Too young to read cursive?

[Anonymous]

Do any universities or research students need anyone to read aloud a cursive text? I have free time, and I wanted to offer myself up as someone who could read a large text aloud. You could take my audio and use a tool to transcribe it.

I also have experience with old English / early modern English pronunciation.

[Anonymous]

This isn't something needed for students, but there are research projects online that allow you to transcribe older texts computers can't read.

https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/get-started-transcribing

https://transcription.si.edu/

https://www.newberry.org/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-transcribing-our-archives

These are just some examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any universities or research students need anyone to read aloud a cursive text? I have free time, and I wanted to offer myself up as someone who could read a large text aloud. You could take my audio and use a tool to transcribe it.

I also have experience with old English / early modern English pronunciation.

Has education really gone so far downhill in the last couple decades that this is a viable thing?

I cannot imagine someone being allowed to graduate grade school, much less HS, without being able to at least read cursive writing. They should also know how to write in cursive. Public schools used to require proficiency in it by at least 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

My boys never had a problem reading my cursive writing from a young age. Didn’t know that could be a problem for some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any universities or research students need anyone to read aloud a cursive text? I have free time, and I wanted to offer myself up as someone who could read a large text aloud. You could take my audio and use a tool to transcribe it.

I also have experience with old English / early modern English pronunciation.

wut.

[Anonymous]

For me it's hard to read cursive in a foreign language (for genealogy research). It's easier to read in English because I can work out the skipped letters where someone has written fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boys never had a problem reading my cursive writing from a young age. Didn’t know that could be a problem for some.

Can they read doctors' writing? Can they read 16th century documents? If it's so easy, they could get a computer to do it, but as the poster above notes, there are volunteer projects to try and decipher cursive.

If everyone wrote like they were taught in class as a child when the teacher was grading for neatness and letter shape, it would be OK, but adults don't and it can be hard to read scrawl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any universities or research students need anyone to read aloud a cursive text? I have free time, and I wanted to offer myself up as someone who could read a large text aloud. You could take my audio and use a tool to transcribe it.

I also have experience with old English / early modern English pronunciation.

Has education really gone so far downhill in the last couple decades that this is a viable thing?

I cannot imagine someone being allowed to graduate grade school, much less HS, without being able to at least read cursive writing. They should also know how to write in cursive. Public schools used to require proficiency in it by at least 4th grade.

Not being able to read cursive is a thing. DD is dyslexic and has a real hard time with cursive (and she’s in college now, so clearly that wasn’t a hindrance :roll.

Separately, I grew up in Eastern Europe and some people have a hard time reading my cursive writing. Some letters and even numbers are written differently (although I’ve adapted at least my numbers to be more like what is taught here in the US).

[Anonymous]

We're French, and in France, cursive is taught before block writing in preschool. This meant that even my kid with special needs had no problems reading or writing well-written cursive. Eastern European PP is correct, cursive differs slightly according to the country. And if it's spider text from long-dead authors, a lot of people of all ages have trouble with that.

I'm sure a program exists, OP. You could join one.

[Anonymous]

Has education really gone so far downhill in the last couple decades that this is a viable thing?

I cannot imagine someone being allowed to graduate grade school, much less HS, without being able to at least read cursive writing. They should also know how to write in cursive. Public schools used to require proficiency in it by at least 4th grade.

Most kids don’t learn or use cursive anymore. Even if they learn it in elementary, they don’t use it. By college they can’t read it any longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any universities or research students need anyone to read aloud a cursive text? I have free time, and I wanted to offer myself up as someone who could read a large text aloud. You could take my audio and use a tool to transcribe it.

I also have experience with old English / early modern English pronunciation.

Has education really gone so far downhill in the last couple decades that this is a viable thing?

I cannot imagine someone being allowed to graduate grade school, much less HS, without being able to at least read cursive writing. They should also know how to write in cursive. Public schools used to require proficiency in it by at least 4th grade.

No, my kindergartener and his cladsmates can read cursive and I doubt they're the only ones. Now can they read sloppy cursive? Probably not. But they can't ready sloppy print either.

Now I read Middle English in college (what makes that even messier is there are multiple dialects of middle English) and reading older texts does take a second to learn. But it's not terribly hard to learn and anyone reading Middle English or doing ancient manuscript texts even on an undergrad level would have learned it.

[Anonymous]

I was aware of the research projects that were out there for volunteers to read and transcribe hand written texts...

As far as today's kids, mine are in HS and college. They were taught a minimal amount of cursive writing in ES. My son actually wrote neater in cursive than printing, but didn't keep up with it.

Now, he can barely read it. DD is much better reading but usually prints.

I quite writing in cursive in MS and only print in block CAPS now, like my Dad. My Mom still uses her drilled into her Catholic school cursive that she was taught. LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're French, and in France, cursive is taught before block writing in preschool. This meant that even my kid with special needs had no problems reading or writing well-written cursive. Eastern European PP is correct, cursive differs slightly according to the country. And if it's spider text from long-dead authors, a lot of people of all ages have trouble with that.

I'm sure a program exists, OP. You could join one.

My kid was taught cursive first too, but as a result, his printing/block writing is awful, and that is used more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any universities or research students need anyone to read aloud a cursive text? I have free time, and I wanted to offer myself up as someone who could read a large text aloud. You could take my audio and use a tool to transcribe it.

I also have experience with old English / early modern English pronunciation.

Has education really gone so far downhill in the last couple decades that this is a viable thing?

I cannot imagine someone being allowed to graduate grade school, much less HS, without being able to at least read cursive writing. They should also know how to write in cursive. Public schools used to require proficiency in it by at least 4th grade.

Not being able to read cursive is a thing. DD is dyslexic and has a real hard time with cursive (and she’s in college now, so clearly that wasn’t a hindrance :roll.

Separately, I grew up in Eastern Europe and some people have a hard time reading my cursive writing. Some letters and even numbers are written differently (although I’ve adapted at least my numbers to be more like what is taught here in the US).

Langjuage barriers and learning disabilities are not really pertinent to the topic. Those are outliers.

[Anonymous]

This thread is interesting. My DCs are 8th, 10th and 12th graders and none were taught cursive in FCPS. Have they started teaching it again?