Oh For Shame! Our Children Can't Write Cursive!
from the what-ever-shall-we-do? dept
For all of the many worries people have had over what computers are doing to our children, from making them fat to destroying their grammar to opening them up to cyberbullying, here's one we never realized was such a big deal. Over three years ago, we had a post mentioning that there didn't seem to be much of a need for cursive writing any more, as most communications was done via typed words. Non-cursive writing was perfectly fine for other situations. However, you wouldn't know that to read this latest article that is positively dripping with worry over what will become of our children and their inability to write with connected letters. It turns out that fewer and fewer kids are writing in script, even if they learned it in elementary school. The "information officer" for the National Handwriting Association is appalled: "The result of this neglect is dire. Many children never learn joined writing at all and continue to use print script like young children, well into their adult lives." Dire? I could think of a few things that seem a bit more important. Then there's a professor of literacy who claims that a lack of connecting letters stunts both learning and self-esteem: "Unless children learn to write legibly and at speed, their educational achievements may be reduced and their self-esteem affected." Next up: we'll be hearing about how awful it is that children, these days, no longer churn their own butter.
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Oh my! Whatever will we do!
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Re: Oh my! Whatever will we do!
Trouble is, in the UK the majority of children are taught in link script which is fine if you can master it. However, having seen children who are de-motivated, with low self esteem owing to the presentation of their work, i've turned to cursive writing as a possible way to help those children who are suffering.
After all we still need to write!
I've tried it out recently with a class and the children are delighted! One child left me a note thanking me for the "gift" of this style of writing, having battled with presentation for years.
So, for those of you who do not appreciate the gift that your teachers have given you all those years ago, just you try being the one who cannot write!
Cursive writing may be a dying art, but I love it, it's turned some of my kids around!
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Re: Re: Oh my! Whatever will we do!
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You have got to be kidding me...
I am engaged to be married this upcoming December. I definitely plan on raising a few kids. I will not care one bit if they struggle or simply neglect their cursive skills (unless it is something they really want to do for calligraphy and whatnot). This TechDirt article made me laugh. Thank you for that. :)
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Re: You have got to be kidding me...
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Oh snap!
I was tought cursive in elementary school, but I wasn't required to use it since the end of middle school.
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Re: Oh snap!
And I wonder what signatures will look like in the future? Will they be irrelevant? Replaced by digital "magic" technology??
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Re: Oh snap!
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Cursive?
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Re: Cursive?
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Dislexia was bad enough.
I was diagnosed dislexic at age 12, and moved schools to work in a special program to relearn motor skills in how to make letters.
I had always had problems with writing letters before then, and was generally called lazy, because I was obviouslly smart enough to learn the material, but all of my work was badly written. I could get up and talk on subjects that I souldn't put on paper.
I learned to type as an optional class that same year, and that was also the same year that I started working on an Apple II.
As far as I'm concerned, wiring my brain to be able to touch type is a much better skill than trying to produce nice cursive script. My handwriting degenerated to fairly neat block letters, though there is no way I can write as fast as I can type.
The one time I wish I could write nice looking handwriting is to have the ability to write personal letters. I have run across letters that were written by my ancestors, or even writing on the back of old photos describing who the people were. Consistent handwriting gives insight to the person who did the writing, and seems connected in a way that printing just doesn't convey.
There have been letters that I would like to have written on good paper to properly convey my thoughts. Typing the thoughts and printing them in a standard printer just doesn't have the personal touch that I've tried to pass. If I attempt to write in cursive, it looks nearly as messy as my nephew's writing, and he's in third grade. Then I look at the old letters, I see the elegance I'd like to impart with my own words.
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Re: Dislexia was bad enough.
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Funny you mention it...
Every teacher I had that required handwritten assignments espoused the same rationale. As a consequence, I never learned to write in cursive with anything approaching practical speed. And I'll certainly never conceivably NEED cursive, unless you count signatures, so...
