Today's educational system emphasizes keyboarding. Kids are losing the ability to read even quite modern handwriting. Some decry this as further deterioration of the educational system. In days gone by was the loss of ability to interpret hieroglyphics viewed in the same way?
LAC's Co-Lab provides a transcription facility. My impression from following progress on the challenges presented is that the uptake has been slow. Other organizations internationally have similar initiatives.
I came across an article from the Washington Post The National Archives has billions of handwritten documents. With cursive skills declining, how will we read them? What I take away is that kids will take up the challenge if the content is interesting enough. That means looking at the challenge as an educational -- and turning the task into play. Once the skill is developed through play they may be inspired to more advanced tasks.
I am told that cursive writing is not on the curriculum in Ontario. One teacher I know a teacher who instructs grade 7 students in cursive anyway. I often get notes from others in cursive (thank you notes for example)
ReplyDeleteLogically speaking, if you cannot write in cursive, then it is harder to interpret what others have written. Most families have some old letters or even documents in cursive.
Speaking for myself, I will try to teach a grandchild cursive writing, as it could be a fun, novel activity.
as a grandmother of an 8 year old who is very bright but has difficulty reading cursive writing I intend to teach him also - will be fun - we'll make a game of it.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired woman[76]- I have struggled all my life with very poor fine motor skills, and was known as a very messy writer all through school. I envied my engineer uncle [who had same problem] who printed every letter/document he wrote.
ReplyDeleteAs a genealogist, I note that early 'writing' was actually more similar to printing, although with different forms than we use today.
I'm sure the kids will learn to read the writing we have been using for about 400 years - if there's a need or desire. Making it fun and like a 'secret' language may be the way to go. In the meantime, the message is what's most important, and printing gets the message across more easily.
Handwriting matters — does cursive? Research shows that legible cursive writing averages no faster than printed handwriting of equal or greater legibility. (Sources for all research are available on request.) The highest speed and highest legibility in handwriting are attained by those who join only some letters, not all: joining only the most easily joined letter-combinations, leaving the rest unjoined, and using print-like shapes for letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree.
ReplyDeleteReading cursive matters — but is much easier and quicker to master than writing the same way too. Reading cursive, simply reading it, can be taught in just 30 to 60 minutes — even to five- or six-year-olds (including those with dyslexia) once they read ordinary print.
Educated adults increasingly quit cursive. In 2012, handwriting teachers across North America were surveyed at a conference hosted by Zaner-Bloser, a publisher of cursive textbooks. 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 do not themselves use cursive, why glorify it?
Cursive’s cheerleaders (with whom I’ve had some stormy debates) sometimes allege that cursive has benefits which justify absolutely anything said or done to promote that form of handwriting. The cheerleaders for cursive repeatedly state (sometimes in sworn testimony before school boards and state legislatures) that cursive cures dyslexia or prevents it, that it makes you pleasant and graceful and intelligent, that it adds brain cells, that it instills proper etiquette and patriotism, or that it confers numerous other blessings which are no more prevalent among cursive users than among the rest of the human race. Some claim research support — citing studies that invariably prove to have been misquoted or otherwise misrepresented by the claimant.
When a devotee of cursive claims the support of research, one or more of the following things becomes evident as soon as others examine the claim:
/1/ either the claim provides no source,
or
/2/ the source turns out to have been misquoted or incorrectly paraphrased by the person citing it,
or
/3/ the claimant correctly quotes/cites a source which itself indulges in either /1/ or /2/.
By now, you’re probably wondering: “What about cursive and signatures? Will we still have legally valid signatures if we stop signing our names in cursive?” Brace yourself: in state and federal law, cursive signatures have no special legal validity over any other kind. (Hard to believe? Ask any attorney!)
Questioned document examiners (these are specialists in the identification of signatures, the verification of documents, etc.) inform 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.
Mandating cursive to preserve handwriting resembles mandating stovepipe hats and crinolines to preserve the art of tailoring.
Kate Gladstone
DIRECTOR, the World Handwriting Contest
CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
handwritingrepair@gmail.com