In their eagerness to drag the schools and children of their states back to the early 20th century, legislators in North Carolina and South Carolina want to mandate the teaching of cursive writing. (North Carolina Los wants to pass a law mandating that all children memorize the multiplication tables.) these legislators usually spend their time coming up with ways to privatize public schools.
In this comment, handwriting expert Kate Gladstone explains why the cursive mandate is a bad idea.
Kate Gladstone writes:
The NC cursive bill is ill-advised and ill-motivated. Below are the most explainable reasons it is so: and all members of the NC Senate have by now received (from me and from some colleagues of mine(0) the same damning facts.)
By the way, I’ve recently learned that SOUTH Carolina has introduced [April 9th] an identically worded bill, against which I must now direct my efforts. The South Carolina bill is still in committee, and I am writing the committee-members an e-mail to try killing it there. For now, below) is my conclusion on the NC bill.
The originator of the “Back to Basics” bill, Rep. Pat Hurley (of Asheboro), has documentably committed misrepresentations during the presentation that she made, in support of that bill, to her fellow legislators.
Here is why I am concerned about Rep. Hurley with regard to this matter:
The extensive presentation already made to the legislature by the bill’s sponsor (Rep. Pat Hurley) documentably contains serious evasions or misrepresentations of fact. These are visible in the publicly available (WRAL-TV) video of her testimony — which was presumably under oath — to the North Carolina House Education Committee: http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/video/12268754/
In her presentatio, Rep. Hurley asserts that the importance of cursive has been proven by research done by persons whom she identifies only as the “PET scan people.” She states that this research established that the human brain “doesn’t work” (direct quote) while one is keyboarding, and that “only one half” (direct quote) of the brain actually works while one is print-writing. (It takes cursive writing, she alleges, to allow the entire brain to work).
Since her presentation does not give a checkable source for that very surprising statement, I asked her office to please send me the research, or at least a citation that could back it up. The material she chose to send in response (which I will happily forward to anyone, on request: handwritingrepair@gmail.com ) turns out, on inspection, to be seriously discrepant with the claims she makes to the House Education Committee about the research findings. (In other words: the research doesn’t say what she claims it says.) Specifically, the research she misrepresents — like other research, to be described and cited below — does not support her claim of a superiority for cursive or her claim of an essential role for cursive handwriting in education, and therefore it does not support a legislative mandate for cursive handwriting instruction.
In her presentation to the House Education Committee, Rep. Hurley denies the legality of signatures not written in cursive, which she describes as “no signatures” (direct quote), although the legality of these signatures is asserted and protected by the state and federal laws that she is sworn to uphold.
Specifically: a. The UCC 1-201(37) — North Carolina General Statutes § 25‑1‑201(37) — specifies that “‘Signed’ includes using any symbol executed or adopted with present intention to adopt or accept a writing.” b. Further, the North Carolina General Statutes 12-3(10) state, for use in statutes: “Provided, that in all cases where a written signature is required by law, the same shall be in a proper handwriting, or in a proper mark.” (Admittedly, Rep. Hurley may be choosing personally to exclude printed handwritings from the category of “a proper handwriting” — if so, she has not pointed to any legal defense or rationale for such exclusion.)
Yet another legally questionable representation made by Representative Hurley during her presentation to the House Education Committee is her claim that non-cursive handwritten signatures (e.g., printed signatures) need to be observed by two witnesses. In North Carolina, as in most states, the only signatures or marks needing witnesses are those made on a will (North Carolina General Statutes, Section 31, 3.3, on attested wills) — and in that case, two witnesses are required for all signatures (including, in other words, for cursive signatures as well as for non-cursive signatures).
Concerns other than misrepresentation of research include the significant body of research which has not been represented at all in the deliberations. This research — also forwardable by me on request — shows that the fastest, most legible handwriters do not join all letters, but only some letters: making the easiest joins, skipping the others, and using print-like shapes for letters whose cursive and printed shapes disagree. Such facts throw a revealing light on efforts to mandate a form of handwriting which requires joining all letters and using different shapes for cursive versus printed letters.
Reading cursive, of course, matters vitally. However, cursive’s cheerleaders forget that one can learn to read a writing style without learning to produce it. (If we had to learn to write every style that we needed to read, we would have to learn to read and write all over again whenever anyone invented a new font.)
For this reason, it is odd that the documents most often adduced (as the presumed evidence that writing in a particular style is the only way to learn to read that style) are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Some material in each document — the Constitution’s “We the People,” for instance — is penned, not in any form of cursive at all, but in “Olde Englishe” Blackletter. Are Rep. Hurley and her supporters, crusading for cursive on the grounds that “you can’t learn to read it unless you write it,” going to call next for a mandate of “Olde Englishe” Blackletter in the elementary schools?