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Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Development?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475_pf.html
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Re: Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Development?
Yup. Me.
I hate people who takes 3 paragraphs to explain something that could be said in one sentence. It's insulting, and it makes reading it a hell of a lot more difficult. Personally, I'd much prefer a brief bulleted list of phrases than a 5 page essay.
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Re: Re: Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Developm
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Re: Re: Re: Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Deve
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Re: Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Development?
I have certifications for corrective reading and reading for dyslexics. Dyslexia being the inability to encode or decode written language. The rest are just sloppy readers. The corrective process is much the same but with a tweak or two here and there.
Part of the mind ordering process for either of these two dysfunctions is learning to express words as whole things with their internal meanings and the external representations of well constructed and connected letters in the cursive form.
For those who dismiss the effectiveness of the cursive format - good for you. You may not be part of the human flock that needs just that style.
Teachers (no, not educators - an aberration) understand the mix of modalities (sense based) that are required for effective teaching and learning. The scratching out of a thought or a nascent idea in cursive is absolutely required for some minds.
I am at the moment working with corporate management types who have risen to a level of competence beyond which they are unable to stretch. I assess their handwriting and their ability to express thoughts on a keyboard or in scratched print notes. The block is obvious. If one has a couple of hours a day to work out at the gym, then one has the time to work out the mind with some kinesthetics of the brain-eye-hand type.
It is not for everyone. The willful Type A heavy on the immediate results with no need to adjust, will pay a price.
This is not to say that there is any magic or ju-ju connected with cursive; it is a method, a discipline and a therapy.
When was the last time you saw a heartfelt condolence email?
Lantern Bearer
Please, do be attentive, be intelligent, be responsible, be reasonable.
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Re: Re: Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Developm
My print, all uppercase letters were some weird intentional effort as a child to embrace what I thought was my overwhelmingly left-brained engineer nature. Only later after much struggling have I come to realize my true desire is for right brained expression, and it has atrophied and wilted to almost nothing.
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Re: Cursive Writing Affects Cognitive Development?
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It's a CONSPIRACY!
Sounds like the old newspaper/paper mill fight outlawing hemp/marijuana (hemp makes cheaper paper than lumber), so it would not cut into their lumber made paper profits.
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The point is...
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where has all the cursive gone?
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Agreed with all points especially 12!!!
What happened to making sure that everyone that entered high school graduated?
Now onto cursive I cant read what i write in cursive and i was one of them kids who used the computer to write it for me if i had to write it at all. Most of my school teachers would of rather had computer or hand written material turned in. It was easier on there old and fragile eyes!
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Cursive has its benefits
Once upon a time, one school subject was "penmanship", which was basically, producing legible cursive writing. This made sense in an era before ubiquitous computers. Typing was done by a dedicated pool of typists, and the ability to get your thoughts down quickly and legibly was very important, so that the typists could read it.
The issue here isn't that cursive isn't as important, but rather that writing isn't as important. Instead of writing your document by hand and then handing it to a typist, you can type it yourself and then hand it to an editor. (Or, more likely, just use the badly-formatted and non-proofread document directly.)
About the only time when you need to read handwriting these days is in whiteboard printouts, and school doesn't really teach how to write well on a whiteboard.
What we're seeing is that good handwriting is becoming a niche skill, like shorthand. If you have a need for some good handwriting, chances are you actually want a calligrapher. They still exist, and they're not hard to find.
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"Dire" is an overstatement, but...
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Re: "Oh for shame"
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Re: Re: "Oh for shame"
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cursive, not so big, but...
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i learned to write cursive in my earlier years but have dropped it in favor of my own hybrid. I can type much faster than I can handwrite, approximately twice as fast, and would choose typing over handwriting any day. The only cursive I use on any sort of regular basis, is my signiture, and that is absolutely horrid.
