible than the writers in the other groups.
2
Actually, that’s called, “associationism.” Maybe brush up on what you’re mourning.
1
Cursive can be beautiful. It's a form of expression, it's so individual, isn't that reason enough? Side note, I'm left handed.
5
@Michele Cursive isn’t (and never was) the only beautiful or individual form of our handwriting. Writing styles which are pursued out of individual preference should be just that — an individual choice, not a government order.
2
@Kate Gladstone
We have made individualism a religion in this country to the detriment of the commonweal.
@Bibi Exactly! Why use the government, of all things, to mandate what is supposedly “individual”?
Cursive?
My advice? - Italics; the way to go for all. The kids will love it; it's easy and readable and left-handers will find it easier too, no flourishes and wiggles and lah-di-dah. Italics are a straightforward, legible, simple and modern way of writing, and much quicker for note-taking.
"Penmanship"? sigh. Italics, I say again.
Cursive to me is like velvet curtains, with braid tops and elaborate fringes, and those dongle things to tie them back - oh - maybe they're "tie-backs" - all this is of a piece with cursive. Along with lace tablecloths, covers on the furniture, over-decorated interiors; pinkie fingers raised off handles, sticking into the air - for why, exactly? All in the same tune as cursive; so early last century.
Teach the kids italics, please! and just consign the Woolworthy-like cursive to history and give us speed and simple elegance to our handwriting.
1
I am most definitely a liberal-minded, liberal-voting person, yet at times, I have homeschooled my children. I taught them cursive writing. They are among VERY few in their generation (teens and young 20s) who know how to read and write in cursive. Only conservative homeschoolers, these days do.
Here's why:
* Reading Founding documents on their own:
When I was a child, I came upon a copy of the Declaration on Independence with s's that looked like f's. I think it's hugely important that our children can read it in the original script. There are MANY other founding documents other than the ones which are commonly printed for their consumption.
* My family history goes back 400 years in the Americas. I personally own about 200 years of critical family documents--all written in close cursive writing. Most of it hard to read. I have my great-grandmother's diary. I have a personal account in his own hand from my great-great-grandfather of his exploits during the Civil War as a Union soldier which made him a bona fide hero. I want my children to read these in the original.
* My mother writes her letters in cursive, AS DO I. My children cannot read a simple letter from their grandmother if they cannot read cursive.
* While many children struggle, cursive develops important fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination, not learned in video games. It also teaches them to work to acquire a difficult skill which requires practice and effort. And it was a break from academics.
11
@Dejah I agree with you, but...(and you knew there was a but coming) not the 'cursive' I and most of my colleagues and children were taught. Given that you have home schooled a little, you are probably familiar with Getty-Dubay script -- a far more sensible/legible hand, IMHO. Both of my parents learned traditional cursive and were illegible, my father was a doctor and my mother a lawyer. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. However, I trained as an engineer and was forced to learn 'Technical lettering', an all caps style that remains legible regardless of hand. In short, I agree with all the 'pros' you list, but most are not taught a cursive that survives the test of time other than Technical lettering. Bring on Getty-Dubay!
1
What this column shows me is there is a lot of disagreement about whether learning cursive has any value, and that some people who dispute its value feel rather strongly about it. Choose your own path and go in peace.
For my part, I like knowing cursive so I can make an informed choice about which method to use in different situations. I am adept at both printing and handwriting and I find that, when pressed, I can produce cursive much faster. For me, cursive is less physically stressful on my hand, when lots of rapid writing is required. I also believe, weird as it sounds, there is a different neurological process that occurs with printing and cursive, and I like having access to both mental platforms.
7
I had no idea cursive ever went somewhere. Maybe next they will discover that young students need to learn times tables rather than relying on calculators.
9
Hallelujah for cursive writing!!! My 18 year old son and I go back and forth on this all the time - every single time he has to sign something, LEGIBLY and not in block letters. As long as signatures with ink and pen are required for documents, so is cursive!!!!
4
I tutor math to first graders in a Title 1 school. The other day a wrote my name in cursive to the awe and delight of the students. Show me -show me is all I heard for the rest of the period. Is it the students don’t want to learn or teachers are not comfortable teaching the art of cursive?
22
I thought my young niece was being uncharacteristically flippant when my low-vision father asked her to get her mom's birthday card from amongst the others on the kitchen table and she dismissively said, "Sorry. I don't read cursive."
My college students grasp a pen or pencil between their first and second digit fingers and wrap their thumb over in a tightly balled fist. They complain their hand hurts when they have to write in class. Most write in a tiny print in imitation of typed letters; they've never learned to write in cursive. (They also don't know how to write a letter or address an envelope).
Yes, I know teachers have many demands on their time and they are woefully underpaid but surely a few minutes a day can be devoted to learning handwriting in cursive, starting from 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm not a republican or conservative or traditionalist, and I surely do not want to return to the last mid-century (but I do worry about the electric grid going down). I just think an educated person should learn handwriting at a young age and be able to read and write in cursive.
20
It's about more than handwriting...
I learned cursive from the nuns during the 60s. Although I have some fond memories of these women and appreciate their dedication to our education, I resent the amount of time we spent on learning cursive. the mastery of which somehow seemed to mean that you were both educated and (at least to my second-grade mind) godly!
Complicating my efforts to learn cursive well is the fact that I'm left-handed, and well-meaning nuns moved my paper and pencil to the angle they thought worked better. I never complained, ever the good Catholic girl.
My migration away from cursive seemed tied to my movement away from the Catholic church. While in college, I made a conscious decision to print. As I reflect on it, I think it marked my independence from the Catholic church and all those years of indoctrination.
I confess (still talk like a Catholic) that I now have terrible handwriting: a confusing mix of print and cursive. But I hardly ever have to hand write anything, thanks to computers!
But what about the kiddos? Yeah, I think we should teach our kids to write and read cursive, but let's not don't devote too much time to it. Let's emphasize the importance of content over form. And, if you have a left-handed student, please don't readjust the angle of the paper.
7
Cursive should be relegated to the realms of calligraphy and taught in art class. For those with good hand eye coordination it's great. Then there's the rest of us.
Where any loss might occur is with the ability to read cursive. That can be skill unto it's own anyhow.
3
@roger124 Reading and writing have been foundational skills for centuries. Why anyone would not want to be able to read what people have written for centuries, and be able to write by hand is completely beyond my comprehension. Many kids today can't do simple math either, and the reason commonly given is, they don't need to because computers, phones, and calculators do it all for them. Why learn foreign languages, since we can get instant translations on our phone? Why learn anything. This is moving backward, not forward. Writing is not an art, it is a fundamental skill. To deny our kids this skill is to impoverish them with a severely deficient education.
11
I had been writing fiction exclusively on a computer for about ten years when, while visiting my family out of state, the machine gave up the ghost. Fortunately I had an old backup computer that my spouse sent to me Priority Mail and three days later I had... Another broken computer. Without a choice I Purchased a notebook and pencil and that’s when everything changed. The thing was that, for many, many years, I have been writing — printing — exclusively in block letters and my cursive penpersonship had stagnated at about the level of an arthritic fourth grader. Somewhere, however, between necessity being the mother of invention and practice making perfect, my handwriting greatly improved, the speed of my hand became commensurate with the pace of my thoughts and I won’t say I’ve never looked back since, for I have and so often with immense gratitude for the mishap(s) that bore out an everlasting blessing.
22
As a high school graduate in 1966 I did not know how to use a typewriter. This, despite my having been enrolled in the college prep. curriculum. Imagine that! So when I then entered college I had no skills that enabled me to produce the required "typewritten" part of a essay or term paper assignment. Nowadays, of course, the rolls seem to be reversed with kids not having penmanship skills. Not being able to make a quick annotated sketch to illustrate a found flower would severely handicap a student botanist, I would imagine. And that list goes on....
So I'm happy to see cursive coming back. (What a crazy notion that it has to "come back!")
22
I was appalled a couple of years ago to learn that my grandson could not read a note I left for him in cursive script. I now print all my notes and letters to him--many are emails, anyway--but I was totally unaware of this educational controversy. Now that I am, I can relax a bit knowing that it is a generational issue of learning (or not) the penmanship that was drilled into us in school, and not a cognitive defect on his part.
Aside: On a visit to Iran a few years ago I complimented our guide on the Persian poetry written in beautiful script. "But you too have beautiful script writing," he countered.
Alas, maybe not for long.
9
I’m a a fan of the way I was taught cursive in the 1940s with the inkwells and the not-quite quill pens and the ovals. (Typing came later in junior high with a teacher who put his feet on his desk and read the paper while we hammered away.) Years later I was in an elementary classroom teaching cursive to future baby boomers. I’m a little blown away about the concern around paying for instructional materials. All one really needs in order to teach is a black or white board, chalk or a marker and lined paper for the kids. But then, my background perspective is the inkwell and the quill and the endless ovals.
10
@noni I remember the brass inkwells and the nibbed pen well, but I am not sure what ovals were.
@Derval Before learning how to write letters, the students did ovals on the paper to get the feel of the pen and how to control it.
2
@noni
Most likely some are considering buying the appropriate software to teach cursive . . .
1
My parents were born in the early 1920s. Both were first generation Italians, the children of immigrants. Neither made it far beyond tenth grade. Yet when I read the letters they wrote to each other and later to me when I was away for a summer as a camp counselor, I marvel at their beautifully legible cursive penmanship which no doubt they learned in New York City public elementary schools. Fast forward to the turn of the twenty first century when I was teaching high school students in California. My students, all taking notes in printed letters, would whine about not being able to print fast enough. When I wrote on the white board in beautifully clear cursive script, many of my students claimed they couldn't read my writing. The fact that cursive has gone nearly extinct saddens me as I am certain it does every American of a certain age. If it does return, will today's teachers have to learn it themselves?
27
In and of itself, there’s no harm in studying cursive... but the school day is finite. So mandatory classes had better be awfully important. Is cursive (that is, ceremonial handwriting) really important enough to cut into class time that could be spent on English, math, history, science, art, music, or foreign languages? Obviously not.
4
@M. de Valois Mostly they're looking at they're smartphones, not the things she mentioned
2
@M.de Valois
"....but the school day is finite. So mandatory classes had better be awfully important."
You seem to forget that art, music and foreign languages are not mandatory in the US of A., and that the teaching of world history is lagging far behind the years long mandatory history classes in other advanced nations.
13
If I had to chose what to teach the ignorant, I would choose to teach them art, music, languages, and world history — any or all of those, — before choosing to spend limited time on how to make one’s alphabet-letters letters looped and relentlessly joined.
1
I've kept love letters written to me in cursive on that old blue airmail stationary since the 1970's. A lovely keepsake to which an email or a text could never compare.
24
@american abroad Unlike the Victorians, you will not need to burn your correspondence on your deathbed, as your grandchildren will not be able to read it.