Reading cursive — when one does not have to learn how to write the same way — can be taught in 30 to 60 minutes to any small child who has learned to read ordinary printing. Why not just spend an inexpensive hour teaching children to read cursive — then use the time saved, and the money saved, to teach them to use some more practical form of handwriting themselves?
Most adults, after all, no longer use cursive.
In 2012, a survey of handwriting teachers (source available on request) attending a national conference sponsored by the Zaner-Bloser firm — a well-known handwriting publisher which strongly advocates for cursive — revealed that only 37 percent of these devotees of penmanship (fewer than two-fifths!) actually used cursive for their own handwriting; another 8 percent wrote in print. The majority — 55 percent — wrote a hybrid: some features of their handwriting resembled cursive, but other features of their handwriting resembled print-writing (This compares well with the research noted above, on the handwriting habits of highly effective handwriters.) Knowing this, why (and how) prioritize cursive?
The idolatrous worship cursive is not supported by fact, or by law, or by common sense. Neither should it be supported by a legislative mandate.
HandwritingThatWorks.com
Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
and the World Handwriting Contest
Cursive was originally developed to facilitate writing with quills dipped in ink pots, where it is messy and difficult to lift the writing implement off the page frequently. I admire cursive aesthetically, but it is not pedagogically or orthographically essential anymore.
That’s actually not the reason — ink pots and dip pens were in use for several thousands of years before cursive as we know it (with all the letters joined, and so on) was created. Its creation was for quite different reasons, which are equally inapplicable to handwriting today, but which (like most accurate info) requiremore factual explanation than the easy “ink-pot” sound-bite of a guess. Since the actual explanation is of help in understanding some handwriting issues, please phone me and we’ll talk … Or send me your own phone-number, if you prefer: my contact-info is at http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com .
“Below are the most explainable reasons. . . ” I hope that is a typo!
The “Below are the most explainable reasons” was indeed a typo. If you’re curious about those reasons, or anything else pertaining to handwriting, give me a call! (I gladly speak to groups.)
Penmanship should be taught, however, regardless of what arbitrary decision is ultimately made about what style is taught. Frankly, I wish I had taken penmanship more seriously as a young student.
Thank you, Diane! As stated in earlier correspondence between us, the same bill (word-for-word!) is now indeed in the South Carolina legislature, which it entered on April 9. It is in the South Carolina House Committee for Public Works and Education; may I ask readers of this blog to write to that Committee’s eighteen members (the Committee, with its membership, is easily Googled by its title) and to include or summarize the material from the blog entry? Those wishing further help re this matter should e-me or phone me — my contact-info is on my web-site at http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com .
The info on keyboarding only using half the brain is so inaccurate. Brain studies at UCLA and other research universities consistently show that using the computer, and keyboarding, creates higher order thinking. It is recommended by geriatrics experts to older people to create new brain paths and keep the brain working.
So much nonsense is purported. As we know from our medical prescriptions, too often cursive is barely readable.
I’d very much like to see the brain studies you mention, Ellen. I tried to e-mail you the research you requested from me, but the e-mail address you provided isn’t working. If you e-mail me at http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com , I will then have your correct e-mail address.
I got your second request, Ellen, BUT my second attempt to fulfill it bounced, too — though I checked your address _five_ times and found no error before replying! Do you have an e-mail address that works _both_ ways? Whether you do or not, please give me a call ASAP or send me your phone-number, so I can answer your other questions. My phone number is 518-482-6763 (in Albany, NY).
Here, Ellen, is why you haven’t received what I have sent twice:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
UCLApolicywonk@aol.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain aol.com by mailin-04.mx.aol.com. [205.188.146.194].
The error that the other server returned was:
521 5.2.1 : (HVU:B2) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554hvub2.html
Mother Goose: “If all the world were paper, and all the sea were ink, and all the trees were bread and cheese, what would we have to drink?”
Since only the sea is ink, you drink the water in the lakes, ponds, and rivers of course
Not only is the “half-brained” info inaccurate — when I asked the NC bill’s sponsor for the research she’d cited, the article that she sent me actually shows the direct opposite.
Specifically, it shows keyboarding increases activity in both sides of the brain … and that it is _handwriting_ (including cursive) that increases the activity in only one side of the brain.
(This makes me wonder, of course, which side of the brain was responsible fir the lack of reading comprehension shown by the legislator who sent me that article as her source for believing the opposite.)
I’ll be happy to forward the article to anyone who e-mails me a request: handwritingrepair@gmail.com . To let me know which article you want, please have your subject-line and/or body-text include the words “seeking the research that was misrepresented by Pat Hurley.”