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What Cursive? IDrive a Hybrid ;)
i learned to write cursive in my earlier years but have dropped it in favor of my own hybrid. I can type much faster than I can handwrite, approximately twice as fast, and would choose typing over handwriting any day. The only cursive I use on any sort of regular basis, is my signiture, and that is absolutely horrid.
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Don't be too quick
If cursive writing helps children develop and learn, then they should learn it and be encouraged to use it for that reason alone.
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Re: Don't be too quick
?
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!
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signatures are out the door too...
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SAT
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Re: SAT
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my take
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Oh noes! We don't manufacture buggy whips anymore!
I just tested myself. I can still write in cursive but it's about 10 times slower than writing in all caps, something I do to make my writing more legible. It's a habit I picked up from coding in my teens. My letterset is very distinctive to ensure no possible confusion of 0/o/O, l/1/7, etc.
I learned to type (Olivetti manual and IBM electric) when I was eight and got my first computer at 13 (/|800). Once that 9-pin Epson printer was mine I pretty much stopped writing anything except for taking or making notes.
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Re: Oh noes! We don't manufacture buggy whips anym
I say ditch it. As long as there is a print button, who needs it?
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Based on these comments...
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Butter Churning
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More bad news...
There is a reason that they ask you to "PLEASE PRINT" when filling out paper forms.
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Cursive
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2
I rebuked on of the office assistants the other day for writing in cursive. She was supposed to be labeling CD’s with a 6 letter and 2 number code then the customers family name. She was neatly writing it in cursive I told her our lawyers are paid by the hour and that I’m not paying them to figure out your cursive handwriting. She said she can’t write in print, I laughed berated her then realized she had horrible print writing; which I found to be a greater issue than not being able to write in cursive. Most forms require print, I wondered how she ever filled out our postal forms and other such items, I looked through the file and there they were looking like a kid wrote them. Letters were outside the boxes and sloppy… but if I ever needed a nice cursive card sent to a client I new how to go to, except my clients don’t want to get fluffy thank you cards in cursive, I send email.
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A tool is a tool.
Writing is a tool for communicating. The form and method of producing that writing has evolved with technology. This shows the need for written communication has not diminished. I distinctly remember a time in my childhood when I was upset that when writing I couldn’t write down my thoughts fast enough using cursive, but it was definitely faster than printing each letter individually. The keyboard, and the technology attached to it (be it typewriter or printer), facilitates speedy writing. Hopefully technology will produce something one day that will bring writing much closer to the speed of thought.
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Cursive is a pointless legacy
It took years to repair the damage this moron caused.
Cursive hand writting is pointless... I type far far far faster than I write, and I write in print (which suprisingly OTHER PEOPLE CAN READ) far quicker than I write cursive.
I ask you; what is the point?
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Typing
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Cursive, even well-written is hard to read
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actually computers teach churning
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Cursive is a chore to read
I've had no use for cursive for decades now. Even while learning it, I considered it tantamount to learning Latin; a dead language.
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The lost of writing
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Cursive is good for one thing only
My signature when signing a document!
That's about it!
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Damn.....
Damn the computers and its internets!!!!
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I found something better...
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cursive shmursive
In my professional life I find that it's always easier to read people that print rather than write cursive, especially since it seems that most people I work with use those felt tipped pens so all the letters bleed together anyway.
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Cursive is overrated
On the flipside, print is usually clear, uniform, there isn't much "signature" letter changing. In short, it makes my job a whole lot easier.
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Cursive
The nature of our writing system is that we write left to right, top to bottom. Whenever I write, my hand would always rub over the ink or pencil smearing it on the paper and onto my hand. For this reason I hated to write anything. That hurt my self esteem more than anything. I used to love to write stories. Even my teacher's would complain about my messy handwriting. Because of the messiness of my handwriting I hated to do it. My family couldnt afford a typewriter much less a computer. I would never turn in writing assignments. I still got decent grades in school because of my intelligence even though I had so many missed assignments. I sometimes wonder how much farther I would have gotten if there had been another way for me to complete the assignments. When I got older I developed my typing skills just so I would have an alternative. That helped my self esteem because I taught myself how to type and overcome what I always felt was a personal flaw that I couldnt fix.
