and this...

Guess I can't read typed print myself!🤡

Have you offered to teach him? Was it not taught to him in elementary school? I can remember when I learned. The teacher would write a few cursive letters and words on the blackboard. Then we would practice copying what she had written. If he is such a smart lad and a good reader, surely there are some "Learn to Write Cursive" books out there that teach it. I checked. Amazon.com shows serveral books and practice books.

I wonder why?

sad

I can see not being able to write cursive.

But reading shouldn't be that difficult. Maybe a tad slower. Cursive is mostly curvy print strung together.

We were looking over some family letters - he could not read them - and asked me to read them for him.

I was shocked.

would happen, when I heard students were not learning cursive anymore. I am very involved in family history and genealogy, and not being able to read old letters would be a real hindrance in my research. For many people who have not learned cursive, these old letters and documents would be like a foreign language.

It would be such a loss not to be able to read my mother's letters or my baby journal. My grandparents' and great grandparents' marriage licenses are in cursive. Most of the U.S. Censuses are written in cursive, as well as old wills, property deeds, death certificates, and birth certificates.

spend time teaching.

And can enhance motor skills, cognitive development, and free flowing expression.

Cognitive development, I could maybe see, but free flowing expression? There is nothing special about cursive, it's just a font.

I suspect you are talking about writing it, rather than reading it. The post you replied to suggested teaching reading it.

I remember endless time in second and third grade practicing a mostly useless skill. Unless one has plans to become a calligrapher, writing cursive is not a life skill with much value. We are headed towards a paperless society, I'd rather see the time spent on computer skills or literacy.

I'd argue that writing by hand contributes to written literacy, too.

My learning to play the clarinet didn't turn out to be a life skill for me, but I think it helped me in a lot of ways to have been in band.

and a concept that can be expanded on. You are welcome to view it with a narrower lens, which you clearly are doing.

This is pointless. I know what I am trying to say, in fact, I don't think reading and writing cursive are two separate things, and you seem determined to badger me on exactly which sentence in which post I'm responding to.

The bottom line is that I think writing and reading cursive is valuable; you don't. I don't know why you think learning cursive precludes someone taking languages. My school taught cursive in elementary school, we could take French and Spanish in middle school, and French, Spanish, German, or Latin in high school (I took French and Latin, starting in sixth grade with French). I think they probably also teach Japanese and Chinese at my high school now, since it's in a university community.

You're not going to convince me to change my mind, and since I'm trying to set out my point of view rather than trying to change yours, I think this needs to end.

Thanks.

You continue to try and excuse yourself.

I agree that I won't change your mind since I have never tried to. You certainly won't change my mind although you kept trying to.

Apparently you think classroom time is infinite. Clearly it is not, and time spent on one task precludes any time being spent on another.

You have your opinion, I have mine. We each now have made an equal number of posts - a pretty equitable stopping point, but somehow, I feel that you are going to fight for the last word.

The post before the post that that person I replied to, suggested teaching to read cursive. It actually suggested that writing it is not worth the time. The person I relied to said "it" has all sorts of benefits. "It" in that case, should have been reading cursive.

FWIW, second graders are still learning fine motor skills and writing cursive MIGHT improve that. But I think my school spent too much time on it. In hindsight, of course. No one could have predicted that all my creative writing would be programming on a computer in the 70's. I wish that time had been spent on a foreign language, I'd retain more from 1 or two years in second grade than the 5 years during high school and college.

I can hand write in a block font much faster. Times change.

and a pen and paper is less weighty and frequently more accessible than a keyboard.

Some of those with the "finest hand" I've known in life were also very skilled artistically. One hand washes the other IMO.

I love calligraphy, actually.

I mean, yeah, it's lovely to look at. Teach it in art class....

Here's an idea. Spend 10 bucks and buy the kid a cursive workbook, and encourage him to learn to read and write it on his own.

Alternatively, let it be taught as an elective. But kids who don't want to learn cursive--because they realize that it's about as relevant to the modern world as Carolingian Miniscule--shouldn't be subjected to the hours and hours of classtime that has traditionally been wasted on it.

Perhaps it's a transmission issue, rather than a reception issue.

Humans are adaptive to needs. My son is in 2nd grade, and he writes his 'r's backwards. Not facing backwards, but the pen stroke is backwards. I've tried to intervene, but I'm not super concerned because I presume the need to write faster will 'force his hand' so to speak.