Kate…wish we could mandate reading comprehension testing on all legislators. Please send me your info. Thanks for factual material.
UCLApolicywonk@aol.com
Ellen Lubic — when I tried to send you the article, you e-address BOUNCED.
?!?!?! I need a working e-address for you, in order to fulfill your request.
Ellen Lubic — when I tried to send you the article, you e-address BOUNCED.
?!?!?!
Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.
Cursive handwriting is good for the soul and good for the mind. Do not like mandates like this though.,..
Re: “Cursive handwriting is good for the soul and good for the mind” — I’ve seen no evidence that it is any better, in this regard, than any of the other styles of handwriting. Further, my own experiences with it (as a “cursive washout” with a father who was the same way: he went to school back when Palmer Method was king) speak to the contrary, as do many of the experiences of my students.
I am 50 years old, and did not write legibly, let alone rapidly, till I self-remediated at age 24. During those efforts, cursive did not work at all for me — in speed, legibility, “goodness for the soul and mind'” or on any other criterion. Yet print-writing, too, has shortcomings of its own.
What eventually worked for me — which I have since taught to others, and see working well for them, but WOULD NOT violate my own principles by mandating through any government agency — is italic handwriting. If you want to know what that is, you can see some (and learn more) on these web-sites (on various forms of italic) by various teachers and users thereof:
http://www.BFHhandwriting.com – http://www.handwritingsuccess.com – http://www.briem.net – http://www.italic-handwriting.org -http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
The last site is mine.
Sell and make a living however you choose. My opinions and experience no longer produce income. So, I’ll offer once again; cursive writing is good for the soul and good for the mind.
Sell away, Kate
Galton speaks of selling as though he believed it was wrong to produce anything that someone wanted enough to pay for it.
Sell and make a living however you choose.
I still think ‘cursive ‘writing should be taught, in spite of what most people may do. I was shocked when I heard that it was no longer taught. I notice that people often now hold pens with a ‘fist’, (ala Shakespeare?), rather than the way I was taught. We never called it cursive, and I am not sure just what that is. We called it penmanship or handwriting. And yes with inkwells, but I won’t insist on that. 😉 My fourth grade teacher. Miss Ferris, had beautiful hand writing. Something desirable to emulate. Keyboards will disappear someday, perhaps sooner than you think. How long has it been since you saw a key punch machine? So good, legible. penmanship will still be good to have.
This is short sighted.
We have better type fonts on computers now because Steve Jobs learned and valued typography. Otherwise we would all now be using typewriter type faces. And Fred Brooks, then of IBM, gave us lower case letters on computers. Imagine not having those.
Isn’t this a lot like the calculator argument? Quick , what is 2 times 2? I hope you don’t need to go find yours.
Side note, the slide rule gave me the ability to estimate calculations quickly, a very useful skill. But I won’t ask that they be reinstated. 😉
PS I am a retired, but active, math professor.
Though the word “fist” was indeed (from about 1600-1900) a slangy synonym fir handwriting, by all evidence the people of those ages were _carefully_ taught how to hold their pens … though not all of the hand-positions taught, including a few developed around the 18th century and still being taught for cursive, actually work with modern-dy pens. (Oddly, the best pen-holds for modern pens include some taught during the Renaissance that fell out of favor later, after highly pointed and flexible pen-nibs had in fashion for a couple of centuries and replaced the Renaissance flat-cut style … )
Not all excellent handwriting is 100% joined — in fact, cursive didn’t even begin to get 100% joined until the late Baroque era.
Whatever kind of handwriting you favor, I’m wondering if you and other readers would like a look at an on-line copy of the first book ever printed on the subject of handwriting. Let me know, and I’ll fetch the link!
Yes indeed. Always open to new facts. Incidentally, when I first entered my second grade classroom, I was bored waiting, and saw a banner across the top of the black board with printed and written letters side by side. So I ‘wrote’ my name. I didn’t connect the letters tho. 😉
Re:
“We have better type fonts on computers now because Steve Jobs learned and valued typography.”
By Steve Jobs’ own statement (http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html), he learned typography — and calligraphy, too — at Reed College. The letter a rts training there does not use cursive, and (as far as I can discover) never has — as the program was founded by a teacher who abhorred that style (One of the other commenters here, Fred Mildrum, studied with the Reed College letter arts program’s founder — Lloyd J. Reynolds, an italic teacher — and he can verify that fact.)
If learning and valuing typography depended on joining all the letters in handwriting (which is what most people mean when they say “cursive'”), typography could not have been invented till several hundred years after it actually was.