I have told my wife many times that if I PC's were around back then like they are now that I may have become a writer. It makes you wonder.
Instead of worring about if our children's self esteem is boosted by their handwriting... how about we teach them to be proud of what ever they do.
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I have no need for cursive. Even on a personal letter (if i must snail-mail it) i can print it out with a nice font on nice stationery and sign it. Anyone who knows me (the only ones likely to get a personal letter) would thank me for not having to decipher my "writing."
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cognitive development
But it seems much more plausible that this practice is mired in an educational pseudoscience morass along with most everything else that the majority of american schoolchildren are taught.
I would also suggest that a school with more time to spend teaching good cursive is probably populated with superior teachers and students versus one that spends more time on fluffy bs and standardized test prep... and so you will naturally have some correlation with cognitive development there.
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But wait...
Do you print your name on legal documents?
Of course that's the only need I see for cursive.
I only print, and I 'scribble' my name on legal documents.
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Perspective
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it's a chicken and egg problem
just like in the "IM/SMS is killing english" argument, perhaps pretty handwriting and text book grammar and spelling are all ways of feeling really good about having nothing useful to say.
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How's this?
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cognitive development
In an age of high literacy (and exploding computer literacy) I suspect cursive is going the way of shiny brass switchplates. Good handwriting is no longer the mark of education and refinement that it once was.
If there is indeed an important (read: demonstrable) link between cursive and some aspect of cognitive development, it's time to embrace alternatives that have similar developmental benefits. Has anyone investigated whether keyboarding (the typing kind) is beneficial in the same way as piano playing? I have a strong suspicion that teaching children how to draw, paint, tap dance or use chopsticks would make up for skipping cursive.
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Cursive writing is an important skill
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Bad Handwriting = intellegence
Besides, we think of doctors as above average in intellegence, and steriotypically poor in the handwriting category.
Ever see Albert Einsteins handwriting?
Theres all the proof I need, anecdotal as it is, that my poor handwriting is a sign of higher intellegence.
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Re: Bad Handwriting = intellegence
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It's called cursive for a reason
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Cursive Writing
The best application for cursive writing is in verbatim note taking, letters, and longer documents. Email and longer documents are obviously much better served today by computers with word processor and email capabilities. As far as note taking goes, you are much better off to bullet point synthesized information. Being actively engaged with what is being presented to you is a much better way to learn. It creates knowledge that can be applied. I'm not, nor are most people, the type of learner that benefits from rehashing a flawed recording of a live event.
Classroom time today would be much better spent building upon initial language skills. Showing kids how to boil down information into manageable chunks and teaching them how to communicate effectively across mediums (i.e. by teaching them communication structure) might put them in better stead when they enter the "real world."
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Cursive may be on the way back...
However, I wonder how long it will be until voice-recognition becomes common place as well. Cursive, printing, and typing may be on its way back out....
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For shame: our kids can't use manual typewriters
hhhhhahhhhaa. Joke was on hhhhim. Who nnnneeds to learnnn how to quickly hhhit the kkkeys like wwwith mmmanual typewriters?
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What is cursive good for?
Writing notes on Christmas cards, I suppose.
From Junior High on, I spent my writing time developing my printing skills because I aspired to be an Architect, where printing was taken to the level of art. Even though I never became an Architect, in over thirty years of work, I never used cursive for anything. All my correspondence and reports had to be typed on paper and later, on computers.
As for cursive writing developing cognitive skills, I call bs on that. A good touch-typist's brain is doing a lot more work, and requires more connections, than a cursive writer's. Think about it.