3
Will cursive one day become a written language to be studied in school so that scholars can read diaries and other documents of historical significance? Will people find letters in the attic that cannot be read because they are in cursive? I may be particularly sensitive to this issue because in 1985/1986, as I traveled through Afghanistan under the protection of the mujahideen, my diaries were written in cursive. All these years later, I have thought to publish the diaries as originally written. So who will be able read them as such? Certainly not my 28-year-old daughter, who recently received a letter written in cursive. She asked me whom it was from because she could not read the "old-fashioned" handwriting. Oh wait...did I just use the seemingly passe' word "whom"? Sigh. What exactly is progress to those of us who learned cursive as an art.
20
@Diane You are generalizing. Most people who use cursive develop their own style. This can lead to something that is difficult to read but looks really, really nice.
3
@ Diane
"Oh wait...did I just use the seemingly passe' word "whom"?
I feel your pain.
Having been forced to learn British English from grade 5 through grade 13 in Germany, plus two other mandatory languages, French and Latin added a few year later, I shudder every single time when far too many Americans say or write "who" instead of whom.
5
I attend many meetings which require note taking, and I can write cursive way faster than anyone typing on a keyboard I’ve found out. It helps that I’ve discovered the joy of writing with a foundation pen that makes it a pleasurable experience. I cannot imagine ever writing with anything other than a fountain pen again. Plus my retention is superb because the processing of the information I write out gets embedded into my memory. As the old saying goes, “ I take notes to remember now, not to read later.”
23
I have read the article, numerous posts on the subject on Facebook, and many of the comments posted as of this time. While many who have written in this subject have expressed themselves more eloquently, almost all the opinions expressed in favor of restoring cursive education to schools come down to two major themes: 1) I had to learn cursive, so, kids today should also and, 2) the traditional ways are the right ways. Neither strikes me as a good reason to do anything. On the other hand, if teaching cursive does indeed promote the development of other skills and/or learning, then it should be considered for inclusion in the already over-filled days of our school children as should art, music, and foreign languages, all of which have been shown in study after study to be useful in developing learning skills and all of which have been consistently cut for budget and time reasons.
Such decisions should be left to experts in the field of education and child development. Education is too important a subject to be left to become the plaything of the political idealogues in state legislatures.
7
@MsPooter
I find myself in an uncomfortable position wavering between holding your comment as an example of a total cop-out "left to experts in the field of education and child development. " and one purposeful distortion. "Education is too important a subject to be left to become the plaything of the political idealogues ..." How much history is reasonably taught at this appropriate age ? and how ideological is the entire question ? I don't see it. Why did you
introduce it ?
Earlier in these responses, someone pointed out that huge amounts of time are lost to children checking device screens. Would you consider looking there for the necessary time to be "ideological" too ?
If as a culture, we lose some attributes over time, I'm okay with that. In over eighty years, I have seen many. An America with a white minority is just one more. But an America that thinks it's not at risk of losing its identity by confusing form with substance is not okay.
'
@Ben Clark I am sorry that you did not understand my comment, but I am also sorry that you did not see the portions of the article that spoke to the comments by various state legislators that spoke on compelling schools to teach cursive. As it happens, I am a historian by yraining and profession and I believe that the problem is not whether or not age-appropriate history is taught in our schools but that anyone would think that history should be confined to age-appropriate education. History is many school districts across our land is now taught to one or two grades, and, yet people wonder that our understanding of it is diminished?
Sadly, I agree that confusing form with substance is an issue in our society. I thought that was the point of my comment.
I'm all for it. After witnessing children playing games during class on iPads and teachers calling it learning, it's about time something of value is taught. Children need to have curiosity and intellect taught at school. Not mind numbing dribble that is provided by software.
15
@Sparky Cursive is not the only handwriting that works without an iPad — or that involves fine motor skill. Consider, for instance, italic handwriting: https://www.italic-handwriting.org/exemplars
1
I think cursive is necessary to teach because there are still places where digital tech is limited and one needs to know how to write by hand fast. The place where I work doesn't allow digital devices through the doors, including flash drives. Cursive handwriting allows people to take notes and jot down other important things. Plus, learning hand-eye coordination is important.
8
I think cursive has many benefits - eye/hand coordination, spelling, creativity - but when am I supposed to teach it? In six hours a day, I am supposed to teach science, social studies, math, reading, art, technology, physical education, writing (teaching cursive while writing actually slows the thinking process), and social-emotional skills. The school day needs to be longer and teachers need to be paid more!
7
@Julie Chanter both my kids (16 and 13) have asked for longer school days—mainly so they can fit in a mid-day recess so their brains don't die between the hours of 1 and 3. They have both independently told me they would prefer it. My youngest has also said the same about learning cursive.
1
@Julie Chanter
Since when is a teaching of social-emotional skills mandatory in grammar school?
Is seems that the school days of American kids are filled with feel-good courses.
In the international PISA tests the US usually fares much lower than the majority of other OECD countries, countries which have many more mandatory courses starting in 1st grade through 12th.
4
@Julie Chanter
they taught it before, why can't it b taught again? It's time for students to get away from software with mis-spelled catchy names and start learning again. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a millennial? Unless it involves something online of no value, its like speaking to a brick wall.
5
I'm not sure anyone needs to be able to write in cursive anymore, but it would be a little weird not being able to read it. Just a quick lesson to make sure kids can read cursive seems good enough to me. No need to perfect it as a writing style.
1
If you want to remember something- write it down. Cursive writing and printing are the ways to increased memory.
We teach our students to rewrite notes or to copy study guides so that they remember important details for tests. Typing just doesn't have the same effect on the brain.
3
@vwcdolphins Why only “cursive and printing (as if there were no other forms of our handwriting: such as italic handwriting, for instance)?
@Kate Gladstone
You can use that too. It is the manual use of a writing implement that helps the brain encode information.
2
I have heard that teaching cursive also makes children concentrate on one continuous task (a word) rather than on a series of small tasks (individual letters), and that this contributes to brain development in children. The rise of ADHD which includes mask of concentration, seems to have happened alongside the lack of opportunity to write cursive. Just an observation.
The way people choose to write later in life is up to them.
6
@Gabi C Research doesn’t support what you have heard — until the research is misquoted. (I’ve been reading the research too: in original publications, not in the second- or third-hand rewrites where the misquotation are made).
Many people with ADD are diagnosed till adulthood they were children (already with ADD) while cursive was still being taught, but they were not diagnosed until long after their schooldays. It would be as sensible to blame ADD on the change from rotary-dial phones to touch-tone.
1
I remember reading a while back that cursive writing is especially helpful to kids who are dyslexic. The connectors help to indicate the correct direction of the following letters, particularly ones which tend to be turned around like "b" and "d".
2
@Ja Cxliv What you remember reading is a common misquotation of the research.
Handwriting research on cursive’s lack of observable benefit for students with dyslexia/dysgraphia: “Does cursive handwriting have an impact on the reading and spelling performance of children with dyslexic dysgraphia: A quasi-experimental study.” Authors: Lorene Ann Nalpon & Noel Kok Hwee Chia — URL: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234451547_Does_cursive_handwriting_have_an_impact_on_the_reading_and_spelling_performance_of_children_with_dyslexic_dysgraphia_A_quasi-experimental_study and http://dyslexia.yale.edu/EDU_keyboarding.html
1
I've been to meetings where all the Millennials line up in a row, behind a wall of laptops. If you come in behind them they're doing this and doing that the entire time.
A notepad, a pen or pencil -- it keeps you focused.
14
As a European, I have always been baffled by my American fellows mimicking print letters when writing by hand. To me it seemed like they were stuck in elementary school, painfully tracing each letter like an analog typewriter. I always wondered how they connected their thoughts, too. To us « cursive » is simply « handwriting.
20
Ever tried to read the Declaration of Independence? Yes teach cursive but it still won't help one reading documents of the past if all were in cursive.
note; my cursive was unreadable even with all that teaching.
3
There’s an awful lot of conflation of writing by hand and cursive in the responses. You can learn to print quickly and legibly with some letters connected when that flows well.
You can learn to read cursive without practicing writing it.
Maybe it’s because I’m left handed and write with an extreme hook, but I gave up cursive in 1980 and never looked back.
2
In my day (love that phrase), cursive proficiency distinguished us not as Americans but as Catholic school students. The "publics" were taught "printing." We made endless swirls and up and down line designs with our straight pens in one hand, our ink blotter in the other, our ink wells stocked with rich black liquid worthy of William Shakespeare himself.
Can't imagine anything more current than that!
Still, I'm a fan of learning cursive. It puts my grandkids in touch with my history and it is useful if they want to compose a shopping list and their smart phone's "notes" app is on the blink.
Incidentally, in all those centuries they never did find a way for lefties like me to avoid smudges. Sister Mary Clement was seldom happy with my work.
3
@Victor I went to public school in PA in the 1960's and I learned cursive and when I use it in the classes I teach, the students are amazed.
2
@Victor
Your "publics" reminds me of my childhood. I grew up in an area which was probably 1/3 Protestant, 1/3 Catholic, and 1/3 Jewish. My younger brother was talking about kids he knew. He went to Catholic school. He knew there were Public schools, and Catholic schools, so as far as he was aware, everyone was either a Catholic, or a Public.
There was no difference between Protestants and Jews. That would surprise some of both groups.
What they need to bring back is Gregg Shorthand, Diamond Jubilee Edition from 1963.
You would have a way of taking notes that is both useful and beautiful.
3
@ivanogreThank you for using the word "beautiful." Cursive is very expressive.
1
I still remember learning D’Nealian.
@LN I learned the Palmer method which came before D'Nealian
I recall hearing testimony from a young female in the trial of Trayvon Martin in Florida. That she could not read cursive. I thought how sad. What does that say about us as a society? The bigger question what are we teaching our kids as values and standards. Cursive reading and writing is a core element of the english language. It was founded on it . The Declaration of Independence. To discard this crucial element of who we are as Americans is tragic. As educators we must reestablish cursive. It is part of our history. To lose it is to lose a part of ourselves.
8
If you want to teach something that provides brain training, teach more music.
Also: commenters should note the difference (as the article does) between cursive and handwriting.
8
Wait, what?!? "Skill and drill" as a format and process is something we can now safely discard? "21st century learners" can acquire expertise without these? Think about writing code or designing HTML pages or databases, or the fundamentals of AI. Not to mention painting a good still life. Do these without skill and drill? Please someone 'splain me how that works.
18
I work in public schools where cursive is being taught using the Handwriting Without Tears method. (I use the word “taught” loosely because I have not observed teachers helping their students find the pencil grasp that works best for them.) “Should schools continue to offer cursive?” may not be as important a question as “Why aren’t they teaching keyboarding -- what we used to call typing?” These schoolchildren are on computers half the day, yet they cannot use them efficiently. Formal grammar is not being taught in the schools (it’s “infused” in the curriculum), so their writing is filled with mechanic and usage errors as well as typos. It’s difficult to find a fifth grader whose writing has the look and sound of someone who is being educated.