I educate my children at home. They know and actively use their cursive in all their writing. They will also know typing as that is vital to the economic industry of today’s society. That being said, I would be one “crazy mama” if the schools didn’t try to teach it to children. My daughter came out of public schools at the end of first grade and new nothing about cursive. Now, at the end of second, she writes it and writes it well. She reads my writing (which is not always a good thing 🙂 and is so proud of her new “language”. It is very important for children to learn this form of writing. How can it not be?
Reading cursive is very important. Nobody has yet demonstrated to my satisfaction that its important to write the same way, too. If I’m wrong, I want to see for sure that I am wrong — so, Amanda, out of your love fir the matter, please convince me.
If I may answer for Amanda, no Kate, you convince me. I see the impact of poor penmanship every day. Just saying “research shows” will not convince me that the fine motor skills developed by cursive would not help my students communicate.
I’m not arguing for poor penmanship. I’m pointing out that the word “cursive” is not a synonym of the words “good penmanship.” Much good penmanship is neither cursive nor print-writing, and not all cursive penmanhip is good.
What would you like me to convince you of — and what evidence, if it existed and you had it, would you deem convincing?
Michael — your argument might have made more sense if joining all lower-case (and most upper-case) letters were the only means of developing fine motor skills.
Please let me know whether you regard the handwritings seen here — http://www.italic-handwriting.org — as giving evidence of fine motor skills, and whether you regard those handwritings as cursive.
That “fir” should have been “for” (of course). Very few of us dyslexics are good typists …
Diane, Perhaps I’m having a bad day and didn’t quite get the point of this blog, but are you saying that learning cursive is a bad idea? Frank Breslin
Frank Breslin, I am saying that education ceases to be a profession when legislators tell teachers what to do.
Is there something wrong with memorzing the multiplication tables? I think the memorization is important just like the memorization of the alphabet. Even if students don’t have a total understanding of the multiplication process they can pull the information quickly to the surface and use it. I had to learn the tables and while it wasn’t particularly fun the product is still something that comes instantly – always a pleasure at my advanced age;^) We didn’t have calculators when I was in school (including college) so having that little bit of immediate access has always helpful. I can say my tables faster than the students can enter them.
We memorize the alphabet and it’s order long before we can read and use the letters and the “order” factor. Just because something new comes along doesn’t mean we have to lose the basic skills and concepts. I don’t believe that the NC legislature expects every child to memorize their tables, just the students who fall within certain parameters (whatever those are). Certainly no child should be failed for not knowing them. I haven’t seen any responses to this by math teachers, so perhaps I will encounter a difference of opinion or 1×2.
As far as I can discover, nobody yet has objected to the provision on the multiplication tables! In the video of the House Education Committee testimony, referenced above, several of the legislators say (to one or another person giving testimony) that they’d approve this portion of the bill, but that they do not want to approve the cursive portion — however, in the end they unanimously voted for the bill, as did the rest of the NC House. Perhaps no Representatove wanted to go on record as opposing arithmetic … Why SHOULD those two very different subjects have been rolled into one bill, anyway?
Why should legislators tell teachers how or what to teach?
Nothing wrong at all. It should be done. Do you gave to think about it every time you do it?
Ms. Cartwright, I love the fact that I memorized the multiplication tables when I was in school many years ago. But I strongly object to legislators telling teachers how to teach or what to teach.
I am not a historian of education, but how often in our history has education been divorced from political control? If the state is going to require students to attend particular schools, it seems to me the state has an obligation to closely regulate those schools. Poor choices by legislators is the risk that those of us who send our children to public schools must bare.
It’s Ms. Cartwheel, Diane! The name is one that has been given to me many times over the years by students “disremembering” my very simple name and twisting it about a bit. It is always independently given by the students and I don’t correct them, I love the spontaneity of the utterance.
I confess that I haven’t a clue as to how curriculum is adopted. Clearly theer is money at stake in each instance. I simply meant to comment on bringing a little memorization back into the classroom. I don’t feel that it hurt me and sometimes just knowing something is helpful. It can be a fun activity incorporated into the class involving many different learning styles. It is a tool (just like those ten precious little fingers.)
I could go on and on pulling in verb conjugation and diagraming sentences but I will hop off my soap box and head back to curing the rest of whatever ails the world (for those who have humor impairments, that last bit was meant in jest.)
Returning to the classroom after a 30 year absence, I was (and am) appalled by the inability of students to communicate via pencil and paper. The “fist” grip is in no way conducive to the detail required for math and engineering (no, I did not drink the STEM Kool-aid). I believe the lost emphasis on manipulating a pencil has nothing to do with any kind of “research shows” (the most suspect phrase in the English language) and more to do with testing. How much dexterity does it take to bubble? Especially since in DC or Atlanta, your answers will just be changed anyway.