Being over 60 years old and jealous of my wife's beautiful cursive I decided to re-teach myself this 'art'. I practiced a little every day and got better at it than I ever had before. Then I went back to /. and forgot about it. ;)
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Cursive is old-hat
Cursive should go the way of calligraphy and be purely optional. If you want to learn it fine, otherwise there are literally thousand of other things that are more productive that learning cursive.
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In England...
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it's dead
Do kids need to learn it? Yes. They need to be able to decipher it when someone writes it as well as being able to sign their "John Hancock" with it. Beyond that, I don't think it's especially useful or needed.
|3331373|3|_||3, can you clarify what you mean by "ball and stick"? I don't quite follow your meaning there.
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Not Quiet Dead
Mostly because typing is much more efficent, and which would you rather you child take? A calligraphy class or a typing class? My bets would be that it would be a typing class, because they'll actually use such skills. While the calligraphy class will take you far beyond the basics that you need, and leave you with pretty writing and nothing else. Nobody wants cursive (teachers, business), it just isn't useful in todays world.
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I read a study that showed that people who blindly accept poor statistics from articles that equate causation with correlation are idiots.
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your teacher lied to you
For documentation that cursive signatures have no legal superiority to printed (or other non-cursive) signatures, visit the Frequently Asked Questions page of my Handwriting Repair [tm] web-site at http://learn.to/handwrite — then spread the word!
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err... so if you know cursive that makes you smart
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Cursive
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CURSIVE WRITING A MIND FEEDER
Thanks.
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ball and stick
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I turned out okay
Coincidentally, that was one year after they had tested my IQ and placed me in a gifted education program at school. I graduated with top honors, received awards for Art, Math, Music, and English (type-written papers) in high school--none of which were impacted by my incredibly ugly handwriting.
I have tried my best to improve my handwriting, but it just doesn't work for me. It's a blessing that we have electronic communication because I can rest assured that people will be able to read what I want to say, where if all we had were my handwriting most people wouldn't even bother trying to read it.
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Cursive is not necessarily better than print.
I always write in print and I completely boycott cursive even where it is required, simply because I forgot how and I want to make things easier for whoever is going to read my writing. My writing is a shorter and slightly more simplified version of print, and I can write it several times more quickly than cursive.
I also sign my signature in print. Why? So people are able read it, of course. It's impossible to recognise a K or a T in my mom's signature because it's just one squiggly line. If I am allowed, I may also place my favourite symbol next to it.
Also, there are many MANY substyles of writing in print, therefore it is rather difficult to forge a name in print. For many people, it is very difficult to write the text a, because they write the writing a instead. The text a has a curved antenna over it, while the writing a doesn't. I write the text a. Since I have for years, it looks natural and not "try-looking". My name has one lowercase a in it, so it's easy to spot a forge.
Also, many cursive letters look absolutely nothing like their print counterpart, and rather complicated to write, such as G, and Q, which looks more like a huge floppy 2 than anything else (Ramona Quimby thinks so too), and z, which I can easily mistake for a q. Last time I checked, z wasn't a tail letter.
On a semi-related note, I draw and write with fast, jerky movements, so I'm better at straight lines and angles than curved lines. Cursive has too many curves in it, which I can send spinning off in the wrong direction, killing the letter. My practice of bending curves into soft angles won't work. Print, is straight and more angular, exactly what I want, and saves me from having to change my writing/drawing style.
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Loss of Cursive Writing
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i am a kid
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My print handwriting is always nice and blocky & looks nothing like what they tried to teach me. My longhand looks both similar to my grandmother's old-fashioned script and the round letters they taught at my school. Both are very legible (and the longhand a novelty!).
Most people nowadays have crap handwriting. I hate it! If you can't write for someone else to read, you need to practice. My grandfather got me a notebook when I was nine in order to practice my writing in the form of a journal. For a year, he checked it weekly; it steadily improved.
Looking back at all my journals that I've kept in the decade since, I can see where I practiced with different styles of writing, different letters and forms, and how "bad" my handwriting is/was, yet how much nicer it grew and can be if I think about it.