9
No, cursive writing isn't necessary for making anyone process information better, or essential for much of anything any more. If it were really faster, would there have been a need for shorthand in courtrooms prior to keyboards? Most people's cursive writing degenerates to barely legible scribbling when they are in a rush, whereas printing generally does not. As one comment below points out, writing and reading cursive writing is a nightmare for students with reading disabilities. If schools wish to teach calligraphy, fine, but let that remain on the artistic side of education, not the mandatory one.
3
@Eric T Yeah everybody’s writing gets sloppy over time but at least with printing the letters are discrete. That means there’s only 26 options for what any indecipherable symbol could be. With cursive the letters run together and that indecipherable symbol could be representing one letter or be a blend of several. So it’s a lot harder to interpret.
2
No, no, no. Let cursive die. I can never read anyone's handwriting who still uses this scribbledy-gunk writing form. It's a waste of everyone's time and it should've been eliminated a long time ago. I never use cursive because when I write something I like it to be legible. That's the whole point of writing it in the first place.
5
I didn't know it was called cursive until I was about 45 years old.
I just called it "writing".
8
Why not teach children the metric system before worrying about trivial matters like this?
3
Darn. Here I thought we older folks were going to have a secret code that the kids wouldn't know how to read! They would just be typing away on their phones. . . with two thumbs.
4
Periodically, someone or another will eye-roll about how cursive is still taught in schools and how pointless this is because we now have keyboards and electronic media, which are deemed to be more modern and thus superior to dumb old handwriting. These are the same can-do futurists who proclaim that traditional college lecture course are inefficient and who yearn for the death of the penny.
Handwriting is important not simply for the results it produces ("who writes letters anymore!") but because it is a craft, something difficult that children are asked to master. Yes, the results are meaningful, but the process is even more crucial: if you apply yourself to handwriting what you are really learning is how to master something. This skill -- mastery -- can be applied to any similar challenge throughout your life. You are learning how to learn.
Likewise, modernists fail to recognize how the psychology of penny-based pricing doubtless drives billions of dollars worth of trade ("It's not ten dollars, it's $9.99!") and that a college education is more than simply learning facts or getting a marketable degree; it is deeply social and creates interpersonal bonds and multi-layered modes of thought and perspective that online courses and how-to manuals cannot rival.
Sometimes there's more to life than moving from point A to point B. Life often takes more than one direction, and more than one goal, and it's these nuances that many "pragmatic" people fail to understand.
11
We moved between when I was in second grade and third, so I “learned” cursive twice because the timing of the curriculum was different back then between Ohio and Illinois. It was fine, although the instruction for left-handers to slant paper the opposite way from right-handers’ approach pretty much guaranteed writing with a back slant - instruction I then chose to ignore. But cursive was always cumbersome and time-consuming for me, compared to the run-together printing I finally adopted in 8th grade. I found it ironic to hear later that one benefit of cursive writing is that it’s faster than print. Not so for me!
My children were introduced to a style of printing that was supposed to transition more easily into cursive, but they all - late 20s to early 30s now - write in a fast print.
I know people - typically, older people - who produce lovely, Palmerian script, and I envy their ability. But at this point I see it almost as an art form (which in itself might be a good reason to offer it), rather than a necessary life skill. Teaching children to read old script styles - fine. Making them produce it? Not as a core subject.
75
As a grandmother of 11 I have had to teach 3 of the 4 youngest how to write their names in cursive. They wanted to be able to do it to sign their drivers license and for bank accounts. The 2 girls took it further and decided to start writing letters.
The older grandchildren had learned cursive in grade school. The youngest is still in grade school and said she wants to learn in a few years.
I had hoped it wouldn't die out completely and am glad that some are still learning.
143
@Pat There is a myth about the need to use cursive to sign legal documents. It's just not necessary. What is necessary is legibility along with the ability to identify the signature as yours.
9
I think people should write in whatever way suits their individual preference. I'm 46 and was taught to write in cursive in the 70s, yet I've typed almost everything I've written since high school in the 80s. Though I have a masters degree, typing class in high school was the single most valuable, life changing class I've ever taken. Printing works fine when typing is not an option.
I'm also a fourth grade teacher and have a student who types as fast as she thinks. It's amazing to see how quickly she can record her ideas so she has more time to edit and revise them to lift the quality of her writing.
As a teacher of the rigorous common core curriculum, there is no time to teach cursive.
67
@Shannon "typing class in high school was the single most valuable, life changing class I've ever taken"
I could not agree more! As a lefty my attempts to achieve the robotic regimentation of cursive was torture, but learning to type set me free. And now, after decades of typing and building muscle memory, I often feel there is is almost a direct connection between what's in my head and what shows up on my screen as I don't even think about what my fingers are doing. I also agree that being able to get that first draft done quickly provides more time to edit, review, and edit again.
24
@Shannon
Agreed, although in order to write in whatever way suits their individual interests, they would need to know how to write in all the ways in order to make that choice. If they're not taught cursive, the choice is being made for them. However, importance wise, I would promote touch typing and critical thinking skills being taught well over a certain style of writing.
11
@Shannon Absolutely! Kids need more choices in school to do things their own way and in their own time.
7
The easiest thing about cursive is that it's easier and faster to do. Besides, to make it legible, teachers must make students pay more attention to the way they form letters, even in the old style of forming separate letters. Sometimes, I can scarcely make sense out of the writing of my great-nieces and nephews, whose parents own degree in all kinds of professional and occupational specialties, including STEM. Bring it back!!
159
I can type faster than I can write cursive. Plus it is legible. Also, any cursive being used in this discussion.
26
From personal experience, I politely disagree. Cursive is not faster or easier.
28
@BarbaraCompared to printing it sure is! The only time it seems to take longer is when someone is rushing me to write something down they're dictating to me :-(
19
My elementary school principal taught cursive handwriting to every student in our school. She insisted that cursive handwriting and good penmanship were the marks of well-rounded education. Today I must use a computer f9r business communication but I take meeting notes in cursive and am often complimented for someone else being able to read it. And I have now started writing in my journals and business records using a fountain pen. Why?
Cursive writing forces me to think as I am writing and to express myself more clearly. I have to slow down; not race along on a keyboard with abbreviations and acronyms that no one else can understand. Slow down, think, write. And the fountain pen forces me to slow down and be more thoughtful as well. For me it
works.
Now if only I could submit these thoughts to the Times in cursive.
301
@Barry
NPR: Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away
https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away
"As laptops become smaller and more ubiquitous, and with the advent of tablets, the idea of taking notes by hand just seems old-fashioned to many students today. Typing your notes is faster — which comes in handy when there's a lot of information to take down. But it turns out there are still advantages to doing things the old-fashioned way .."
12
@Bang Ding Ow Yes, students using laptops in class are transcribing the lecture. Note taking by hand (not necessarily cursive) forces students to listen for key points, understand the organization of a presentation, then write down what they are learning. The physical act also reinforces what students understand aurally. Seeing it on the page further reinforces it.
36
@Barry "She insisted that cursive handwriting and good penmanship were the marks of well-rounded education"
The problem is that the focus is more on style than substance. It is possible to have great hand writing but have some things in common with the proverbial bag of hammers.
10
I was looking at some family documents from the 1890s and was surprised at how much alike everyone's handwriting was. Handwriting was seen as a form of communication, not self-expression, and clarity was important. It still is. Notes and forms in which the handwriting is illegible help no one.
Yes, there is still a place for teaching cursive.
10
When my children were small I thought it was essential that they learn to swim and drive a car with a standard transmission. I never considered writing cursive as a required skill. However, many people still write cursive, or probably, their mutated version of cursive handwriting. Therefore being able to read cursive writing is as important as ever.
7
I am in my 60s. I can remember when the foreign language requirement was dropped from the college curriculum.
And now, sadly, cursive is being dismissed like a foreign language.
You only have to travel a little in the world to wish you'd learned a second language. Or a third. Maybe one day people will wish they'd learned cursive as well.
22
@Terry I am in my 60s as well and agree with the foreign language part of your comment. However, I vehemently disagree with you about cursive. I was one of those kids being taught cursive to fight the Red Menace and, for a left-hander, the regimented nature of the instruction was a nightmare. I could NEVER make my cursive look "correct" and the nature of our left to right language always left my papers with smudges and the side of my hand black with ink by the end of the day. Instead of wasting time on this nonsense we should be teaching kids how to take effective notes (in whatever way they want to write them) and how to keyboard.
6
@Michael Morad-McCoy I think that the horror stories of left-handers having trouble with cursive is a side issue. Our language goes from right to left. "Back-handed" cursive should be accepted as a practical mode for "lefties" - think of it as a different font.
7
@Michael Morad-McCoy I think that the horror stories of left-handers having trouble with cursive is a side issue. Our language goes from left to right. "Back-handed" cursive should be accepted as a practical mode for "lefties" - think of it as a different font.
3
I love cursive, but learning it was torture. i started elementary school in the days of pen nibs, ink wells in the upper corner of the (little, wooden) desks and Palmer method exercises.Ovals, slants. 1946, maybe? Since I'm left-handed, the pen tip would stick in the paper and squirt ink. My hand would drag across fresh writing and smear it. I couldn't see what I had just written and then messed up. It took me eons to devise a handwriting that looked like a right-hander's. my hand was held in a fish-hook shape, to imitate the position of a right-hander. The teachers had no idea how to teach me (this was true of ice-skating and knitting too). Something like 11 % of the population is left-handed, a fact largely ignored even today, but at the time, the teachers had just ceased "changing hands" and let me write with my left hand, so i was lucky.
Much later came the invention of the oily BIC pens (1959?), with their globs and smears, then better ball-point pen ink and then quick drying fountain pen ink. I could finally write cursive easily, as an adult. So why do I love it? I love its crazy loopiness, speed and individuality. It was worth learning.
21
@bobi
The Biros!
That's what we used to call the Bics.
One of the favorite complements I have received was when I wrote my name in cursive on the whiteboard of a class for which I was substituting and a student said "Wow! that is the pretiest writing I've ever seen!"
13
Not everything taught or learned in school has to have an immediate "payback". I think the role of education is to expose students to as many subjects as they can. I write notes in cursive or print. I can also text. To be a civilized person there are some things you need to know about and recognize.
21
I learned the Palmer Penmanship Method. To this day, I recoil at the thought of drawing an oval.
But I write cursive.
9
Several years ago I had an accident that involved two prothesis to replace bones in my left arm. I am left handed, I use a computer but I can no longer hold a pen except to sign my name. I miss the connection between my brain and my fingers, which came with holding the pen, taking time for my thoughts to spill out onto paper, reading back my own words formed personally by my handwriting. It was a personal tragedy.
17
the older we get, the harder it becomes to discard the things of the past. good thing we got to the Moon before our lack of cursive made it impossible.
3
@gtuz Exactly how would “lack of cursive” prevent space travel?
1
@gtuz
You inspire a research project!
What is the incidence of cursive vs printing among the thousands of people who engineered the Apollo flights?
@gtuz
Huh???