I vote for cursive.
I hate that phrase, ‘research shows’. it is often used to shut down a discussion, not to enlighten. If it research does ‘show’, cite it.
But I don’t need a (possibly flawed) study to convince me.
Handwriting research on speed and legibility:
/1/ Steve Graham, Virginia Berninger, and Naomi Weintraub. “The Relation between Handwriting Style and Speed and Legibility.” JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, Vol. 91, No. 5 (May – June, 1998), pp. 290-296: on-line at http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27542168.pdf
/2/ Steve Graham, Virginia Berninger, Naomi Weintraub, and William Schafer. “Development of Handwriting Speed and Legibility in Grades 1-9.”
JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, Vol. 92, No. 1 (September – October, 1998), pp. 42-52: on-line at http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27542188.pdf
Zaner-Bloser handwriting survey: Results on-line at http://www.hw21summit.com/media/zb/hw21/files/H2937N_post_event_stats.pdf
I am grateful that my third-grader has learned cursive this year. His print is illegible, his cursive is not! It’s wonderful! That said, I think legislation regarding it is a huge waste of time and resources.
Italic cursive is awesome (as taught in the Inga Dubay books). I wish they would teach it.
They do teach it, in some schools in the USA (and in more places elsewhere: many of the English-speaking nations, and some nations of Europe). Whether to regard italic as cursive, of course, depends on whether one regards cursive as requiring absolutely all lower-case letters to connect within every word. (That definition is commoner in North America than elsewhere, as are the writing-styles that fit that definition. Several European countries’ school handwriting styles — including, e.g., those of some Scandinavian countries — are in fact italic or strongly italic-based: although they are often locally known by words that get translated into English as “cursive.”)
Although no USA state mandates italic handwriting (and I am GLAD they don’t! The government should not dictate how we are to write), at least two states that are often _claimed_ to mandate cursive (California and, much more recently, Kansas) in fact state in their current curricular standards that requirements for handwriting in the upper grades may be fulfilled by either cursive or joined italic.
(California curricular statement on this matter, originally adopted in 1996 and reaffirmed in 2012— http://www.myboe.org/portal/default/Standards/Browser?action=2&view=level&id=5472
Kansas curricular statement on this matter, adopted in 2013 —
http://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/Learning%20and%20Innovative%20Services%20Documents/Handwriting%20PPT.ppt )
Often, the above standards are misquoted in the media (in those states as well as elsewhere) as being for cursive rather than permitting either style. Such misrepresentations then enter (perhaps in good faith) formal and informal discussions of handwriting.
It can be upsetting, to those whose faith in cursive exceeds the accuracy of their information on the matter, to be in any position that confronts then with evidence for any of the above facts. I will never forget the third-grade teacher who asked me to send her some information — for a class project of some sort — showing how handwriting is taught and performed in various countries that use our alphabet. Since the samples I sent included a few from countries where some form of italic is commonly taught or is even nationwide — as well as samples from countries whose cursive, while not italic, is very different from the models typical of North America. When she received these, she angrily phoned me to demand “How DARE this be true?!”
If you like, Harold (or anyone), I can put you in touch with the authors of the Getty-Dubay italic handwriting materials and/or the Barchowsky handwriting materials. Getty-Dubay — http://www.handwritingsuccess.com — Barchowsky: http://www.BFHhandwriting.com (let me know via e-mail whether you also need direct e-mail addresses.)
I would have to agree that legislators are largely unqualified to tell teachers what to teach. I also remember kids getting in trouble when assignments completed in the mandated cursive more closely resembled what my teachers called chicken scratch. I do however think that it is important to teach children some form of penmanship. I attended an old fashioned Catholic school in the late ’90s. We were expected to practice handwriting daily and learned several calligraphy fonts in junior high. To this day, my handwriting is praised and I appreciate that I could pen formal invitations if I wanted.
I, however, always object from taking the choice from children. We were all taught cursive and choose whether to use it or not. If we decide we will not teach it, we steal that choice from the kids. Don’t you think?
Since choice is on your mind, why not increase the choices by teaching several styles AND showing how each derived from the one(s) that preceded it in history? That is what I do, as a tutor, when I work with kids whose schools mandate cursive.
I appreciated the opportunity to learn various styles. It is my opinion that handwriting is a type of art. It can be so beautiful. It can also show expression and feeling. Think about how writing varies when a person is experiencing stress, happiness, etc.
I just say don’t steal the opportunity. I think that children should be allowed to learn as much as they can or want to. We should at least provide the opportunity.
What makes Kate Gladstone an “expert” on handwriting? Has she been qualified to testify in court as an expert? Has she written well-regarded books on the subject? Is she a handwriting analyst? Or is she someone who has is simply promoting her own agenda?