Not much difference between cursive and printing. I's, f's, some capital letters look a bit different, and the rest just get a 'tail' joining them together. Not hard.

C'est La Vie

in our current society are taught cursive and what it does for cognition and tasks like processing knowledge presented aurally (see, The New Science of Learning). I disagree that writing cursive is analogous to thatching a roof or even the telegraph. These are artisan or technician skills that were only specific niches of workers. Cursive, calligraphy, and writing are special because they have to do with our relationship to language.

We had penmanship class

Art class

Music class

and the 3 R's

Every single one of those enhanced the others.

are being driven out by "budget" constraints (compounded/driven by "No Schools Left Behind," "Race to the Top," "charter schools" and "vouchers.&quot .

DeVos will only make it worse - and she's the "chosen one" by the "Great Orange!"

Cursive is a useful skill and I, formerly me, am happy to have it.

Seriously, I am all for progress and leaving behind what is no longer useful. But this sort of thing is more laziness than anything and simply having no attention span beyond what is on our phones at any given moment. Physical skill building develops all sorts of cognitive abilities. If we lost our electronics, we would turn into a nation of thumbsucking hysterics unable to function, overnight.

do we really need to teach THAT particular skill to build a relationship with language. Studying poetry seems more appropriate there. The art of writing is wonderful (and I am an amateur calligrapher, even going so far to write on real parchment, with real goose quill pens, using ink I made myself), but with all the skills kid need to learn, I have to say an writing style developed for use with quill pens seems obsolete to me.

Clinging to such a skill seem tremendously culturally conservative to me.

In a variety of ways and letting kids find their most comfortable "signature" style would be fine. No need to teach cursive strictly like we used to. For some kids it is torture, especially if the teacher expects everyone to do it "perfectly" whatever that is. A lot of adults write in a mixture of cursive and print. Handwriting is a way to express individuality and creativity ... some cultures also never teach print, just cursive... why do we assume print is so much easier? Seems we should evolve to some sort of hybrid.

I simply don't accept that cursive is "more aural" than manuscript, because you're doing exactly the same thing in a different font, and I've never seen compelling evidence to the contrary.


Let's teach kids to hand-write in comic sans, while we're at it.

because you haven't seen convincing evidence. There is a lot of conflicting opinion and a variety of interpretations of studies, which is probably why we regularly have arguments on DU about cursive.

The fastest handwriting appears to be a mixed style (good for processing aurally delivered lectures) according to this anti-cursive article:

http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/cursive-handwriting-and-other-education-myths

On the other hand, "psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep," according to this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=0

Last edited Sat Oct 9, 2021, 10:58 AM - Edit history (1)

I admit to a certain bias, but I suspect that the pro-cursive camp approaches the same evidence with a bias of its own.

However, I find this part quite interesting:

Here we go again! I just wrote you a long thing in another part of the thread ...

Ultimately, I don't think we're that far apart in our opinions on the subject.

Last edited Thu Mar 16, 2017, 11:54 AM - Edit history (2)

(put it here instead of below). My proposal is that our public curriculum should teach handwriting that includes exposure to cursive without forcing it. Rather than a print/cursive model, could we teach them a font/handwriting model? Something like... kids should be taught to write by hand, and to notice that their own manuscript varies from mechanically reproduced fonts and that there is an expressive element in that they can control and that they do not need to submit to anyone else's categories of which is better. I don't think it should be taught in art class because art time is so reduced already. I'd rather see handwriting integrated into math/reading/science/social studies. There are times in all fields when writing by hand may be needed. (Or you may just want to make cool graffiti).

For the record I'm public schools all the way, both my husband and I are teachers. Not a "choice mantra" "propaganda" or parasitic charter school advocate, nor do I advocate "forced teaching of hobby skills" -- I know you weren't insinuating that my position was aligned with those views, but I don't think that people who value cursive are necessarily pro corporate capitalism, on the contrary. Handwriting can be an act of resistance to a culture that puts a time limit and a price tag on everything and wants to convert kids into a homogenized drone "workforce" that depends on pricey tech products and is incapable of DIY.

Some of the comments in the NYT article talk about the thinking slow effect of writing in cursive if you are interested in hearing other points of view. For me experimenting with handwriting was great fun and my teacher was quite lenient and inspiring. I enjoyed that it allowed me to "go slow," and still do. Low tech language skills such as handwriting, that a good number of people find useful and that play an important role in collective cultural history, don't deserve to be reviled or marginalized.

