Should Cursive Be Taught In Schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it should. Brain to hand connections are important in our development as thinkers.

+1000

Also those who write notes by hand tend to remember and synthesize them better than those who use a keyboard. And writing in cursive is easier and fast than printing.

That is not universally true. I know a lot of people (including me) who write exclusively in print, quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's nicer than a cursive signature?

The alternative is writing in print letters, which just doesn't seem very elegant or professional on paper.

Here's a question: why have (mostly public school) educators become so intimidated by teaching cursive?

A legible one. (With an exception for Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's former signature.)

Also, I don't know why you think that the reason for dropping cursive from the curriculum is that public-school teachers are intimidated by cursive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every once in a while, I'll see someone share nonsense on Facebook about "share/like if you think cursive should still be taught in schools!"

And the comments are almost universally from Methuselah's posse, "of course! kids have gotten so lazy using computers!"

So give me a valid reason for the existence of cursive for kids entering the workforce 15 years from now. Is it just to sign your name?

My daughter learned cursive in private school. When she switched to public in 4th grade, she was the only one in her class who could write in cursive. Now, as a 6th grader, she takes notes faster than her peers.

My son, who will be a produce of public, will learn cursive during the summer before 3rd grade. I'm convinced it speeds up processing skills.

[Anonymous]

I will teach my daughter cursive. I'm 33 and learned cursive in public school from 2nd-5th grades. Once a week or so the teacher would have us do cursive worksheets. And for a couple years we had to use it on all assignments. I love writing in cursive.

Now there's not enough time in the already-crammed school day to teach it.

My cousin, who's 23, can't write cursive to save her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's nicer than a cursive signature?

The alternative is writing in print letters, which just doesn't seem very elegant or professional on paper.

Here's a question: why have (mostly public school) educators become so intimidated by teaching cursive?

They are intimidated to fit everything in. We are asking teachers these days to teach all these 21st century skills along with typing and everything else we used to teach our kids. They just can't fit it all in during the school year anymore so something needs to get dropped to fit in these new things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's nicer than a cursive signature?

The alternative is writing in print letters, which just doesn't seem very elegant or professional on paper.

Here's a question: why have (mostly public school) educators become so intimidated by teaching cursive?

They are intimidated to fit everything in. We are asking teachers these days to teach all these 21st century skills along with typing and everything else we used to teach our kids. They just can't fit it all in during the school year anymore so something needs to get dropped to fit in these new things.

That's not intimidation. That's "there are only so many hours in the day".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it should. Brain to hand connections are important in our development as thinkers.

+1000

Also those who write notes by hand tend to remember and synthesize them better than those who use a keyboard. And writing in cursive is easier and fast than printing.

That is not universally true. I know a lot of people (including me) who write exclusively in print, quickly.

This may be because you were never required to extensively write in cursive. Often if schools teach it nowadays they only teach it in 3rd grade and never require the students to use it again. When I was in school, we were required to use cursive all through high school.

Cursive is easier to teach and with proficiency in cursive is much faster than print since the pencil does not have to be lifted off the paper as much as with print. Many occupational therapists also recommend cursive for those with dysgraphia since it is easier to learn. Also, in the early 1900s cursive was taught first starting from kindergarten. This would help a lot with getting students proficient in cursive.

Another drawback to not teaching cursive is that many art teachers find that students do not have the fine motor skills to draw well as much anymore. I also believe that learning the skill of cursive helps students to learn how to focus and gives them a sense of accomplishment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in an office with 20 and 30 year-olds from around the world (India, China, etc.) all with very different backgrounds. They all learned to write English in cursive. I was very embarrassed for one of our 28 year old managers who couldn't read notes from one of them and had to make a joke about it in a meeting. She was pegged as an American public school graduate who couldn't read something the rest of the room could. I think not knowing cursive limits you and is just ONE more thing being taken out of our schools while the rest of the world marches on.

I'm a bit baffled by people who can't read any cursive (except for the goofy capital letters, which are just dumb in standard American classroom cursive. I don't know what cursive people learn in Indian or Chinese schools). But ok, schools can take a week or so, maybe in third or fourth grade, to go over reading American cursive. How about that?

My kid writes in cursive exclusively since I taught him which helped improve his writing and fine motor issues tremendously. One of his teachers actually wanted him to print instead of using cursive for English class and I believe it is because she could not read cursive! Well I strongly objected and told the principal that I expect my kid to be able to use cursive for handwritten assignments/tests since it took me years to fix his dysgraphia issues. I pointed out that it should only take a teacher a few hours to learn how to read cursive whereas to expect my son to print would be a much greater ordeal to say the least!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it should. Brain to hand connections are important in our development as thinkers.

+1000

Also those who write notes by hand tend to remember and synthesize them better than those who use a keyboard. And writing in cursive is easier and fast than printing.

That is not universally true. I know a lot of people (including me) who write exclusively in print, quickly.

This may be because you were never required to extensively write in cursive. Often if schools teach it nowadays they only teach it in 3rd grade and never require the students to use it again. When I was in school, we were required to use cursive all through high school.

Cursive is easier to teach and with proficiency in cursive is much faster than print since the pencil does not have to be lifted off the paper as much as with print. Many occupational therapists also recommend cursive for those with dysgraphia since it is easier to learn. Also, in the early 1900s cursive was taught first starting from kindergarten. This would help a lot with getting students proficient in cursive.

Another drawback to not teaching cursive is that many art teachers find that students do not have the fine motor skills to draw well as much anymore. I also believe that learning the skill of cursive helps students to learn how to focus and gives them a sense of accomplishment.

I am the PP you are responding to. I was required to extensively write in cursive. I had to write in cursive for every school assignment from third grade to ninth grade. Once I stopped having to write in cursive for school, in tenth grade, I stopped writing in cursive. My partner is roughly the same age as I am and had to do the same thing in school and also doesn't write in cursive. I wish that people would stop generalizing.

[Anonymous]

DD has been learning curve in school since PreK. In fact, she took it in aftercare during K. She's in 1st now and her cursive is really good.

[Anonymous]

In any event, they should learn to write faster. Cursive or an italic font, doesn't matter but print is just too slow.

None of us write long hand like we used to, but sometimes pen and paper is the best way to work out the thinking.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of you confuse cursive with calligraphy.

Cursive is still often used overseas, so if your children aspire to learn foreign languages, they'll need the skill to be able to decipher it.

[Anonymous]

Serious question: how many teachers can read cursive? About 10 years ago I recall a conversation with people in college who had not learned to read or write in cursive. In addition to the increasing classroom expectTions these days, it may be that the teachers themselves are not skilled enough to have their kids write in cursive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of you confuse cursive with calligraphy.

Cursive is still often used overseas, so if your children aspire to learn foreign languages, they'll need the skill to be able to decipher it.

There is no such thing as a single "cursive". Different countries have different standard cursive alphabets. Plus the standard cursive alphabet they use now is not necessarily the standard cursive alphabet they used to use. If you want to study German documents from the early 20th century, for example, you will have to take lessons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCtterlin