March 6, 2013 2:25 pm
Is Cursive Handwriting Going Extinct?
Joined-up writing: good enough for Abraham Lincoln! Photo: Library of Congress
Is cursive handwriting, bane of impatient schoolchildren across the globe, soon to be a thing of the past? A recent editorial in Prospect Magazine suggest educators are coming around to the idea that perfectly scripted ABCs might not be so important after all:
We tend to forget, unless we have small children, that learning to write isn’t easy. It would make sense, then, to keep it as simple as possible. If we are going to teach our children two different ways of writing in their early years, you’d think we’d have a very good reason for doing so. I suspect that most primary school teachers could not adduce one.
It’s not just about writing, but reading too. “As a reading specialist, it seems odd to me that early readers, just getting used to decoding manuscript, would be asked to learn another writing style,” says Randall Wallace, a specialist in reading and writing skills at Missouri State University.
Has cursive writing ever been truly necessary?
A survey in the US in 1960 found that the decision to teach cursive in elementary schools was “based mainly on tradition and wide usage, not on research findings.” One school director said that public expectancy and teachers’ training were the main reasons, and that “we doubt that there is any significant advantage in cursive writing.” According to Wallace, nothing has changed: “The reasons to reject cursive handwriting as a formal part of the curriculum far outweigh the reasons to keep it.”
Hawaii, Indiana, and Illinois have all replaced cursive instruction with “keyboard proficiency” and 44 other states are currently weighing similar measures.
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So you learn your signature and that’s it?
And when the keyboard or pad is broken, without power, then what? Haven’t seen too many manual typewriters around lately.
Comment by Pam Little — March 6, 2013 @ 3:01 pm
People forget that one of the main reasons for teaching cursive writing was that it made writing easier when using a pen that was dipped in an inkwell or even a fountain pen. Those pens wrote better and neater when the pen stayed on the paper until the ink ran out on the nib. That’s why you connected all the letters. It kept the nib on the paper longer and prevented spots and smudges that you got when you pulled the nib off the paper. Ballpoint makes connected letters less necessary than ever.
Comment by John W — March 6, 2013 @ 3:18 pm
Cursive was a rotten idea when I was taught it 50 years ago and it’s still a rotten idea. John W is right that it makes some kind of sense when you write with a fountain pen or dip pen, but no longer serves any purpose. It’s telling that we were required to use fountain pens in elementary school–while sitting at desks that still had inkwells–at a time when the ball-point had already made that technology obsolete. Modern cursives (ultimately derived from Gothic cursives, I think) were intended to allow fast, clear writing at length while using liquid ink, but there isn’t much call for that any more, is there?
Comment by Mike Rhum — March 6, 2013 @ 10:04 pm
So the degradation of the American educational system gathers steam and is soundly endorsed by the Smithsonian? What a turn of events. So very sad.
Comment by Bob Lorch — March 6, 2013 @ 11:24 pm
Handwriting is very necessary for all literate individuals and must be kept in our schools. For children to not be able to read the written word from our history and daily lives and the schools to decide to not teach them would be a discriminatory act and cause great harm.
I have heard there are kids today that can not read a letter from their grandmother; how is that a possibility today 2013 to not be able to READ cursive. My three year old grandson’s Montessori class teaches cursive; crucial to learning!!
Comment by JP Wilkinson — March 6, 2013 @ 11:30 pm
I won’t shed any tears for the demise of cursive – but it would be nice if teachers would use some of that freed-up class time to work on *print* penmanship.
Comment by Andrew — March 7, 2013 @ 12:18 am
Please visit http://www.cursiveiscool.com for some of the many reasons why it’s so important to continue teaching cursive writing in public schools.
Comment by Sheila Lowe — March 7, 2013 @ 12:42 am
BTW, this article is behind the times. Indiana and some other states currently have bills to return cursive training to the core curriculum.
Comment by Sheila Lowe — March 7, 2013 @ 12:43 am