Should Cursive Be Taught In Schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes.

New research shows an intriguing link between the act of taking notes in cursive in class and better memorization, compared to typing notes, and *even* compared to writing notes in block writing.

citation?

NP. Here are a couple. I'm not the one who wrote what you are questioning so probably they have other citations.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/take-notes-by-hand-for-better-long-term-comprehension.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/taking-notes-by-hand-could-improve-memory-wt/

These reference that taking notes by hand would be better than by laptop, but don't specifically address that it would be better to do so in cursive than print, which is what pp mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes.

New research shows an intriguing link between the act of taking notes in cursive in class and better memorization, compared to typing notes, and *even* compared to writing notes in block writing.

citation?

NP. Here are a couple. I'm not the one who wrote what you are questioning so probably they have other citations.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/take-notes-by-hand-for-better-long-term-comprehension.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/taking-notes-by-hand-could-improve-memory-wt/

These studies are about taking notes by hand (print or cursive, presumably) vs. keyboarding. Are there studies about cursive vs printing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I do feel for the hs English teachers. Handwriting is atrocious. How is it that my grandma who only went to 8th grade in the Depression has better handwriting than 99% of students?

Because she spent a lot of her 8 years of school on penmanship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because many people write more legibly in cursive than print.

I teach AP English, and students will need to write three separate compositions by hand for part of the exam; the composition portion is worth 55% of the exam grade. I give them a practice composition each week "under test conditions" (ie, timed writing by hand on paper), and I am APPALLED at how illegible some of their writing is for this. If the AP Reader (who scores the tests externally) can't read their writing, they aren't going to get a very good score, even if they are brilliant and their composition is well-constructed. I have found myself teaching high school students how to form certain letters so that I (and the person who scores their exam in May) can read their writing. IB English also requires two handwritten composition exams, both of which are scored externally.

I do feel for the hs English teachers. Handwriting is atrocious. How is it that my grandma who only went to 8th grade in the Depression has better handwriting than 99% of students?

I wonder this as well. Why is handwriting so bad these days? How did other kids learn handwriting before? Both printing and cursive.

My mother has beautiful handwriting. Her hands were smacked with a ruler by the nuns if it wasn't beautiful. She also learned a lot less science, technology, math, and whatever else they've come up with since then as part of elementary school, but her cursive is truly lovely. It's all about priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anyone teach cursive at home?

[Anonymous]

I didn't know kids don't learn how to write cursive in this country! The other day there was a word in cursive, something like "he" and my k student child said d: "what is this? This is not a word!"

Anyway, we are moving to another country for 6 months and over there she will learn cursive writing first.

[Anonymous]

Yes - I think it's important for fine motor skill development, practice for being neat and precise, and a hell of a lot more convenient than printing when you must right. I personally find that if I write things (I typically write in cursive) that I retain it better than if I type it.

I plan to teach my kids cursive if the schools don't. I do think that if the schools are going to drop cursive, they need to add keyboarding/typing. Hunt and peck is not an effective typing method.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have never used cursive except to sign my name. Such a waste. Everything is electronic. Time to get with the times

You never send handwritten letters ever? I write in cursive every day. I take notes at work, write thank you notes, send birthday cards etc. I also read cursive every day. This is just a basic life skill. Can't believe some schools are not teaching this. My kids are learning it in school.

[Anonymous]

whoops *write not right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't know kids don't learn how to write cursive in this country! The other day there was a word in cursive, something like "he" and my k student child said d: "what is this? This is not a word!"

Anyway, we are moving to another country for 6 months and over there she will learn cursive writing first.

Children around the world learn to write in cursive, FFX County AAP kids (at least a few years ago) were taught cursive, and our private school friends all write in cursive. We hired a tutor to teach our (non-AAP) DS cursive. He seemed to be the only group not learning it at the time.

[Anonymous]

Learning cursive was very useful for my dyslexic child. It helped her with reversals and improved her ability to group letters together as words rather than scattering them seemingly randomly.

She chooses not to write in cursive most of the time these days, but the short time it took to teach her cursive was entirely worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I didn't know kids don't learn how to write cursive in this country! The other day there was a word in cursive, something like "he" and my k student child said d: "what is this? This is not a word!"

Anyway, we are moving to another country for 6 months and over there she will learn cursive writing first.

Children around the world learn to write in cursive, FFX County AAP kids (at least a few years ago) were taught cursive, and our private school friends all write in cursive. We hired a tutor to teach our (non-AAP) DS cursive. He seemed to be the only group not learning it at the time.

My MCPS kids learned it in 2nd or 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never used cursive except to sign my name. Such a waste. Everything is electronic. Time to get with the times

You never send handwritten letters ever? I write in cursive every day. I take notes at work, write thank you notes, send birthday cards etc. I also read cursive every day. This is just a basic life skill. Can't believe some schools are not teaching this. My kids are learning it in school.

I use handwriting all the time -- but not cursive. I haven't used cursive since the teachers stopped requiring it, which was in 10th grade.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! Teach it and require it! It's FCPS 3rd grade curriculum. One of mine got it and the other didn't. It's not about AAP vs gen ed. Please write a thank you note and use cursive, young mothers. Teach your kids as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you! Teach it and require it! It's FCPS 3rd grade curriculum. One of mine got it and the other didn't. It's not about AAP vs gen ed. Please write a thank you note and use cursive, young mothers. Teach your kids as well.

You value a thank you note more if it's in cursive?