That makes about as much sense as saying "I'm glad we invented flush toilets before our lack of Cursive made it impossible".
1
As a baby boomer, I can't imagine not being able to spend my first hour of my day drinking coffee and writing in cursive, "journaling," feeling the creativity, the flow of the pen to paper and expressing myself. Those that are not taught cursive writing are missing out on this skill. I love to write "cursive." It is a type of creative outlet for me.
For me not knowing cursive writing would be similar to letting go of proper English and the learning of its' formalities, whether used or not. Similar to allowing our young use emoticons and other shortcuts which will become the norm, a subtle form of degrading our language and for quick use.
As a retired technical college Instructor, I remember having to educate my students that "Chik-Fil-a " verbiage on billboards was not proper English and would not be acceptable in the workplace. Slowly our standards are lowered by technology and acceptable usage.
Don't let go of this skill. Don't let it be replaced with other norms. Don't deny our students of learning this skill.
28
@Margie W
But, as I’ve learned from a number of linguistics books and podcasts, English changes, and is always changing. What is standard usage now was anathema 100 years ago.
The changes you decry won’t degrade English, they’ll simply make it *different*. There will still be standards, but they will be different, and people will understand each other just fine.
As for emoticons taking over, they’re spice, not the entree.
But you should read John McWhorter’s book “Words on the Move.”
Now, as far as cursive goes, I learned it in grade school in the 60s, used it for a while, but much prefer to either print or type (which I do at 75wpm).
5
@Margie W Which would you prefer, if you had to choose: perfectly penned cursive that abounded in misspellings and poor grammar, or perfectly composed standard English which was competently and fluidly handwritten in some writing style other than cursive?
3
@Margie W
Re: "... the flow of the pen to paper and expressing myself."
Please use high quality, durable paper and permanent ink.
I suppose people can take classroom notes and compose reminders to themselves without ever being away from a keyboard, but how do those people manage to take phone messages for other people or jot down things to remember while comparison shopping?
Do they have to drag out their electronic devices before they can communicate at all?
23
@Deadline
But I don’t need cursive to do that. I print pretty fast!
2
@Deadline In this era of cellphones, I almost never need to take a message for someone else. But even when I do I also print faster and more legibly than I could ever write in cursive. Not sure I get the bit about "comparison shopping." If I need to note a price and model number, I take a quick photo using my electronic device. Alternatively, I can send myself or someone else a quick text. Much faster and easier than having to find a writing tool and a piece of paper.
2
I am 71 years old and so regret that none of my grandchildren know how to churn butter. They miss the pleasure of watching the milk transform into the miracle that makes civilized cooking possible. Further, they don't have the opportunities to sit on the back porch and talk with the other children who are busy shelling peas. And how many children these days don't know how to shuck and properly clean fresh corn? It's a travesty. How can civilization continue without passing along the details of proper cooking? Many young adults today can't even distinguish between margarine and true butter! How will our civilization survive?
50
What a hoot! Love your style. But, in defense of cursive, it’s probably a good thing for your grandchildren to know how butter is made, even if they don’t churn it regularly. Similarly, being able to read cursive allows access to our shared history.
7
@Ellen G.
Thank you so much for the laugh. You’re a person after my own printing and typing, non-cursive, heart!
5
@Ellen G.
I am younger than you are and two weeks ago I watched a young woman in college struggle to cut into a whole watermelon. Whatever happened to basic life skills?
5
I hand wrote, in cursive, a long letter to my 11 year old grandson. His father told me he could not read my letter because he can't read cursive writing. I was dismayed and surprised the schools he has attended not only did not teach cursive writing, but reading cursive was not taught. I work in historical archives, and almost every document we read or share was written in cursive originally. How sad that our grandchildren will not be able to read the old diaries, letters and contracts that have been preserved for posterity.
85
@Wildwitch57 As I teach my students, the first rule of writing is to know your audience. I'm sure that were your grandson to become an archivist, he would have no trouble learning to read cursive. But this is true of any specialty. Were he to become a historian specializing in medieval France, he would have to learn medieval French. That doesn't mean everyone needs to learn medieval French.
7
I knew it! I totally believed in my intuition that writing "long-hand" helped in some way with brain development and motor skills, not to mention that it is a most artistic and fun way to write and to write quickly, as long as you have a nice-feeling paper and a good pen! Please don't stop teaching cursive writing to young students. There is no doubt in my mind that it is very valuable to them in many ways.
36
@jimfaye When kids don't take a foreign language in K-12, they miss out on grammar instruction. It's difficult to find direct instruction in English grammar, even online. Partly that's due to Common Core (the English standards were written by a lawyer who doesn't understand common vs. proper nouns). Partly it's due to the National Council of Teachers of English deciding in the 80s students would simply intuit the rules so there was no reason to teach them. Sentence diagramming was thrown out, leaving visual/spatial thinkers without this valuable tool for learning sentence structure.
5
I'm a millennial and I've written in cursive all my life. I can't imagine not writing in cursive. I keep my diary in cursive. I think it's a sign of a well-rounded, liberal, and civilized education. As for "activism skills," bringing back history and civics will make better citizens than learning how to carry a picket sign.
56
Taking notes by hand enables a student to encode knowledge and make it one's own. What part of this do "educators" and "legislators" not understand? Or are texts and emojis deliberate attempts to eliminate independent minds, like our "governing" by tweet?
32
@Carl Ian Schwartz I should amplify and clarify this. Taking notes are the first step in internalizing information in lectures, laboratories, etc. They do NOT have to be verbatim, and can be either in cursive or clear phonetic shorthand like Gregg or Pittman.
They should be read immediately after class; if in shorthand transcription forms another repetition. (Study hall period is good for this.)
Taking notes enables tactile and muscle memory. Sensory memory is there in everyone; that's why taste and smell are also so powerful. (Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" starts with the memory of the taste of a pastry!) Reviewing notes links the sensory memory to the memory of the contents of the notes.
Good, legible, written notes enable the student to read an re-read them. Unlike voice recordings, reading for content is FASTER and more efficient!
16
@Carl Ian Schwartz Re: “Taking notes are [_sic_] the first step in internalizing information in lectures, laboratories, etc. They do NOT have to be verbatim, and can be either in cursive or clear phonetic shorthand like Gregg or Pittman [_sic_]” — I certainly don’t disagree; but why insist (as you appear to) that cursive and phonetic shorthand (such as Pitman) are the only two choices for clear, rapid note-taking by hand? Current research on hand writing styles, speed, and legibility (source information on request) establishes that the clearest and most rapid handwriters in our usual alphabet Are those who join only some, not all, letters (making the easiest joins and omitting the rest) and he’ll use print-like forms of those letters who is printed and cursive forms disagree. This is admittedly not as fast as shorthand, but the research establishes that it is faster than conventional cursive.
2
@Carl Ian Schwartz Taking notes by hand is every bit as useful and important as you say. However, nothing about taking notes by hand limits its use and importance to notes that are written in a particular style of handwriting, such as cursive.
1
“I am here to build 21st-century learners,” said Heather Sox, a fifth-grade teacher in Greenville, S.C. “We should expose them, but I think you can do it in other ways that don’t involve ‘skill and drill.’”
Alas, the "geniuses" who teach our children really believe children can learn without drills.
The art of teaching is to understand when each child "gets it", and to move that child on to other lessons. Almost everything young children learn is by repetition and example. Some learn more quickly.
54
@Norman Rogers
Repetition is another word for practice.
9
@Norman Rogers excellent points I grew up went to 12 years parochial school the first three years was almost all rote: spelling, cursive, some printing and the times tables (Backwards forwards division addition all that by wrote). That grounding enabled me to function as a safe, competent pilot for 25 years, and as an engineer and one who could express myself well both orally and in writing with succinct clarity. Glad to see them bringing it back.
10
I attended NYC Catholic schools in the 50s and 60s. We spent endless hours practicing our cursive. Punishments were writing out the Gettysburg address 10 times or "I will not fill-in-the-blank" 100 times. Yet there was no room for science in our curriculum. I have beautiful handwriting which is a poor consolation for not having spent time studying the wonders of the world as a child. What should current educators toss out so your children can have perfect penmanship. BTW, my sixth grade class had 56 pupils. Could it be that our daily handwriting class was a well-deserved rest for teacher.
20
I learned Gregg shorthand in high school in 1968. I still use it today. It has always been very handy. It shares an advantage with cursive -- you can write faster than printing.
29
@Denny
Gregg is the smartest cursive there is. I wish everyone could learn it. Pen and paper don't require electricity either.
2
@Denny Then, if the proponents of cursive really cared about speed, by your argument they would be pushing for Gregg.
4
I have heard tell of contemporary teens being unable to locate the Lord & Taylor department store in the mall.
I wonder if this story is apocryphal or not. I suspect that it is, but the story may be reflective of where things are headed.
9
@Alan R Brock The cursive-scribble logo of Lord & Taylor is so sloppily done that, if the firm loses business over it, I am rather glad. Fortunately, the scribbly old logo is being phased out, as the company introduces a far more legible and neater version: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_lord_taylor.php
1
@Alan R Brock Well, given the exaggeratedly stylized version of "Lord & Taylor" they use at some of their stores, I'm not particularly surprised. If I didn't know what the name of the store was, I'm not sure I'd recognize it
1
My mother kept every letter ever written to her. They document a fascinating life well lived. If they don’t know cursive, her grandchildren will never be able to read them.
19
@Gail Shepherd So teach them to read cursive. This doesn’t require the far longer investment (of time and effort) required for learning to write the same way.
3
As a master of cursive, for which I receive many compliments stills today, it breaks my heart to see it disappearing. Not only for “thank you notes”, but for poetry, dialogue, and just civil discourse. Let’s not lose sight of a magnificent form of communication that doesn’t require us to pick up a device.
34
@Kate Atkins-----
"doesn’t require us to pick up a device"
this is the most important benefit of handwriting--no need to be attached to a machine and dependent on an industrial complex that makes it.
Moreover, handwriting is private--no electronic record.
23
@Kate Atkins The value of poetry, dialogue, and civil discourse — like the value of thank-you notes — does not depend on whether they are penned in cursive.
3
@lin Norma I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure a pen or pencil could easily be classified as a "device." And, unless you're making your own writing devices and your own paper, you're just as "dependent on an industrial complex" as any other "device" user.
3
It’s not a conservative conspiracy! My 10-year-old daughter was fascinated by cursive in preschool (after she had mastered print letters), and would practice on her own, after she asked me to write the entire alphabet (capitals and lower case). All of her friends were were also interested in writing cursive. Why schools would take that joy away from children? I’m glad that my daughter’s school teaches cursive. But my daughter was frustrated that they were not allowed to write in cursive until 3rd grade, and that they were forced to use Handwriting Without Tears, which is not natural and does not look like cursive. That company must be making a killing selling instructional material to school districts, and yet the kids hate it compared to more traditional cursive!
