Cursive writing - tomorrow's hieroglyphics

[NotUrsula]

Cursive is alive and well at parochial schools, trust me.

 

[C.Ann]

Are you going to miss it? Do you agree with schools de-emphasizing the teaching of cursive writing?

No - I won't miss it - because I will continue to use it..

Not all schools are de-emphasizing it.. DGD (13) was expected to learn it and use it.. (And not in a parochial school..)

I do 90% of my writing in cursive. I think it's a shame proper writing isn't cared about any more. I was working in high school class and most of the kids' printing looked like it was written by monkeys on a bumpy car ride.

Mine is more like 98% of the time.. Although I receive many compliments on both my cursive writing and my printing, every time I have to print I feel like I'm back in the second grade..

I feel abnormal - I use cursive every day. My mom uses it everyday. One of my best friends uses it everyda. I love writing in cursive! I find it much easier and prettier.

Not abnormal at all.. Many people use cursive as their primary method of writing..

 

[eliza61]

I think it is, which is a shame. By sons cursive writing is atrocious. ugh and when I try to get them to practice they look at me like I'm crazy.

 

[RitaE]

Since I always got C- in "Handwriting," I really can't say I'm all that bummed to see it go. I can still remember every stinking parent/teacher conference my Mother coming home upset because my teacher's claimed my handwriting was going to be my doom in life. Especially for a girl! Boys were allowed to have bad handwriting.

I don't think I've written in cursive since Jr. High, and I'm not all that young. Once I hit college, all of our work had to be typed (computer printout) anyway. Today the only thing I see my High Schooler writing out is Math homework. Everything else is done on a computer/word processor and then usually electronically submitted to the class dropbox or emailed to the teacher.

None of my children know cursive and given all the hours of math, vocabulary, history and everything else they have to learn .... I'm not that upset over it. I'd much rather they be learning academic skills than an outdated handwriting method.

 

[Southernmiss]

Handwriting in general has been eliminated or really downsized as a class in schools. I can remember having handwriting sheets through much of elementary school. My children had handwriting in kindergarten to second grade and that's it. K-1 was to learn print and 2nd grade was for cursive writing.

My children have terrible handwriting and I think this is partly to blame. I just recently realized that I should have had them work on handwriting at home.

I have a hard time reading their print/cursive/mixture and they have a hard time reading my cursive!

 

[Disneychix]

I use a combination of printing/cursive-always have.

I can't imagine a future where no one has a 'signature'. Maybe we can take on symbols like "the artist formerly known as Prince"? Although even he gave up the symbol after awhile.

 

[Plannin'Shannon]

I hate block print and mine is barely legible. My handwriting, on the other hand, is quite lovely and easy to read.

Same here. I only write in cursive and get complimented on my handwriting quite frequently.

 

[JessicaR]

My boys are 14 and 18 and it was briefly taught and never instilled. Neither use it at all. It's a lost art for sure.

 

[RadioNate]

My DS went to 3rd grade in Florida & 4th grade in Colorado. Neither state taught cursive except a signature. They spent maybe an afternoon on it. I know from friends that as the kids got older, they weren't required to use it.

We moved to Illinois, who still has a cursive curriculum. I had to explain to my DS's 5th grade teacher that he wasn't being difficult or rude but that he has had no real instruction in cursive. He attempts a weird cursive, print, hybrid.

He went to kindergarten in Texas, which instructs in d'nealian so I'm guessing they still teach cursive. Indiana just did away with it.

 

[Chelley00]

Our school doesn't teach cursive. It's sad. Last month I had a teen bring me a work permit (I'm in HR) and he didn't know how to "sign" his name to it. He just printed.

 

[Jennasis]

You don't need to know cursive to sign your name. My signature is a completely illegible series of squiggles that start with the correct legible letter. It's not cursive. It's gibberish. DH's is even worse.

Frankly, one can put a big ol' "X" as their signature if they want (or the symbol Prince used).