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some oft-neglected facts about the matter
Regarding signatures: The legal sources (extensively researched by me and by my legal counsel) DO NOT justify the common assumption that signatures require cursive. The following material legally defining signatures and writing comes from definitions in BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY (eighth edition) and from definitions in the revised Uniform Commercial Code (law in all fifty USA states).
From the BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY [ ] entry for "Signature" -
"A signature may be written by hand, printed, stamped, typewritten, engraved, photographed, or cut from one instrument and attached to another, and a signature lithographed on an instrument by a party is sufficient for the purpose of signing it, it being immaterial with what kind of instrument a signature is made. ... whatever mark, symbol, or device one may choose to employ as a representative of himself is sufficient ... The name or mark of a person, written by that person at his or her direction. In commercial law, any name, word, or mark used with the intention to authenticate a writing constitutes a signature. UCC 1-201(39), 3-401(2). A signature is made by use of any name, including any trade or assumed name, upon an instrument, or by any word or mark used in lieu of a written signature."
From the BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY definition for "Writing" -
"The expression of ideas by letters visible to the eye."
Articles 1-201 (39) and 1-201 (46) of the revised Uniform Commercial Code :
(39) "Signed" includes any symbol executed or adopted by a party with present intention to authenticate a writing.
(46) "Written" or "Writing" includes printing, typewriting, or any other intentional reduction to tangible form.
Neither source mentions cursive as a requirement for signatures or for handwriting.
For more information/resources on the above issues (and on other handwriting instruction/performance issues), visit my web-site at http://www.learn.to/handwrite . You can also contact me via e-mail at handwritingrepair@gmail.com or via phone at 518/482-6763. By the way ... teaching kids to read cursive (whether or not they write it) takes an hour or less if done properly. I have taught five- and six-year-olds to read cursive, if they could read print.
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lol
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Cursive Writing
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cursive and children
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Cursive writing
Do you know of any workshops in Miami, Fl.
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Cursive not lost
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Cursive writing is only a manifestation of the cognitive functions
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Cursive
The problem with learning cursive is that you have to write it far more than you read it. Books, worksheets, and most text you encounter in daily life is written in print form, so the cursive you see on the worksheets is just plain "strange." How can you learn to write in a form you don't read very often?
Also, print is much simpler because every letter looks the same regardless of the letters around it. In cursive, letters "morph" if certain letters follow them. For example, if I write the word "lost," the S looks different from how it would look if I wrote "last," because the "tail" on the right of the O causes an issue with how the S connects to it. Also, the M and N do weird things with their "humps" when preceded by certain letters. I'm sure that these "exceptions to the rules" overwhelm many young kids.
There was a comment above about "printing like young children." I don't agree that printing is "childish." It's just standard. After all, this blog is not typed in cursive.
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Re: Cursive
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Re: Re: Cursive
BFHhandwriting.com, handwritingsuccess.com, briem.net, HandwritingThatWorks.com, italic-handwriting.org, studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/curriculum.html
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some facts on handwriting, cursive and otherwise
For more information, visit
http://www.HandwritingRepair.info/WritingRebels.html
and
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.co m
Kate Gladstone
founder of Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
director of the World Handwriting Contest
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handwriting
Cursive was not meant to be fast. I think it challenges your creative spirit, and many kids can use that in this Cyber-age! I also find that my children don't have to write a lot at all. Most work comes home on pre-printed sheets, with game-like excercises. They rarely actually have to fill in a word. What kind of language program is that?!
It seems to come down to teachers not having enough time to actually come up with real writing exercises.
I brought some writing books from Belgium for them to start working on a good skill to know in life.
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what cursive teachers don't want you to know about handwriting
Since learning to read cursive takes an hour or less (I've taught five-year-olds to do it), and learning to write cursive takes a year or more, I do recommend that students learn how to read cursive for the sake of those who still write in cursive. But why require students to write in a style that the fastest and clearest handwriters avoid?