I never call myself an expert. I leave that to others.
I am in 100% in agreement with Diane in that legislators should not be telling/making laws which prescribe to teachers what they must teach. That having been said, in speaking with active teachers about teaching cursive (or any handwriting skills for that matter), they tell me that they no longer have the time, what with all the concentration on test prep.and testing (the MAPs, the ISATs, the AIMs, the DIBELs,etc.). So far, in our discussions, we all agree that children should, indeed, be taught cursive, but not graded on it or criticized for their efforts/results (as we were in the days of yore). We used to go too far one way–forcing lefties to write with their right hands, or continually posturing little ones’ fingers around their pencils to form a “perfect” grip. Teaching handwriting, to me, is like teaching art: the instructor provides the methods, and the students come up with their interpretations. As one who is dysgraphic, and has fairly illegible handwriting (to many), I still feel fortunate that I was exposed to the methodology, as my note-taking skills are excellent, what with my rapid writing & shorthand, all of which credit goes to my teachers. And–I can ALWAYS read/transcribe my own notes. (I was also consistently able to read the mostly horrendous scribblings of my learning disabled students, making their academic lives a great deal less stressful.)
Thank you, 1950s & ’60s elementary school teachers!
I agree that this bill is a bad idea. I don’t like legislators telling teachers how to teach. I have enjoyed reading the debate about cursive writing and the pros/ cons, necessity/ non-necessity of teaching how to write it, just read it, etc. in the comments here! Maybe a solution to everyone’s problem would be to place more value on the art in education and include ‘cursive writing’ (whatever that might mean to each individual) in a segment on calligraphy. I can understand points from all sides of the debate whether or not cursive writing should be taught. But from my own perspective (whatever that’s worth) as an artist and someone who just truly enjoys using my hands and creating tangible things, the art and pure joy of creating these beautifully letters in all the different fonts and styles has value for me. I gave my 5 year old son a calligraphy marker and we had so much fun making up different letter styles together! Incidentally, in PreK, he was given a multiple-choice assessment (thank you Common Core) and one question asked him to choose the word that was written the best. I found them all to be legible, but one was wavy and one tilted right, one tilted left, one was straight. Of coure, we all know which answer was meant to be correct, but I thought to myself, “how subjective…”
Since some styles of handwriting and printing teach a slight slant (rather than vertical), a question on “which one is written the best” (that expects the answer “the unslanted one”) may disadvantage a child familiar with the “wrong” program — no matter how well he or she writes.
I am just a “guy” without all the letters after my name. However, I deal with handwritten/hand printed alleged suicide notes, homicide writing/printing, sexual, religious, ethnic/racial, bomb/terrorism notes, comments, remarks, etc,. authored in styles I did not know even existed.
Certain of these documents that are handwritten tend to be authored by women. Hand printed documents usually are authored by men. When I take exemplars from men they usually say they do not write and only print.
When I ask them how they endorse their checks they say: I sign (write/cursive) my name.
I can not ever recalling a women responding in this manner. School students (male/female) who are notorious for bomb, sexual, racial and death threats usually hand print. When handwritten you can bet it was authored by a female.
At times if you did not know they were students you would think they were bombed out of their mind with alcohol and/or drugs.
Alleged sexual abuse journals/diaries authored by women can be in handwriting and/or hand printing.
Male school teachers who send sexually harassing notes to other female teachers… or students… always hand print. So what does all this have to do with the topic at hand?
Whether you handwrite or hand print, whether it be Palmer Z-B, cutie que, mumbo-jumbo, slang or or with a crayon; communication to and from a person or people of interest usually is done by means of handwriting and/or hand printing. Unless you want to carry a lap-top around with you. Most usually do not care what style they are using as long as the message is delivered.
Anyway, whatever way you communicate by means of pen, pencil, crayon or scratches…. and I am called in.. I usually track you down! What is that old saying? “Follow the paper trail.” There is always a paper trail and always will!
For those who doubt me; I have page upon page of actual handwritten/hand printed sexual, hate, terror and misplaced love letters in my files.
In closing and at the risk of being “blocked”, it really does not matter if the writing slant is left,vertical or right; pretty, cute or whatever. There is not doubt that students are not receiving proper training in cursive. But they are quite proficient in hand printing sexual, racial, bomb and death threats and other forms of hate correspondence. And, mature women and men who are jealous, angry, jilted or going through a divorce are guilty as well.
Their correspondence/message/comments and/or allegations authored in cursive and hand printed ~ in whatever “style” can knock you back a little.
Kate, am I screwing up this issue? If so, please excuse me for I am just a guy.