20
@Dana Cursive (if any kind) is not a joy to all children. (If It were, nobody would think that it had to be mandated.) I agree with you, though, that one of the worst systems of cursive is “Handwriting without Tears”: not only because of its dysfluent design (which you correctly note), but because its proponents (when approaching legislature, the media, or prospective customers) have not been as diligent in avoiding misrepresentations of documentable fact as they have been in maximizing their bottom line.
7
@Dana Cursive (of any kind) is not a joy to all children. (If it were, nobody would think that it had to be mandated.) I agree with you, though, that one of the worst systems of cursive is “Handwriting without Tears”: not only because of its dysfluent design (which you correctly note), but because its proponents (when approaching legislature, the media, or prospective customers) have not been as diligent in avoiding misrepresentations of documentable fact as they have been in maximizing their bottom line.
3
@Dana Handwriting without Tears is invaluable for some kids--it was for mine, who had significant fine motor delay.
1
An interesting side-note is that fact that, in the arts and crafts world, calligraphy and hand-lettering have recently become very trendy and not only in the US. Social media platforms are full of examples and tutorials of beautifully calligraphed pieces made with pointed pen dipped in ink, brush marker pens, even water color brush work. Amazon offers a considerable array of lovely books on the topic, complete with full alphabet exemplars and practice sheets to copy and use. Art shops carry an ever-expanding array of inks, pens, and nibs to serve this avid market. Interestingly, the top authors and creators are mostly young women in their late 20s through early 40s, not the older "boomer" crowd. Are they drawn to beautiful handwriting because cursive wasn't part of their schooling growing up?
At any rate, at 62, I too have hopped onto this bandwagon (though of course I learned cursive decades ago in school along with my peers). I enjoy working on my brush lettering skills even though am still very much a beginner. There's something very meditative and soothing about making letterforms over and over, working towards fluidity, regularity and beauty in their shapes. Eventually I may even letter some envelops or greetings cards, but for now, I just peacefully practice and practice and practice.
8
@zelda As a calligrapher in my fifties (who grew up on cursive, and who abominated every minute of it), I am unsure that your speculation is entirely valid — the more so, because many of the twenty- and thirty-year-old calligraphers out there _were_ brought up to write in cursive, and because not all of them loved it either.
Though I agree with you on the pleasure that well-made calligraphy (and other well-made handwriting) can provide to the writer (as well as to the reader), I question any implicit assumption that this pleasure depends on whether the style of the letterforms is one that would be called “cursive” by the people who promote cursive and who seek to mandate it.
2
@zelda "Are they drawn to beautiful handwriting because cursive wasn't part of their schooling growing up?"
No. They're drawn to it because fine calligraphy is beautiful. But it's also a fine art and only remotely connected to cursive (at least as taught in schools).
So calligraphy should be made available to students who want to learn this particular art form. But there's no need (or time) to require it of all students.
1
After 12 years of Catholic school, cursive was part of my gene pool. But then I learned to type as the Irish Catholic Brother stood over me with a ruler. Now at age 82 I still do cursive, but when I write by pen, I generally form my words as though typed and they are much clearer to read than what I did 70 years ago. I save cursive mostly for personal letters. Peace.
8
I taught third grade in a Special Services school in the East Bronx. My children loved learning cursive writing. It was something that they could do! They liked the repetitious movements. These discussions seem to be coming from everyone but the children.
8
@Betty Persico Fotis
Re children’s thoughts on cursive:
On November 13, 2006, the children's magazine SCHOLASTIC NEWS asked its readers:
"Should cursive handwriting still be taught?"
Out of the 28,163 students responding, only 9,948 students (35%) voted YES (for cursive).
Almost twice as many — 18,215 students (65%) — voted NO (against cursive).
The highest support for cursive came from first-graders: the students least likely to have had any experience with cursive.
(90% of first-graders voted YES to cursive.
Only 10% voted NO.)
The lowest support for cursive came from eighth-graders: the students most likely to have had at least some time learning and using cursive handwriting.
Only 4% of the eighth-graders voted YES to cursive.
96% of eighth-graders voted NO.
Grade by grade — as student age and education increase — student endorsement of cursive steadily decreases.
In the SCHOLASTIC NEWS survey, only seventh grade broke this pattern — the SCHOLASTIC NEWS survey data reveal seventh-graders and third-graders both supporting cursive instruction equally (74%).
However, eighth grade brings a dramatic about-face, as stated above.
The eighth-graders of 2006 have become the parents, taxpayers, and educational decision-makers (teachers, school board members, and school administrators) of 2019 and beyond .
Promoters of cursive are pushing their wares to people who long ago rejected cursive.
@Kate Gladstone I bet the kids voted no on math, too.
2
My daughters started learning cursive at 8 because I see it as important for all the reasons this article mentions. I just don’t buy that cursive education takes the place of more important learning. Without cursive, they can’t efficiently document their science experiment observations, write a persuasive essay, or read many historical documents. It has enhanced their life, not diminished it. I have no doubt that they will learn to type eventually but not all education should require a screen.
13
@Samantha Documenting laboratory results, writing essays, and other tasks (when handwriting is involved) do not depend on whether the handwriting joins all its letters, or on whether the forms of b/f/k/r/s/z and the capital letters disagree with those that are most familiar (as the proponents of cursive would like to mandate for us all). Reading cursive (simply reading it) can be mastered in 30 to 60 minutes if the student has learned to read print — an effective and easy technique is to demonstrate how each cursive letter developed (or devolved) step-by-step from an earlier legible and print-like form. (This quickly “cracks the code” for even such daunting and initially incomprehensible letterforms as cursive b/f/k/r/s/z and so many of the cursive capitals.)
Not all education depends on electronics, as you note: and education (with or without electrics) does not depend on cursive.
1
No certainty on whether or not it should be taught. As someone who can use cursive, it surprised me to see young adults who can only print. I recall seeing the "handwriting" of a man around 30. It looked like a child's writing to my eye. Yet the young man is bright and educated. So perhaps it is just difficult for those of us who took cursive for granted to adjust to changes which respond to technology. Cursive is much faster than printing of course. Whenever I need to take copius notes, I always use cursive. Sadly, my own cursive has become rather illegible since I have spent so much time on a keyboard in the last 20+ years. This indicates to me that it may not be as important as it once was, as long as one can print.
10
It is true that many young (and not-so-young) adults do not know how to read or write cursive. It was a terrible thing for school districts to remove it from the curriculum. They are a lost generation in terms of handwriting because many younger people are perfectly capable of writing in cursive.
7
@Dana Why do you think it’s “terrible” not to form handwritten letters in a cursive style? If, as you say, “many young people are perfectly capable of writing in cursive,” then the fact that they do not use it (though cabable of doing so) may tell us something.
@Alex DefEnses of cursive are less than credible when He come from someone who has been unable to maintain that skill.
1
Cursive is very, very difficult for left-handed persons. [] the natural motion of the wrist is in the opposite direction [] the writing hand covers up what has just been written [] the writing hand drags over and smears the writing [] the results will almost always be inferior to a right-handed person's writing [] these problems extend into related issues, spelling, and composition for a person who can't see what they've just written.
NOTE: the article says nothing about this issue.
= Will teachers understand ????
25
@BLB I'm left-handed and I don't have any problem with cursive. Of course I also don't write in the 'upsidedown' way that so many left-handers seem to do.
3
@BLB The issue of handedness in writing is one of my greatest professional concerns, and there is much evidence on the dangers by of ignoring or mishandling it.
Perhaps the saddest — I really want to save sickest — instance I ever noted, re this matter, involved a school principal who insisted that all students, whether left- or right-handed, bend the elbow of the writing arm as a right-hander bends it, like this: > (elbow pointing to the right) Since the elbow of a left arm _cannot_ bend in this way — and the principal refused to admit that this is a physical fact — the principal considered that the lefties were being “uncooperative or lazy or just plain stubborn.” I would say more on his subsequent actions, but ... people are probably reading this over their Sunday breakfast.
1
What you say is probably true, but what is your point? It seems that the problems faced by left-handed people cannot possibly be resolved by removing cursive from school curricula. What do you propose?
1
cursive writing activates the hand-eye-mind triad of human knowledge and understanding. The hand movements associated with each letter illuminate the symbol as meaning paradigm. Typing on keyboard creates a disconnect because the motion is identical for every letter. Architects and artists understand the meaning of a line placed upon a sheet of paper and the power it has to convey that meaning to others. We can see the effect of the disconnect between action and meaning in the obnoxious flames of twitterizing our public discourse.
9
@dbsinger There's no evidence that the activation of the "hand-eye-mind triad" requires cursive as opposed to any other form of hand writing. The idea that the typing motion for every letter seems to indicate little familiarity with the physical process because the movement I make to type a "q" is decidedly different from the movement I make to type an "m." Almost anyone who puts anything out there for others to understand understands the power of conveying meaning to others, but we also understand there's no inherent requirement that it be "a line placed upon a sheet of paper." In fact, more and more architects and artists are using computer-based ways of generating images that convey meaning. As for your final sentence, it just sounds like the same argument made by every aging generation that is befuddled by those who will soon be supplanting them.
@dbsinger Are you claiming that _only— cursive (among all the styles and forms of our handwriting) “activates the hand-eye-kind triad,” and that _only_ cursive letters “illuminate the symbol as meaning paradigm” (whatever the meaning of that is)? If so, how did you reach those conclusions?
If your reason for exalting the cursive style of handwriting is that “[t]yping on keyboard creates a disconnect,” please explain why you think that only _ cursive_ handwriting will do.
@dbsinger You make a good argument for Handwriting — without noticing that your argument supports _all_ the forms and styles of our handwriting, not only cursive as you intend.
No batteries or charger required.
60
@Rpasea That advantage is not limited to cursive, but applies to _all_ of the styles of our handwriting.
1
To be honest all you're going to find here are people stating that they're well over 50 and claiming this has nothing to do with the boomer generation.
Writing is important. Cursive is not. If you think it is, then I invite you to read the source code for Android - after all, you likely use it or a similar device every day and understanding how it works should be very important to your values. Communication is very American and neighbourly - and phones provide the current gateway to much of our current communication paths and methods.
I digress. Point being, those of us who aren't incapable of forming our own useful and informed opinions - problem solvers - reasonably state that cursive has no use such that it be shoved into our mandatory education system. We have more to teach today than we did when we were responsible for teaching you but the same amount of time to do it in. Let this die. Your signature can be anything and I recommend making it your own rather than writing it in cursive - as if that's somehow less formulaic than writing it in standard. We have handwriting analysis for both because both are equally unique.
Our education system can't keep up as it is. It's not even taking into account modern economy - let alone the economy 12 years from now. Our education system isn't meant to instill values - that's your community, friends, and family's job. That's culture. If you want your government to enforce culture, you're not advocating for freedom.
Sorry :/
17
What you are missing is that many children enjoy learning cursive! My (almost 11-year-old) daughter began learning cursive before kindergarten, mimicking my handwriting, because she was fascinated by it. Cursive is taught at her public school, I believe starting in 3rd grade. First and 2nd grade teachers have mentioned that many children in those grades want to learn cursive. My daughter’s only complaint is that the Handwriting Without Tears style that they teach at school doesn’t really look like cursive and is actually more difficult than the cursive I taught her.