Kate Gladstone
handwriting instruction and remediation specialist --
Founder, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works --
Director, the World Handwriting Contest --
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
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Writing
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Cursive Writing versus Printing
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pritn and curcive
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brother has illegible handwriting
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Cursive
There is reason to believe that we become more intergated more whole in terms of brain function when we write in cursive. Is this good or bad or just a matter of opinion. Or is it in reality something that may result in altering our behavior and society? We have come a long way since body language was all we had to commnicate. Are we willing to take a step that requires a dependency on technology?
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Cursive handwriting
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Re: Cursive handwriting
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Handwriting matters ... but does cursive matter?
Legible cursive writing averages no faster than printed handwriting of equal or greater legibility.
Further research shows that cursive does NOT objectively improve the reading, spelling, or language of students who have dyslexia or dysgraphia.
(Sources for all research are available on request.)
The fastest, clearest handwriters avoid cursive. Highest speed and legibility in handwriting belong to those who join some letters, not all: joining the most easily joined letter-combinations, leaving the rest unjoined, using print-like shapes for letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree.
Reading cursive still matters — but this is much easier and quicker to master than writing the same way too. Simply reading cursive can be taught in just 30-60 minutes — even to five- or six-year-olds (including those with dyslexia) once they read ordinary print. (There's even an iPad app teaching how. The app — “Read Cursive” — is a free download: appstore.com/readcursive )
Teaching material for more practical handwriting abounds: fluency WITHOUT cursive.
Some examples, often with student work: BFHhandwriting.com, handwritingsuccess.com, briem.net, HandwritingThatWorks.com, italic-handwriting.org, studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/curriculum.html )
Even here in the United States, educated adults are quitting cursive. In 2012, handwriting teachers across North America were surveyed at a conference hosted by Zaner-Bloser, a cursive textbook publisher. Only 37% wrote in cursive; another 8% printed. The majority — 55% — wrote with some elements resembling print-writing, others resembling cursive.
When even most handwriting teachers don't use cursive, why exalt it?
Cursive's devotees sometimes claim that cursive justifies anything said or done to promote it. They state (in sworn testimony before school boards and state legislatures) that cursive cures dyslexia or prevents it, that it lets your brain work, that it creates proper grammar and spelling, that it teaches etiquette and patriotism and reasoning, or that it does anything else educationally imaginable. Some invoke research: citing studies that turn out to be misquoted or otherwise misrepresented by the claimant.
That eagerness to misrepresent research has substantial consequences, as the misrepresentations are made — under oath — in testimony to school districts, state legislatures, and other bodies voting on educational measures. Proposals for cursive are, without exception, introduced by legislators or others whose misrepresentations (in their own testimony) are later revealed — though investigative reporting does not always prevent the bill from passing into law, even when discoveries include signs of undue influence on the legislators promoting the cursive bill. (Documentation on request: I'm glad to speak to anyone interested in bringing this serious issue before the public.)
By now, you probably wonder: “What about signatures?” Brace yourself: in any nation, cursive signatures have no special legal validity over other kinds. (Hard to believe? Ask any attorney!)
Questioned document examiners (specialists in identification of signatures, verification of documents, etc.) tell me that the least forgeable signatures are the plainest. Most cursive signatures are loose scrawls: the rest, if they follow the rules of cursive at all, are fairly complicated: these make a forger's life easy.
All handwriting, not just cursive, is individual — just as all handwriting involves fine motor skills. That is why any first-grade teacher can immediately identify (from the print-writing on unsigned work) which of 25 or 30 students produced it.
Calling for cursive to support handwriting is like calling for top hats and crinolines to support the art of tailoring.
Kate Gladstone —
DIRECTOR, the World Handwriting Contest
CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works — 518-482-6763
165 North Allen Street
Albany, NY 12206-1706 USA
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
handwritingrepair@gmail.com
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