XO Ron Rice
For what it’s worth, Ron — my signature (on checks and elsewhere) uses print-like letters, some of which are joined. (Sample on request.)
Material here adds usefully to discussions of cursive and other handwriting:
Click to access Questions%20About%20Cursive.pdf
I’d also be interested in others’ thoughts about video of a handwriting improvement class — http://handwritingsuccess.com/news.php
Reblogged this on Kate Gladstone’s Weblog and commented:
What do YOU think?
I disagree. Cursive writing is an important motor discipline that all children should learn. When the lights go out and the computers are down – it helps to be able to write!!
mb
When the lights go down and the computers are out — why would you suppose that cursive was the *only* style that still worked?
Our alphabet is full of motorically disciplined handwriting styles that aren’t cursive.
Here’s one:
https://mobile.twitter.com/adzebill/status/255478574121889792
Here are more examples:
https://www.google.com/search?q=italic+handwriting+image
If “motor discipline” depended on handwriting being in cursive, the human race would never have survived long enough to invent cursive … or anything else.
Hi Kate I am Debanjan from Kolkata , India.
Actually do you think that in comparison to keyboard typing , handwriting (any kind of handwriting) is more creative and better ?
My own personal concern is (being from software industry) that people lose their patience become anxious way too often and lose their presence of mind very often.
Please tell in comparison to handwriting whether keyboard typing is in all senses good or bad ?
Dear Debajan — In my experience, handwriting and keyboarding are both very important; in different ways. Each one should support and assist the other, because each one has its own contribution to make to the complete task of mastering and using written communication. To ask “Which is better and more creative: handwriting or typing?” Is like asking “Which is better: the eyes or the ears?”
Should anyone wish to receive advice about Dyslexia / Dyspraxia, please let me know, I will be happy to explain what goes wrong within children’s handwriting. If your child is not taught handwriting properly, they will end up suffering from Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.Feel free to email me info@JMGraphology.org.uk
I have dyslexia, dyspraxia, and a career as a handwriting teacher because I self-remediated at age 24 (it’s a long story, and unlikely to interest everyone, so e-mail me privately if you are actually interested: handwritingrepair@gmail.com). My late father, too, gave strong signs of both conditions also, although he had been taught handwriting in a school that prided itself on teaching handwriting “properly.” It would be very interesting to know, James Marshall, precisely what you recommend should be done.
For those who have followed the course of the “Back to Basics” Bull from its beginnings in the House — where it is now headed, once again, to be reconciled with its Senate version before the governor can sign it— it’s been interesting to see the level of the legislative discussions on this bill swiftly descend. House testimony on the bill began with claims presented to the Educstion Committee as factual — which soon turned out not to be.
After those claims had been exposed, what could be left? Personal anecdote and reminiscences: these could not be verified, after all — these composed yesterday’s Senate discussion. (The eight brief minutes of that discussion would have been much longer, and much more difficult for the Senate’s members, if that discussion had had to mention the issues of integrity and accuracy which have become notorious in connections with the bill’s content and its presumed support.)
Since I do not live in North Carolina, I wonder whether perhaps greater integrity, greater concern for facts, may be expected of Governor McCrory when the time soon comes to either approve, or veto, the bill. It’s been notable that, without exception, all the unfavorable facts and comments regarding the bill have stemmed from cursive: nobody’s objecting to arithmetic!
Could it be that the reason two such disparate matters — cursive and the multiplication tables — were shoveled into one bill was to create a “package deal” — to construct a situation where politicians would fear noticing the integrity issues involved in one part of the bill, because to reject that part of the bill (for even the strongest of reasons) would expose them to the risk of also being portrayed as opponents of math?
If so, would it perhaps be within the Governor’s authority to send the bill back with the request that it be separated into two bills (one for each of two very different issues) and considered that way, from the beginning, instead of melting the two issues as one and expecting that conglomeration to be passed into law without adverse comment from Governor McCrory or from anyone else?
Cursive may not be the be-all and end-all of writing. It may not be the best or most useful form of writing. But, according to the College Board, SAT essays written in cursive were scored higher.
I use cursive every day of my life, and I did not learn it until I was in my late 20s due to dysgraphia and poor instruction. Like most kids with poor handwriting, I avoided writing as much as possible– now I find pleasure in writing, because it actually looks neat and I know how to properly form all of the letters.
Funny, I use cursive writing all the time. It allows me to write notes faster on the fly. I learned at a young age to write in cursive and consider it to be a useful skill.
I also know of young people that can’t read cursive writing because they were not taught it in school. These young people are at a disadvantage. I believe that mandating that cursive writing be taught in schools is a good thing.
ending cursive writing in the schools is another example of the New york State Education Department’s dumbing down of the school system to try and get the children of the poor parenting crowd a diploma. As the Wizard of Oz said, “you don’t need a brain, you need a diploma”.