10
@Dana Your observation that many first- and second-graders (and some kindergarteners) wish to write in cursive should be taken in the context of another fact you mention: that cursive is generally taught in the third grade. In other words (and as a i too have observed) the children who most want cursive are the ones who haven’t yet had to use it.
I agree with you, though, that the flaws in the “Handwriting without Tears” style of cursive exceed even those of other varieties of this writing style.
2
I don't understand how learning cursive (I just refer to it as handwriting) is a pain to learn and a waste of time. Perhaps we should frame it differently: it should be the only way to learn how to write by hand in school. Kids should start it in 1st grade, so that it becomes default. Then, as kids get older, they can modify it as they see fit, which happens naturally.
I grew up in Europe and handwriting was the only way of writing taught in school. We had calligraphy classes every week and lots of writing practice, which young kids should have in school, since they are learning the basics. We also had dictation and we were tested on it. It was all normal, like learning math and reading. It was unheard of to have children in any grade level reading below their grade level, unless they had some disability.
14
@D In what European country did you grow up, and how long ago? I ask because I am familiar (to some extent) with different countries’ handwriting methods, and how these have changed (or have been changed) over time.
2
@D "Kids should start it in 1st grade, so that it becomes default. Then, as kids get older, they can modify it as they see fit, which happens naturally."
That might be the worst idea I've ever heard. It's already impossible to read the people's writing who still insist on using cursive. Modifying as they see fit will only make it so only the person who has written something will ever be able to decipher it. I was so jealous when I heard that younger generations than mine weren't forced to learn this gibberish language. Don't force the next generation to move backwards.
2
@Kate Gladstone
Romania, gen X. I remember early 2000s in university everything was written by hand, all essay papers. Talk about spontaneity and not being able to edit as you write.
1
I enjoy writing cursive. I have worked hard to write legibly. I used to delight when people told me that my handwriting was so nice you couldn't tell I was a left-hander.
It is not intuitively obvious to a lefthander how to hold the pencil, place the paper or move the hand across the page, particularly when surrounded by righthanders. In first grade, I mimicked the set up of a righthander and ended up writing backwards.
In 7th grade, after being criticized in front of the class for the poor quality of my cursive, I spent many afternoons at at a friend's practicing to write like her. I ended up with a beautiful flowing hand. Not like I used to write but not Palmer method either.
In my 20's, it occurred to me that if people can learn to type without looking, then I can learn to write without looking. I practiced until I could write in straight lines. Other than modifying my handwriting so that I did not lift the pen while writing a word, it was just a question of practice. I could look people in the eyes when interviewing them. I could take notes in class without looking down.
I taught my two left handed nieces how to write cursive. I remember drawing pictures of inchworms to show how to move the hand across the page.
I have lots of memories about writing cursive. It was very much part of my growing up. My handwriting is mine. It is distinctive. It is under my control and is something I can share. It is a source of pride.
28
My penmanship, a word somewhat anachronistic today, was always bad and I had much grief from pedantic teachers in elementary school in New Jersey. Many were old-school. They greatly annoyed me when I was young. They also annoyed my parents since they complained to them about my penmanship; otherwise I was an excellent student.
So what. I survived, as did my parents who became friendly with some of these teachers. Old school but excellent; I was lucky to have had them. Cursive is a pain. Bring it back. It is a skill that should be learned. I also believe in long-division and memorizing multiplication tables.
47
Interesting that Andrew Brenner (former state representative in Ohio) stated that that he had co-sponsored a bill requiring cursive instruction of benefits for brain development and hand dexterity and student needing to read historical texts. When he FIRST introduced this bill, he claimed his reason for the bill was "because cursive writing helps dyslexic students." My dyslexic daughter, in college at the time, was outraged.
Cursive writing is a special nightmare for students with reading disabilities -- both writing and reading it. She wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper stating that fact, and asked Rep. Brenner to leave disability students out of his argument. I called the representative's office and asked for the "research" he claimed he had regarding cursive writing benefiting dyslexic students. I was assured that the research would be sent to me. Of course -- the promised research never arrived. And apparently Mr Brenner changed his tactic.
And his bill was never about helping students anyway -- it's just a warped sense of what some politicians believe should be in a classroom. I've been an educator for 33 years, and have yet to see a reason why cursive writing needs to be emphasized. There are reasons why books and billboards and instruction manuals and legal documents and newspapers are in PRINT, not cursive. It's easier and more efficient to read. Bring back cursive writing? May as well bring back shoeing horses too.
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@AnnieR
When did shoeing horses go out of style?
22
@AnnieR: No, we don't have to "bring back" shoeing horses - because horses are fitted with shoes routinely to this very day. Maybe you should get out more, or read more widely? Or just google it?
And you say you're an educator of 33 years?!
22
@L Horses are, indeed, shod — and there are people who learn to do that — but horses (and farriers) do not fill all the places that they once filled.
In a horse-and-wagon economy, more people needed to learn that skill than need to learn it today. There are fewer farriers needed, because fewer horses (hence fewer horseshoes) are needed.
One might imagine a world in which this article, and this discussion, revolved not around how anybody wrote, but around what anybody rode. It would be possible to argue that all students need to learn to ride and tend to horses (including getting them shod) on the grounds that, oh, subways are a less venerable and less “American” means of getting around. ergo (it would be argued), horses are “it” and horsemanship should be prioritized for all students (even, or especially, if there is little or no place in their lives for a horse.)
That might be a pleasant world to visit — but I would not find it a realistically worthwhile place to live: certainly not if the inhabitants were taught from youth to focus on horsemanship whether or not they would ever have any reason to travel by horse.
11
I moved to the US when I was starting 5th grade. My classmates had already learned the skill in prior grades and the teachers expected papers written in cursive. They made an exception for me as they didn't want to teach it. I'm now 37. I lack nothing that my peers and colleagues who learned cursive have.
18
@KED - Except cursive.
22
@KED: Based on what you've said, you absolutely DO lack something, namely: the ability to read & write in cursive.
You won't ever know what a shortcoming it is until it catches you unawares in some way one of these days.
11
@L “KED” wrote that he or she doesn’t know how to write in cursive — this does not guarantee inability to read it. Learning to read in cursive takes 30 to 60 minutes, if one can read print, and can be taught (even to children) simply by showing them how each cursive letter originated, step by step, from a more familiar (because originally print-like) form. (For instance, a cursive letter Q originated from attempts to do a print-like Q in one stroke by starting the letter at the point where the oval joins the tail.)
2
Try standing at a computer keyboard, typing key words or sentences to a hall full of people as overhead notes; then, go back to writing them on a chalk board as you're speaking. You'll see why cursive hand is not just a quaint pre-typing of text. Nothing to do with politics and culture. For kids, transmission of information to the ear, then, brain, then hand, then paper is a key step in behavior and development. It doesn't only do things, it teaches the body and mind how to think and reason, and do. When the power goes off, and the batteries die, the hand still can use the hundreds of manual tools that record history and make text on any writing surface. Finally, cursive makes it harder for Trump, Putin, China, or Assange to hack into what you're writing for yourself.
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@Carling here's the thing, all of that applies to handwritting, not cursive. You do understand that people can handwrite in print as well, don't you? The idea that cursive is somehow special is completely unfounded.
35
@Carling: EXACTLY! Thank you for enumerating the value of cursive so well.
8
@L Not cursive, handwriting. Cursive is useless. Handwriting is not.
3
While they're at it, they should start teaching kids how to add and subtract again without using their phones.
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@rational person And why not add some classes on critical thinking so people will be able to evaluate the next internet hoax, think more rationally about immunization, or decide for themselves whether climate change is for real....
12
@rational person Let's not put such a big burden on our youth . . .
1
@rational person
While schools are at it, they should start teaching students about manners, respect, accountability, and thinking!
3
"Cursive" (isn't it a corruption of coursive - in a complete course) isn't necessary for helping you compose a composition. Learn it, then develop your own shortcuts. For instance, a capital cursive G resembles noting of a real G. As does an S or an L or a Q. Learn it, develop your own writing style based on it. If, that is, you need to write anything these days.
3
@matty Your guess on the etymology of “cursive” is uninformed. Please see http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=cursive for the reality.
You’re much more nearly on target with your advice on developing shorter, “real” ways of writing letters rapidly (as opposed to the needless elaborations of conventional cursive scripts). I suggest teaching simpler (but rapid) forms from the beginning — consistently with some research that the proponents of cursive don’t like to mention. Present-day research (citation on request) shows that the fastest, most legible handwriters use print-like letter-forms and join only some letters (not all) — making the easiest joins, and skipping the rest. Why not teach children to _read_ cursive, but to write more legibly and efficiently themselves?
4
Cursive is useless as a writing form.
However, an argument can be made that its more about learning motor skills...and even developing artistic flair.
8
@Jay David Motor skills (and even artistic flair) long pre-dated cursive, as they can be learned in a variety of ways. To see handwriting in our alphabet that excels motorically and artistically while not depending on cursive, visit italic-handwriting.org or this illustrated NEW YORK TIMES op-ed by two of my colleagues a few years ago: graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/09/08/opinion/OPED-WRITING.1.pdf
If cursive developed motor skills and/or artistry, children and teens who’ve been going to school where the laws have required cursive instruction would, by now, be more graceful and artistic than children elsewhere. They aren’t — although the earliest such laws were passed in 2013, which should have given time for any motor or artistic improvements to be noticeable by now.
4
I am 68 years old and (thankfully) attended a school where "cursive" was not taught. Instead, in 6Th grade we were all given italic pens and taught standard italic handwriting. For me, and most of my classmates, that instruction & practice gave us well-formed and legible handwriting which we grew into and adapted over the years to add speed. It also served as a basis for developing my own personal form of penmanship with connected letters in the places that made the most sense for efficiency's sake. I never developed a particular friendship with the italic pen itself as I found it scratchy and hard to wield gracefully, but using it gave me time to examine and consider the functionality of letter forms I have come to use in my everyday writing.
1
Should we reintroduce instruction on how to trim a quill pen?
You can learn to read cursive without using enormous class time practicing writing in cursive.
Learning to legibly and quickly print is a better use of instructional time.
See:
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/handwriting-matters-cursive-doesnt
19
People, learn to write cursive. It is pretty sad to see an adult who can only make block letter like a child.
87
@sjs It's even sadder to see an adult who still thinks that their sloppy cursive scribbles are an acceptable method to convey information to others. Honestly I'm offended by people who write in cursive. It's obnoxious. I CAN write in cursive, but I'm considerate enough to make my handwriting something that people can read easily.
9
@sjs
Sometimes people are born with dyslexia and dysgraphia, like my son… But I guess you did not consider that, did you???
4
If you love someone write them a real letter, lick the stamp and mail it. It just isn't done anymore which is exactly why you should do it.