We are both passionate on sides of the question... and I have no doubt we'd have a great conversation in person.

but it can be understood. Never thatched a roof, but can shingle one with self cut shakes. Candles are easy. Horses, not well enough anymore to keep them from hurting, but I could do it. I could survive a month in the wilderness with nothing more than a knife and a metal container. I can navigate there without a GPS, or even a map and compass.

The point being that while some skills are archaic, they are still worth learning. I can even read and write cursive!

The point is that they don't need to teach blacksmithing to educate people for the 21st century. Likewise, cursive is no longer needed as part of basic education. It would probably be smart to retain that skill.

Who the hell cares about a useless skill that is simply a lazy form of real writing?

over the years and read them from time to to time. I love cursive though my own is garbage compared to hers.

I'm told that some schools no longer teach it. That is very sad.

Handwriting is a basic skill of a democracy.

sad.

I still mail them out myself.

I wrote a letter this morning to my grandchildren. (It wasn't cursive though)

There's a lot of value in it.

with a foldover top. With embassed signatures on the front with my initials. Oh my...

Since my hands are now shaky, I have problems with writing out checks but they still require a signature on the check.

an old fashioned clock - ya' know, with a big hand and little hand....OMG - I almost fell off my chair when my son, fifth grade teacher - second year..told me..his wife - backed him up - she is an intervention Math teacher..OMG...

And I still have a hard time when people say things to me like 'it is quarter of two.'

I grew up with digital clocks. At home there was one on the oven, microwave, VCR and bedroom alarm clock. Today, there's one in the car, on my phone, and on the computer. The only analog ones I remember were in the classroom. And still when people verbally told me time, it was always 2:45 as opposed to quarter of 3. To this day, I hate when people round time too. If it is 2:47, tell me that.

and since I have always used it on the job too (IT), my watch is always set to military time

It makes more sense to count up from 0, always counting upward through the whole day, rather than starting at the 24 (a continuation of the hour count from the previous day) then dropping back down to 1 before counting up again.

Fortunately everything I have where 24-hour time is an option uses 0 for midnight.

never heard it

yes, my watch can switch between formats; alas, at my job, my systems run in different time zones - American and international

I grew up military and was enlisted and have never heard that

LOL, I am twice your age, you just reminded me how I learned to tell time. All of my wrist watches are analog. I even put an analog face on my cellphone. There are lots of people like yourself on YouTube that say so in the reply section that are having the same problem, you are not alone. After you learn, you can tell time at a glance without thinking about it, just like on digitals.

It's really pretty elegant, how it's broken down into hours, minutes, and seconds.

There is NO excuse for this, NONE. There are clock faces everywhere. You could find yourself without a phone in a place/country/whatever with nothing but clock faces to tell time. Who the fuck thought leaving that out was a good idea? America gets dumber by the minute (no pun intended) and we are failing our children.

Only digital, insisting on precision even if their clock isn't sccurate.

Reading the clock is one of those things parents always taught their kids. It's one of the early parental lessons, like tying your shoes. I guess they leave that to the teachers now, too. *sigh*

time the old fashioned way. They are pretty cheap so if they lose them, no big deal, just get another.

I tried starting them out too young.

Especially if the hands are not distinctly different in length.

The clock I first learned to read was a flip clock - a 1950s digital, in effect.

Here is a video that shows how they work - but the one in the video is a much newer model than the one my family had:

Digital watches are only about 40 years old.

It's not as bad with electrical watches but old wind up watches just don't keep running when we wear them. After I had sprained both wrists and broken one, it was uncomfortable to wear a watch or a tight fitting bracelet so I gave it up. For a while I tried carrying a pocket watch but it also stopped.

It actually is great to not be tied to a watch - and when running the farm it was not a huge problem. The horses and I ran on sun time rather than time defined by a mechanical or electrical object.

An analog clock face is part of a standard test for dementia, wherein the participant is 'surpised' with a couple things they need to articulate, like populating a blank analog clock face with the correct time in a certain period of time.

(NOT suggesting anything about your age/mental acuity, just that the mention of age reminded of this extra-curricular use of analog clocks as part of a non-timekeeping specific test.)

Though my Android phone's clock app uses a dial face to set alarms and timers. It does not use hands, though. The numbers for the hours appear on one dial and a dial with numbers for minutes in five minute intervals is shown to set the minutes. So while it is a dial face, it is not an analog clock face.