A very good, research-based case can be made that children need to be taught proper hand writing. The idea that this must, and can only be cursive is just batty. Cursive has historical interest–there’s more than one cursive alphabet out there, by the way–and a certain aesthetic appeal, but there’s no reason to think that it’s better than any other writing system. (Some people have been advocating teaching the italic hand for a long time. I personally think they’re right, but they never got any purchase for their argument, again for purely historical reasons.) The argument that if we don’t teach little kids to write in a cursive hand, then they won’t be able to read cursives, is both trivial and false. Most Germans today cannot read their (great-)grandparents’ Fraktur handwriting, but German civilization has hardly fallen. If they need to read such documents, they can learn in minutes, and the same is true for reading American cursive, as Kate Gladstone points out. It seems to me that the argument is really about a sentimental attachment to an imaginary better past. It’s part of a symbolic rebellion against modernity, and as such pointless and useless, if not actually harmful.
Since we’re writing in the confessional mode here, let me say that I am of an age that I was taught handwriting in the fountain-pen, Zaner-Bloser era of grapho-historical child torment. I can still write in a quite beautiful cursive (even if it’s me that says so) but I don’t think it makes me a better human being. My normal handwriting is a fractured (not Fraktur) block letter/cursive hybrid, but I don’t think that diminishes me in any way. I’m also a fairly competent amateur calligrapher and paleographer, so I have probably given up more brain space to letter forms and the technology of writing than most people. The letter-forms of modern cursives are largely determined by the constraints of the flexible steel-nib dip pens that succeeded the quill pen in the 19th century. They’re historical relics. Aesthetically, it’s been straight down hill since the demise of the quill pen, but that’s hardly a reason to go back.
Sorry, I hadn’t seen the earlier discussion of italic handwriting instruction when I posted the above. I’m glad to see that’s achieved a measure of success. I also note that the dip-pen and ink-well thing has been brought up and dismissed. Fair enough, I overstated my point. There are specific historical reasons (some of them of a commercial nature) why the “cursive” taught today has the specific letterforms it does, but the constraints imposed by writing technologies played a large role in their development.
“In 2012, a survey of handwriting teachers (source available on request) attending a national conference sponsored by the Zaner-Bloser firm — a well-known handwriting publisher which strongly advocates for cursive — revealed that only 37 percent of these devotees of penmanship (fewer than two-fifths!) actually used cursive for their own handwriting…”
So in other words you want children to be unable to read over what over a third of adults are writing? What if they’re leaving an important, time-sensitive message, requiring immediate action (such as in an emergency)? They can’t read it if they don’t learn how to write it – that’s how it gets ingrained in them. Even the 55% who write a hybrid (like me) will be harder to read. So to turn your own stats on you, that’s 92% of all handwriting that will be either semi- or incomprehensible.
Get off your soapbox and quit taking yourself and your cause so seriously. It’s a useful skill and one that facilitates learning and comprehension. More knowledge can hardly be a bad thing. As for taking time away from learning important skills, there’s always time later to take Twitter 101.
Italic is harder to learn than cursive, and harder to write quickly. It doesn’t look as good as cursive unless written slowly and with a special fountain pen. The Italic advocates like Ms. Gladstone are missing a huge point: if we don’t have the time or inclination to teach cursive in schools, we are going to have an even harder time of teaching Italic, which hasn’t ever really caught on even in England, where the whole Italic revival started. I’ve put in time learning Italic as an adult, and enjoy it to a certain extent, but I always return to cursive. Most of my friends, who also learned cursive as children when it was taught in the schools, have beautiful, legible handwriting to this day.
I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would not want students to learn cursive writing. I was shocked when I learned a while back that they were no longer being taught cursive writing. I mean, why not? Maybe learning cursive would help improve their writing skills overall, which could hardly be worse as far as I can tell. The handwriting of so many people under 50 (and I am under 50) looks like some kind of caveman writing, or, at best, a hodge-podge. What can possibly be wrong with teaching kids something which is at one and the same time both literary and artful? Perhaps one could argue that passing laws about it is a bit much, but that’s a different argument than the argument that they don’t need to learn it. People are actually arguing about this? Good grief!
Some of us are not happy about the kids becoming so digitized, because there is plenty of evidence that it does make less knowledge stick…if it were actually possible for them to know less, which I doubt! As you can see, I don’t have a very high opinion of the education level of people today. But when you see adult corporate executives who don’t even know how to use a comma, or don’t care, it does make one wonder who is minding the store in these schools!