9
Yes, and nothing about writing letters by hand requires the handwritten letters to be in cursive. Too many people avoid letter-writing because they assume that the only two ways to write by hand are cursive or print-writing, and they have good reasons not to use either of those extremes of handwriting
3
@Kate Gladstone: Pray tell, what style of writing exists between cursive and printing? I must not have been paying attention since the previous century.
BTW, cursive is not "extreme" - it's perfectly ordinary!
8
@L I regard as “extreme” cursive’s insistence on ceaseless joining (as well as its often unrealistic capitals).
If only my mother born in the 1890's could have made me write like her beautiful Germanic script in wet ink .so flowery in it's design that few could read it in the new modern world she emigrated to of our 1920's New York City & America.
7
@Carlyle T. I taught myself to write German script so I could read letters written by my grand mother. In later years I was then able to translate some old family papers for a neighbor who needed them. I totally believe in cursive and love to read beautiful written words from any who have learned it well. It may be an art form now, but when my grandfather graduated from college in the 1800s, it was a college course that had to be accomplished. I find in my years of tech use that fraud is easy to be done even in printed signatures while it is almost impossible to replicate cursive writings.
1
@jjb For what it’s worth, questioned document examiners (the people who examine handwritten and other documents for signs of forgery) Often tell me that the Handwriting’s which are hardest to forge are those that are simplest in form: including printed handwriting. Most cursive signatures are loose but complex scrawls, presenting fewer difficulties to the well-practiced forger.
@jjb For what it’s worth, questioned document examiners (the people who examine handwritten and other documents for signs of forgery) Often tell me that the handwritings which are hardest to forge are those that are simplest in form: including printed handwriting. Most cursive signatures are loose but complex scrawls, presenting fewer difficulties to the well-practiced forger.
“I’m a millennial teacher, so it almost feels like a boomer effort,” - Really? This boomer doesn't care about the mechanics of writing - just the quality.
3
We certainly don’t want cursive to get in the way of public school activism skills now do we?
11
If you're hankering for some old timey education, how about bringing back civics? I'd much rather that our schools teach the meaning of the Constitution, not just how to read it in its original form.
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@Jack: Why would it be one or the other? BOTH can easily be done, if people weren't busy perfecting their "best" Instagram angle or looking up gifs to add to their tweets or texts - THOSE things are the true wastes of time!
27
@Jack
Jack, these are not mutually exclusive, we can, and should, teach both. Civics are very important, but so is the ability to write your thoughts clearly. By the way, while we are at it, we should start classes in the use of a key board (just as in the past we took typing classes) to teach our young ones how to type. It breaks my heart when I see them punching the keyboard with their index finger.
7
Why not teach both?
6
“Part of being an American is being able to read cursive writing.”
Well then, bring it back into the schools and let’s create yet another barrier to people who are trying to immigrate to the US and make a life here. I’d be happy if we could say that part of being American is being able to read. We’re falling woefully short of that goal, and wasting such precious time on trying to lock in on some illusion of what being ‘American’ really means.
3
True, cursive is not part of being an American. However, cursive handwriting is not an evil or a huge roadblock to learning. Personally, I think it would be best for elementary schools to include more traditional cursive (not Handwriting Without Tears, which is useless and a waste of time) in their curricula but not spend too much time on it. If the kids enjoy it and choose to practice at home, great! If they don’t, it’s their loss.
2
The Constitution and Declaration were printed almost simultaneously. They weren’t printed in cursive. Bad examples. Sorry.
6
@Dave Hartley Yes: in fact, the printed copies of the Declaration were prepared and publicly distributed well before the cursive copies were ready to be sent back from the office of the penman who’d been entrusted with the job of preparing the document for signatures — see https://www.vox.com/2015/7/29/9061831/declaration-of-independence-handwritten
2
I loved learning cursive- I’ve always been artistically-inclined so this felt like a more artsy way of handwriting and I thought it was quite fun. I was born in 1990 and my year was, unfortunately, the last one to learn cursive in my elementary school. I always wondered how these kids might read historical documents or even old family letters!
For me it’s not at all about “bringing back America” or whatever stupidity the right wing is up to now. It’s about increasing literacy so we can all be active learners instead of relying on others to interpret documents for us. Literacy is power and if only a select few can interpret historical documents, all the power will lie with them.
13
YEAH, but what about the elusive and aesthetic beauty of
handwriting that is an art form.
Cursive separates finess from scribble.
Men from the boys.
Well prepared meals from that passed thru a window.
F3
4
It is absolute heareasy to have eliminated this essential skill from American education. People who cannot write, or read, cursive will never be well-educated. I suspect that cursive vanished from the curriculum due to students allegedly being unable to learn it, perhaps English learners in particular. As always, curricula are dumbed down to the lowest common denominator so that few, if any, students are “allowed” to fail.
When I was the Academic Dean of a small college I instituted a policy of requiring faculty applicants to handwrite an on-site essay on a topic assigned at the last minute. Most of the applicants were floored and some would not even attempt it. Our search committees were amazed at revelations in these essays that were far more meaningful than interviews alone, and these extra efforts yielded superior hires.
And I was appalled to read a teacher’ s comment In this artical who cited “anti-racist pedogogy” and “community activism,” which have absolutely nothing at all to do with education and everything to do with politically correct social indoctrination, as being more important skills than learning cursive.
It’s really not that difficult to swallow considering the relative disappearance of the Western Canon on campuses of so-called elite universities. Like it or not, the Western Canon and cursive writing skills have been building blocks of American education, and still should be.
12
I taught calligraphy for many years. I know the nibs about writing by hand. Alphabets like italic, gothic, uncial and more flowed from my hand into others. Osmiroids, steel brushes, bristle brushes and parchment were my weapons and they produced beautiful to look at layouts and embellishments. I had many side gigs people would ask me to do until the arrival of computer fonts. I also remember the laborious hours of cursive practice as a child in the 50's. Time better spent these days on more contemporary student needs. Please, I beg you, do not force children to connect every letter they write in each word with silly ugly loops (double o's my least favorite).
I believe everybody should be able to write legibly by hand. What are you going to do when the printer breaks down? Printing is easier for the learner, faster going on the page, legible and can be stylized by the individual to make it their own. Don't make me look at another cursive capital Q again.
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@RAW I see that you are in Oregon; are you among the students of Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting (handwritingsuccess.com), based in that state?
2
Maybe we should teach kids to ride horses too? It’s good for gross motor skills, balance, and is American.
In the spirit of reading old records, someone needs to know how to read cursive, but as a written communication, it’s old school.
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Signatures will eventually be replaced biometrics; at that point, cursive will become an anachronism.
4
What if there is a failure of our contemporary media systems that depend on electricity? A natural disaster, say a really large solar flare could wipe out electronic messaging for a long time. Can these kids communicate using archaic systems like pencil and paper? Cursive might be too much to ask, but what about italics? It’s similar to block printing and hence easier to learn, but faster than block printing and it’s gorgeous to boot! We assume that electronic communication is the future, but maybe it isn’t.
9
I use cursive when I write on my white board, and there are students who tell me that I have to print because they can't read cursive. My response: I can't print so you will have to learn to read cursive. I do not require them to write cursive in class (I teach 10th grade English) but I do require a neat, legible letter. Most of them are not even required to write neatly nowadays. And, for those of you who insist on a keyboard, if all you can do is hunt and peck, you should learn to type faster.
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@vivian my 10th graders can’t even tell time on an analog clock. We’re doomed.
10
Combining cursive and print (or manuscript) letters produce the fastest written note-taking, but handwriting notes requires synthesis of information.
Keyboarding is a faster method of RECORDING lectures, but usually results in direct dictation of information, not synthesis.
The necessary cognitive processes of organizing and distilling information into written notes, whether it is your thoughts or a lecture, are the most common benefits touted by pro-cursive researchers.
People who are practiced at quickly attending, assessing, organizing and encoding information have an edge over people who have to refer to their transcription and later make meaning out of it.
15
@C In the numerous comparative tests of note-taking done by have versus note-taking done by keyboard, handwritten note-taking wins by a huge margin (in memory and organization and otherwise, as you say) — but not one of those studies has found any note-taking advantage of cursive over any of the other forms of our handwriting.
9
@C In the numerous comparative tests of note-taking done by hand versus note-taking done by keyboard, handwritten note-taking wins by a huge margin (in memory and organization and otherwise, as you say) — but not one of those studies has found any note-taking advantage of cursive over any of the other forms of our handwriting.
A significant requirement of high school history research paper requirements is to include primary source documents as sources. It is beyond pathetic that many students today cannot read our founding documents, or any other documents from our history in their original form because we haven't taught it to them. Shame on us.
Recent research also indicates that taking notes by hand is more effective for learning material than taking notes by computer. Since cursive is way faster to write than printing is, it also makes sense to give our future generations the ability to write quickly by hand.
Finally, if learning without cursive is so much better because it gives students more time to learn other things, then why are the majority of today's students, particularly the average ones, demonstrably less knowledgable or competent in academic skills? Ask any community college instructor, how much more unprepared for college students are today.
We still teach children and adults how to draw and paint, even though there are cameras that do a better job capturing what we see and do it much more quickly. The argument that the digital world has completely eclipsed the analog one is shortsighted, and incorrect.
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@Jane "Since cursive is way faster to write than printing is,"
No, it isn't.
4
I have to second the comments of readers who have remarked that writing in cursive forces them to think about what they are writing. There is a natural flow, especially when you are handwriting, that I believe develops your brain’s ability to transfer ideas into written language. Typing is not the same.
It’s kind of like how digital photography allows you to produce more pictures, but having to use film made people more deliberate about what they photographed.
As a teenager and into my twenties, I used to write letters—it’s not hyperbole to say I probably wrote thousands of letters—all of them written by hand.
No one ever taught me how to express myself, but between a habit for reading and a habit for writing letters, I believe I developed my own writing voice and ability to express myself, such that I’ve received many positive comments on my written communications. I don’t think any of that would have happened without those “ten thousand hours” that I spent writing letters as a young person. And I’m positive that the pace of handwriting had something to do with that.
Although my experience might not be the case for everyone who learns how to write in cursive, I sincerely believe it’s a necessary skill, not one that we can so blithely throw away as if it didn’t matter.
25
@RM The fact that you find advantages for cursive over typing does not guarantee that those advantages are absent from any or all of the other styles of our handwriting. To decide that cursive must be the most valuable handwriting (because you have compared it with typing) is like deciding that Wonder Bread must be the best kind of bread because you have compared it with Twinkies.
3
The Founding Fathers also rode horses, lived without electricity and indoor plumbing and thought that bleeding a patient was great medicine. Cursive serves no demonstrable purpose or real academic purpose.
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Many things help develop fine motor skills in addition to cursive writing - cutting with scissors, painting with a brush, tying shoes, buttoning a shirt, holding a pencil, to name but a few. Yes, cursive writing is elegant, but there are way more pressing skills todays student's need to master to be successful in the 21st century. It's ridiculous how many people are lamenting that youth will not be able to read old letters of their grandparents, or the Constitution, or have a pretty signature. Get over it. Today's youth will need to solve much more pressing issues in the future than reading grandma's old letters.