Hey, no offense. My mental acuity has it ups and downs. My back freaked out Friday and I've been low functioning since then as I tried Vicodin, anti-inflammatories, and now a muscle relaxer to relieve the pain. Add to that lack of sleep and I am not anywhere near 100%.

Nobody expects a public school teacher to teach a child how to tie their shoes, or hold a spoon. Some life skills start at home.

either, and she's 14. It isn't taught anymore in most schools.

Disgraphic.

Because dipping back and forth between the inkwell (and the constant splattering), is why cursive was invented. Not being able is a little sad. Changing world

Lots of cursive don't connect letters. Hieratic is cursive. Minuscule is cursive.

Chancery script is for show.

Most of us who learned cursive learned it in 2nd or 3rd grade, and then we were required to write in cursive for years and years. OF COURSE cursive was faster, we had so much more practice doing it!

I abandoned cursive by high school. My lettering was and is so much faster, neater, and easier to read. I read cursive well, though. I do genealogy and read lots of very old documents.

Interestingly, many of the wills and such were obviously dictated and written by someone else. The handwriting doesn't match the signature at all, or they were signed with a mark. The opposite may be done in the future. People who can't read cursive, and who can't be bothered to learn, will hire someone to read old documents for them, the same way people in the past hired someone to write them.

Point your cell phone camera at a cursive document and the app converts it to printed text or speech.

OCR software has been around for a while now, decades in some form or another, but now there are apps that use the phone camera as well, to translate language or printing/cursive.

and I'm not quite sure we should be teaching this to grade schoolers.

just like anything else that requires any sort of creativity or skill.

I noticed when they rolled that out where I live. It seemed like many of the extra curricular/extended actives ended along with reduction in how often art/music classes were held. I have relatives in their mid 20's that are unable to properly read/write cursive because it was only barely taught during their time in school.

You formed the letters exactly the way the book and/or the teacher told you to do, right down to the degree of slant, or you got red marks all over your papers. My handwriting naturally slants to the left, and as a result I got rotten grades in penmanship, no matter how neat and readable it was. Students who transferred from other schools that taught a slightly different handwriting style were made to change it so as to conform. Where's the creativity in that?

When I went to school cursive was an extended part of the curriculum. It wasn't a base requirement and as such was treated in the same vein as projects, art, etc. So when I say creativity I mean liberal arts skills as a whole. Effective use of language and writing in communication are liberal arts skills and cursive is a part of that. The creativity doesn't happen in school but later on as our own distinct signatures and writing styles develop.

Signatures tend to not be the same and take on some of the owners personality, no matter how hard the teachers tried to drill it into us. My handwriting in particular so bad it doesn't reflect anything I learned in school. Over the years I've tried it many different ways. Big letters, small letters, slant back, slant forward, block script and nothing helped. Now it consists of one legible letter and some squiggles that resemble letters

essays because I write only in cursive. It is faster, and at 66 I am not going to start printing and cater to that foolishness.

I tell them they need to learn to write cursive, not just so they will thus be able to read it, but also so they can take notes faster in class as well as being able to get through in-class exams and essays more rapidly.

Besides, almost all their older professors will use cursive to write on the blackboard and to write comments on their work.

cursive.....the written language of the privileged, as opposed to plain hand.

You'll note that the illuminated manuscripts of the monks are nearly in decipherable...... but even from the first printed Bible it was printed in a clear enough type that everyone could read it.

The Quaker School where my daughter attended did not teach cursive, because it was a written language taught to over privileged whites so that their servants could not see their letters or their ledgers.

But cursive writing was invented for use with a quill pen, and was intended remove pen lifts to maintain ink flow and preserve the pen.

I love calligraphy and fine writing, but I think it is obsolete for everyday communications.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is an amazing thread.

Cursive writing is a part of evolution. Yes, cursive is faster/smoother than block printing, but guess what, I've "typed" this response faster than any of those (and the kids out there have thumbs even faster than that!).

The people in the stables that "shoed" the horses of their customers would "bi*ch" when one of those "fancy moto-things" went by their barn, and the railroad tycoons laughed at the Wright Brothers!

There's a guy out there that's been singing for quite some time - and he's living what he sings:
Bob Dylan - "The times - they are a-changing."

because they could bring in a prepared (or purchased) essay or information to cheat with on the test.