 

[ashley0139]

I use a mix of cursive and print. My first name is much easier to write without picking up the pen, so I use a mix. I actually love the look of cursive. I hope students continue to learn it.

 

[Snoopymom]

I was just wondering if one day someone will be able to guess my age by the fact that I still write in cursive.

It reminds me of the dystopian novel, Matched.

 

[GJM]

You don't need to know cursive to sign your name. My signature is a completely illegible series of squiggles that start with the correct legible letter. It's not cursive. It's gibberish. DH's is even worse.

I know cursive but this is me & DH exactly - you can tell the first letter and that is all. My DH is even worse. You would never be able to tell what our names are.

My DS is in 6th. grade, he has never learned it. At one point he had to write his spelling words in cursive, but he was never taught the proper way to write the letters.

 

[Chelley00]

I meant to make the point that the teen didn't even know what "signature" meant. There's a place to print and a place to sign. He printed his name then asked about the signature, which I said meant to write his name. He had no idea how to "write" his name because he hasn't been taught.

 

[Art 1]

Good schools will continue to teach cursive.

 

[DeaverTex]

I started kindergarten in 1956, had cursive hammered into me all through elementary school, was required to use it through high school, and gave it up the minute I hit college. I've never used it for notes because I can't read it myself. Besides, having to print forces me to concentrate because you can't write it all down so you HAVE to pick up the main points.

My handwriting grades were C's (except for a couple of D's) for as long as I got a grade on handwriting. My printing is at least legible unless I get in a hurry or am writing notes that only I need to decipher. (Can you tell that writing things by hand isn't my strong point? )

I don't think it will be that much of a problem not being able to read cursive. OK, maybe it'll take a lot of concentration to read the Declaration of Independence, but how many people can read the Magna Carta? (Even if they speak Latin.) I've seen many a Civil War era letter that might as well have been written in cuneiform for all I could make out of it, and penmanship was a major part of education then.

Besides, reading cursive isn't really about understand it. It's about reading (or attempting to read!) lots and lots of it, written similarly, and eventually getting used to the idea that when the writer meant the letter "r", he/she used a squiggle like THIS. (Add your own hieroglyphic.)

I will not miss cursive. Thank you for your kind attention, and have a magical day!

 

[seashoreCM]

I learned cursive around 4'th grade and used it about half the time up to about 10'th grade.

In 8'th through college I used regular printing half the time and all capitals (!) printing half the time. Several of my high school classmates also used all caps printing. In my case I was mimicking a computer which back in those days were primarily all caps.

In college I started to encounter end user equipment that had both upper and lower case but for most purposes I continued to use all caps on the keyboard. I wrote many computer programs at that time and my philosophy was that a computer should treat uppercase and lowercase interchangeably except for text to be displayed on screens (or on paper) and text in word processing.

To date I use all caps to write checks. The only cursive I use is my signature.

Okay, now you can flame me for shouting at others.

 

[moon]

It just seems strange to me that one day very soon, ordinary Americans may not be able to read the original Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution. An original Mark Twain manuscript will appear foreign. I understand that technology has made cursive writing largely obsolete, but it feels like we are losing a link to our heritage/history.

MTE. I write exclusively in cursive since the second grade. I remember how excited and grown-up I felt learning it! I understand about technology, but I think it'd be sad to lose that link to our past....not just historic documents, but imagine finding a stack of letters or a diary from our great-grandparents or even older ancestors and not being able to make them out....I can't imagine.

Also, I may be wrong but I believe this trend to toss cursive aside is only happening in America. I think the rest of the world is still using cursive and finds printing infantile.

I'm happy to read from posters whose children know and use cursive, and hope it remains a part of our lives for a long, long time.

 

[SallySkelington]

I write in cursive all the time unless it's a note for someone else to understand. I had friends look at me all the time and think I'm weird because they either; A) Never continued to develop the skill because it wasn't required or B) Were never taught it. I had to learn in 2nd and 3rd grade, and glad I kept up with it, I feel it's something to be proud of even if not all that significant.