10
@Lisa: Are students taking notes in class anymore, whether in grammar school or high school or college? Because THE FASTEST (and most learning-effective) way to take notes during a lecture is using CURSIVE, period.
Typing does not allow the information to "stick" in one's brain the way that taking notes in cursive does.
So, go ahead and do whatever is "more pressing" - but for note-taking, you'll never beat cursive!
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@L No, the research on handwritten note-taking finds no advantage for cursive over other forms of our handwriting.
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@Lisa
You neglected to name those pressing issues today's youth will need to solve, what might they be?
3
Stop, stop, stop trying to re-invent the wheel! When my son was in first grade his teacher was informed that phonics would no longer be taught. She taught it against the rules. In third grade, I was helping teach his classmates to read because THEIR teachers had not taught phonics.
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@Deborah Agree! My Mom got me some phonics books when I was in first grade and it really made all the difference!
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@Hat Trick @Deborah I fully agree on the value of phonics. So I’m curious: tell me, if you had to choose, would you rather have a student (or have neighbors) who had a perfect grasp of phonics and who could read inerrantly and fluently (but who did not or could not write in cursive), or would you rather have a student (or neighbors) who could not (or would not) read or write more than a very few words, but who wrote all of their limited vocabulary in textbook-perfect cursive?
4
Progress is a good thing. But I agree with you when it comes to cursive and phonics. I bought my daughter a set of BOB books when she was two or three. Now in 5th grade, she’s been good reader since kindergarten (reading up to 6 years above grade level) and truly enjoys reading a variety of books. The Whole Language social experiment was a disaster. Unfortunately, many school districts are still using Balanced Reading.
4
I would have liked to have seen some data on real advantages to cursive, such as greater speed, or some such. I am losing my ability to write in cursive, because I don't use it. Years and years ago I gradually dropped cursive from everything but writing checks and my signature. All of my college notes are in block upper case. I'm faster in it.
But the best writing course I ever took, and possibly the most useful course I ever took, was Touch Typing, way back in high school. I gained an enormous advantage over all the hunt-and-peck typists for decades as computers came into use. I can type almost as fast as I can talk, but I can't write anywhere near that fast. And the way it's going, we're only going to be speaking into computers in the future.
Printing technology was never able to implement cursive writing, so no matter how many white-haired people become outraged at cursive's decline, it's a goner.
8
@Incontinental
It's a shame really that you are in such a hurry. I don't have gray hair. And there is nothing more beautiful than a hand-written note.
6
@tenderperennial Not all hands wouldn’t notice (cursive or otherwise) are beautiful … and nothing about a handwritten note makes its beauty depend on whether the writing style is cursive rather than any of the other styles of our handwriting.
1
@tenderperennial The beauty of handwritten notes does not depend on whether the handwriting style is cursive. See, for instance, the glorious examples here: https://www.italic-handwriting.org/exemplars
1
Fine motor skills are the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands, wrists and fingers. Kids rely on these skills to do key tasks in school and in everyday life
We use fine motor skills to make small movements. These movements come so naturally to most people that we usually don’t think about them. But fine motor skills are complex. They involve the coordinated efforts of the brain and muscles, and they’re built on the gross motor skills that allow us to make bigger movements.
Cursive writing helps develop the fine motor skills we need every day.
Our signature (cursive writing) says a lot about us. My dad, a career army officer, had amazing penmanship. One of my brothers could not, did not even write a letter because his penmanship and spelling stunk. But he was a successful systems integrator at Lockheed for 30 + years. Is cursive necessary for success? No. But it helps develop our fine motor skills.
21
Signatures are a whole ‘nother animal. I have an amazing signature. It looks NOTHING like my day-to-day handwriting (which is usually legible, I might add). I would not want to subject anyone to my signature-ese as a display of normal handwriting. These are two very different things.
7
@Christa "Cursive writing helps develop the fine motor skills we need every day. "
Completely disagree. References, please.
4
@Christa Why do you equate signatures with cursive?
1
It's the inability to read cursive, not to write it, which is the main downside of not teaching it. To read not just the Declaration of Indepence, etc., but old family letters, documents, and the like. How do cursive-less manage if they want to become historians and do research in hand-written primary sources?
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@George Potratz
There'll always be experts for that. I learned about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by reading the version printed in by school textbooks.Just because someone can write in todays cursive script is no guarantee they can read old letters written in a different cursive style. How many people ever find a need to read old letters or documents other then a specialized few.This is just time being taken away that could go towards students learning more about science,tech,etc.
17
Everyone who does genealogical research— an increasingly popular activity— must read cursive. I am working on deciphering my great-aunt’s diary from 1910. The typed version will be easy to read but can never quite be the same as following her penciled script along the page.
9
@RJM
Why should the ability to read cursive become relegated to the status of being able to read Attic Greek? This is our heritage you're talking about. It should be open and available to all, not just "experts". The devolution of a society begins when skills that were once common become the province of the elite. I remember reading a science fiction story where a man was brought before his king because he had the astounding ability to do rudimentary math in his head.
15
I suppose cursive improves eye/hand coordination, but I've heard that the major influence there happens much earlier: babies who crawl longer, before standing up and walking, develop better eye/hand coordination. Keep 'em on all fours!
4
I'm still baffled at the notion that a printed name would be a valid "signature." Do these people never have to confront a legal document? (I won't mention personal checks, since clearly this is an antiquated notion, at best.)
24
Legal documents do not require scripted signatures. Many are acknowledged electronically these days. What matters is that the signature/acknowledgment memorializes consent not whether the signer used block letters or cursive ones to demonstrate such.
11
@Kae H: So we're headed back to when people just made an "X" for their name! That's not progress.
I have worked at many law firms and if you think a cursive signature is unimportant, you need to think again.
5
I not only write in cursive, I also do so with my favorite fountain pens. The flow of ink on paper engages my senses positively, and I am generally complimented on my script.
I recently conducted cursive handwriting workshops for adults who want to correct old poor writing habits, and who wish to be more expressive in their communications; the reaction has been quite positive, and I have been asked to conduct more classes in the summer.
I am also, at a rather advanced age, self-learning Copperplate Cursive, which is a beautiful style utilized for centuries before Spencer and Palmer developed 'modern' handwriting that most of us learned in our classrooms in the last century.
Last note: I recently mailed a letter to an 11 year-old relative, and he was unable to read it; I thought this might be the case, and am hopeful that I might be able to encourage him to learn (and, I will supply him with a fountain pen and ink).
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@Tenormore I applaud your comment and share your appreciation of writing in cursive with fountain pens. It is much more personal to write a note or letter to someone that way than is doing so with pixels on a screen.
5
The idea that there is a cognitive development aspect to handwriting is obvious to me. Years ago I noticed that after an hour at the piano, my handwriting became markedly smoother and more even.
103
@Blair That’s a “cognitive development aspect to” music, not to handwriting. Crediting handwriting for your improved penmanship after piano practice is like crediting golf for an improved golf score after yoga practice.
4
This is good news. Now, if only people would learn how to use punctuation, especially apostrophes, and usage and grammar in general. I constantly shake my head in frustration knowing that I work with college graduates who don't know the difference between it's and its, or between you're and your.
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@CatPerson I wish that I could recommend your comment about 1000 times, having had the same experiences you describe.
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@CatPerson
I hate to say this, but your second sentence is a fragment. You have a dependent clause, but you didn't include an independent clause. Stylistically, this is becoming acceptable as fewer people know how to diagram sentences. Along with teaching cursive, we need to go back to the basics and teach sentence structure, grammar, spelling and perhaps even revive memorizing multiplication tables.
16
@CatPerson Teaching cursive is a terrible idea. That time would be much better spent teaching everything else you mentioned.
8
Learning to read and write is both cognitive and motor. Fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination and sensory learning are all necessary to read and write. Moving fingers on an I Pad doesn't provide sensory learning. This generation is being cheated. No wonder reading and writing is so difficult for them.
100
The elite private schools in NYC abandonned cursive in the 1920s in favor of what they called "manuscript" (printing.) This became a flag to other students and graduates of these schools to recognize one of their own.
This modern style of writing was practiced extensively in the early grades. Teachers would point out sloppiness.
7
Cursive writing is efficient writing...smoothly connecting letter after letter...encouraging and enabling thought. It us a tool that an educated person should be able to use.
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@Darchitect What is your evidence that connecting letters is “encouraging and enabling thought”? In other words, what train of thought led you to that conclusion?
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@Kate Gladstone..
Hi...The ease of cursive writing is fast and fluid and helps to keep pace with our thoughts which arise ahead of our ability to flesh them out on paper.. It is much like drawing with pencil on paper when designing...The freedom of movement of arm, hand and pencil on paper encourages thought and development of design ideas.
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@Darchitect
Cursive is art, per courtroom-required "handwriting experts."
3
Cursive, recursive. I move to computer keyboard, the second it became available.
11
Young adults with diplomas, unable to read the letters and documents written by their grandparents and great grandparents, how can that be educating our youth.
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@Kate Gladstone
ZING!
3
As a physician who remembers the days before electronic records, I can see both sides of this debate. There is no doubt that the infamously illegible cursive handwriting of most doctors created the potential for error, and that the development of EMR has the potential to improve this situation, given that it is implemented properly. At that same time, I remember as a student out on the wards that the wisest, most intelligent professors invariably had the most beautiful, legible cursive I had ever seen, and that the process of handwriting allowed them to organize their thoughts into the sort of coherent note one seldom sees today. Probably the best argument against teaching cursive is that it will in all likelihood never be practiced again once it is taught for a few weeks in class, and that handwriting needs to be repeated over and over in order to be maintained. Sadly, it seems that education - like society itself - has become a battleground for empty gestures devoid of actual substance.
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I support teaching handwriting - both printing and cursive. The key reasons are: (1) Handwriting notes helps many of us to remember things more clearly. We all learn differently and enough people improve their ability to remember and integrate what they are learning better if they write it rather than key it in. For most people, cursive is faster than printing. (2) As a business owner, I need employees who can legibly address an envelope, write on a whiteboard, or fill out forms. There are surprising numbers of forms in use and this will likely continue because it is efficient. Handwritten notes allow for more flexibility in showing relationships between information. Computers are not always the most efficient way of doing things but we may think so if that is the only skill we have. Being able to read historical documents is a plus but the practical reasons are more important to me.
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@Suzanne
The point about filling out forms is incisive and well-made!
34
Having spent years (back in earlier days) filling out insurance application forms by hand, I have an answer to this: block print. All caps. It makes for a very neat presentation.
23
@Suzanne
And what of "celebrity signings?"
Once, on a snowy Upstate day, we went to a "Star Trek" convention. The lone celeb was very polite, and signed photos .. 2,000+. Word was, No. 1,999 was more scrawl than signature ..
1