All too often now students cannot write fast enough to complete their in-class essays or exams. Cursive really is faster.

That goes for taking notes, too. Most of them cannot write fast enough to take adequate notes in class, and since many instructors do not allow laptops in class, notes do have to be taken by hand. I have no problem with laptops and cellphones in class because we need to access the net sometimes, but many instructors forbid them because they worry that some students will start texting, surfing the net, or checking emails instead of paying attention.

And then, of course, there is still the problem of their not being able to read comments and corrections written in cursive, and not being able to read what the teacher has written on the blackboard if she writes in cursive. That can seriously undermine a student's ability to understand what is being taught.

Yours especially. I had a year of college after high school and then worked. Now that I'm 38 I am in a stable financial situation that I don't work and started back as a freshman this year.

I completely get a lot of what you are saying. My handwriting is bad, but looking at some of my classmates writing makes my jaw drop. It is really apparent that pen and paper has taken a backseat to computer and phone methods of communication.

As for your point about students not writing fast enough for notes and essays, I really think the issue you raised that students can not complete in-class essays isn't due to speed of block writing, but because they don't have a lasting experience with writing pen and paper. So much of their communication now is by keyboard and phone with a spell check equipped word processor that when they have write down their thoughts it becomes a mess with a lot of ideas crossed out and rewritten.

quickly is still a useful skill, and for students especially needed. As for many young people not being able to read handwriting, that actually shocked me a bit. Cursive is not something you only see in museums. It's everywhere.

Clearly, some school districts have gotten more than a little irresponsible about this. On the plus side, I am happy for all the little children who are not spending all those loooong hours I remember practicing their O's.

Is not really a great reason to dedicate instructional time to learn a skill which is otherwise mostly pointless.

Adapt or die...

And yes calligraphy is beautiful but other than weddings does it have any practical purpose?

And older styles in common use (such as Black Letter) included a LOT of pen lifts But that doesn't change why "cursive" writing was invented.

And I agree that calligraphy is a beautiful art, but does not serve a practical function for most people.

The things I read on DU...

Wonder why the English did it. To keep those bothersome Scots from reading their books?

Just kidding around. Have a nice evening.

In my genealogical research I am blessed to have several lines that were Quakers - who were known for their detailed record keeping in cursive handwriting. I have one line that I could trace back to the fifteen hundreds because of those excellent Quaker records. The hardest part was verifying which village they lived in since the monthly meetings of the husband and the wife's origins kept records of the marriage, births and deaths of the children, and all other events considered important - in duplicate, paralleling each other. It was not until the couple requested a letter to take to a meeting in Pennsylvania that I was sure which village had been their home.

The Quaker meetings kept notes on everything, especially the groups that moved to Pennsylvania. They provided letters for members who were leaving one monthly meeting group to move to another. They made notes about members who did not live up to the rigorous standards of the communities and every allegation of misdeeds. Many Quakers were not of an elite class, but most were well educated because it was valued in their society.

How will future students of that Quaker school be able to appreciate the history of the Quakers without reading the records that were written in cursive for several hundred years? I consider the claim that "it was a written language taught to over privileged whites so that their servants could not see their letters or their ledgers" to be a fallacy born of ignorance. That opinion is based on forty years of genealogical and historical research in which I found records for many levels of society that were kept in cursive writing.

Mine read the cursive records kept on her family by the Nazis.

Take it up at the next meeting. You might be surprised.

"The Quaker School where my daughter attended did not teach cursive, because it was a written language taught to over privileged whites so that their servants could not see their letters or their ledgers."

For several hundred years before the Nazis came into existence Quakers kept their own records in cursive. They were not "over privileged whites" trying to restrict access to knowledge by servants. The Quakers I am descended from were more egalitarian than the society you are describing.

As indicated in other comments in this thread, cursive was originally developed to make it easier to use a quill pen without making a mess. As technology has changed the scripts used to record language have changed, but there is not reason to brand one form of writing as undesirable because of an imagined motive.

You seem to regard cursive as a separate, occult language. It is just a different script for recording information. Even today there are cursive fonts that can be used on computers to emulate written cursive. If someone elects to use that font it does not make them an "over privileged white" trying to put down anyone else.

As for taking it up at the next meeting, I do not follow any religion. After studying the myths of many cultures and the origins of religions I chose to abandon the superstitions of my ancestors and try to lead a rational life.