Cursive Writing, A Thing of the Past?
Recently, at playgroup, we were discussing whether or not we would teach our children cursive handwriting. I stated that I thought it was pretty pointless to teach something that would be used so briefly. I know that I only wrote in cursive when it was strictly enforced. If I feel like writing, I sit down at my computer — it’s faster, searchable, certainly more legible, and lends to a more fluid writing style. The only time I sit down with a pen in hand is when I am writing thank you notes or scribbling down a shopping list. One friend explained that learning cursive was important for brain development.
I decided to do a little googling on the subject and found the opinions very split.
Dr. George H. Early believes that cursive writing is essential for developing good reading skills:
Dr. George H. Early, associate professor, Department of Special Education at Indiana State University, in an article from Academic Therapy, Vol. IX. No. 1 points out a number of advantages of cursive writing. He states that one advantage of cursive writing is that each word consists of one continuous line where all elements flow together (exception k, j, and t). Because of this continual flow of elements, the student more readily experiences the total form of a given word. He advocates teaching the art of good fluent cursive handwriting along with reading skills. Dr. Early mentions the rhythm in cursive writing. This promotes the automatic nature of the writing task. Dr. Early further states that cursive writing helps to prevent the development of early directional problems.
Other advocates go even farther, believing that not only should we continue to teach our children cursive, we should teach cursive before any other form of handwriting:
Cursive writing involves a flowing, uninterrupted movement which reinforces the left-to-right directionality of our written language. The connected writing allows for continuous flow of thought and thinking ahead while writing. It also reinforces the beginning and ending of words, with proper spacing of letters, unlike manuscript.
The flowing nature of cursive virtually eliminates reversals, a common occurrence in manuscript writing. McInnis stated, “Each time the writing implement is picked up from the paper the potential for error is increased”…Blumenfeld explained that with cursive, children do not confuse the letters because the movements of the hands make it impossible. He also affirmed, “…this knowledge is transferred to the reading process. Thus, by teaching children the distinctive differences between letters, learning to write cursive helps learning to read print”
As Blumenfeld has pointed out, several educators and publishers are now recognizing that teaching cursive writing from the beginning actually facilitates the reading and spelling processes. ABeka Books states, “We also strengthen the child’s reading skills. By joining letters, cursive writing reinforces the blending of sounds within words.” Blumenfeld credits cursive with aiding the spelling process.
[Cursive] helps the child learn to spell correctly since the hand acquires knowledge of spelling patterns through repeated hand movements.
On the flip side, others believe that with the proliferation of computers, cursive is rendered useless:
Cursive is a fundamentally useless skill in this century, and if we were inventing the curriculum from scratch, it wouldn’t even show up in the top 1,000 things you need to know. Typing, on the other hand, is way up there, at least until the scientists come up with voice recognition.
With the ease of email and instant messaging, it has certainly become a rarity to find a handwritten letter in the mailbox. Even the National Cursive Handwriting Contest, a 75-year-old tradition, has been canceled due to a lack of entries.
Is this lost art of penmanship a danger, or simply something to mourn?
February 3rd, 2006 at 1:10 pm
I always had terrible penmanship! In fact, over the years I find it harder and harder to write in cursive. I have intermixed non-cursive letters in it.
One time I took this test http://www.handwritingwizard.com/ and I found it really close to how I think of myself.
I think I would like Sierra and Madeleine to learn cursive, but I am not sure I will be the best teacher.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:15 am
I think cursive writing is important as some age of the child’s growing phase, to my opinion it stimulates the brain to be creative. My native language is arabic and not english, but if you have seen arabic writing you’d notice that arabic is cursive and only cursive, the letters cannot be separated from each other, but the thing is that i really enjoyed writing cursive english, i thought it was a way to show my creativity. This can be very important to a child.
If we let the kids stop writing in cursive, then stop writing and just typing, what next? We don’t want our children to depend on PCs and all computarised machines. They will lose creativity! one more thing, you can write cursive on tablet PCs so it’s not like writing in cursive is against advancing in technology.
Thank you for your post
April 29th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
As a writer, I find that I am able to create drafts most clearly (and write most quickly) when I’m typing. However, when I need to think something through, I tend to plan it out with pen and paper. As the mom of a left-handed Little, I’ve got some additional challenges. I’ve chosen to use the Getty-Dubay Italic handwriting series in our homeschooling efforts, since I believe teaching penmanship is important but I want to eliminate a few of the potential stumbling blocks. From what I’ve seen, Italic has the smoothest “transition” period, and it still develops lovely handwriting similar to what my grandmother and great-grandmother used in letters to me as a child.
Professionally speaking, I believe it’s still important that business people have legible handwriting. I, for one, hate getting faxes with a cover sheet that includes a personal note I can’t even decipher!
October 14th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Good reading skills don’t require cursive at all; many excellent readers have poor, or zero, cursive skills. (As a handwriting improvement specialist, I see and work with what seems an unending stream of brilliantly reading non-writers of cursive!) If good reading required cursive writing, then Western civilization would have lacked good readers until the year 1650 or so: because not until then did handwriting normally connect all or most of its letters in the manner now called “cursive.” Consider further the study (ignored by the public-school industry) which appeared in May 1998 in the JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: “The Relationship of Handwriting Style and Speed and Legibility” which established that the fastest and most legible handwriters do not adhere either to the specifications of print-writing or to the specifications of cursive. Highest-speed highest-legibility handwriters join some, not all, of the letters (making the easiest joins, and skipping the rest) and use print-like letter-forms wherever the printed and cursive form of a letter significantly “disagree.”
October 14th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I should add that handwriting competition has certainly not died: the World Handwriting Contest (founded in 2000 when another contest died for “lack of interest”) grows apace. To learn more about the World Handwriting Contest, visit the Handwriting Repair web-site at http://www.learn.to/handwrite