Call me old fashioned, but I am an advocate for cursive writing. I love teaching it, and I love when my students produce written works in handwriting. No where in the Quebec Education Program does it say that I am REQUIRED to teach it — but I do…. for 3 main reasons which I will share with you this evening.
I do not have enough fingers and toes to count how many times this issue has been debated in the JES staffroom during lunch hours – and usually I am on the losing end of the battle! Case in point, I am the only teacher I know of who actually teaches the ART and the MECHANICS of handwriting and I find that cursive writing is yet another victim of the digital age. It takes me 1/2 hour a week in my class, and by the letter Cc, most students can finish their 2 practice pages within the 30 minute time slot. For a 5 day cycle, I find 30 minutes do-able.
Call me dramatic, but as I said above, there are 3 reasons why I believe cursive writing is an essential skill for all students to learn.
Miss Monica’s Argument #1 – Cursive writing encourages fine motor skill development
The exercise book I choose to use each year is specifically designed for the students to practice their fine motor skills. According to Virginia Berninger, a researcher and professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, “Pictures of brain activity have illustrated that sequential finger movements used in handwriting activated massive regions of the brain involved in thinking, language, and working memory. Cursive handwriting naturally develops sensory skills.”
Through repetition children begin to understand how much force needs to be applied to the pencil and paper, the positioning of the pencil to paper at the correct angle, and motor planning to form each letter in fluid motion from left to right. This physical and spatial awareness allows them to write, but more importantly, builds the neural foundation of sensory skills needed for a myriad of everyday tasks such as buttoning, fastening, tying shoes, picking up objects, copying words from whiteboards, and most importantly, reading (Iris Hatfield, Handwriting Coach).
Miss Monica’s Argument #2 – Computers are the way of the future but everyone loves a handwritten note.
I have no problem with computers. In fact, I consider my Mac a part of my family. I am proud of the fact that I can type 80 + words a minute. With that said, I can also attest to the fact that no computerized font will ever compare to the feeling I get when I look at someone’s handwritten note. In today’s digital world, when someone writes me a hand written note, message, or letter, it tells me that someone took the TIME out of his or her busy schedule to communicate with me on a very personal level. When I look at handwritten recipe cards that my mother has given to me, I smile each time I see her penmanship on that piece of paper in front of me. It’s personal, it’s real, and to me, it’s human.
Miss Monica’s Argument #3 – You will always need a signature
I am convinced that all my students – past, present, and future – will positively impact the world in one way or another, and their personal signatures will be a necessity at some point in their lives. Each of my student’s will need to know how to sign their names in order to sign autographs, documents, passports, cheques, legal papers, banking papers, etc. Until technology advances to the point where my students will be able to “sign” with their fingerprints, it is a neccessity for them to develop a signature in order to protect their personal and financial identity – especially in today’s digitally driven world.
The opposing points of view I have heard in the JES staffroom have not fallen on deaf ears. While I will continue to teach cursive writing with my students next year, I also plan to implement a typing program as well during our computer periods. I know that computers and technology are the way of the future and there is no way that I will be able to stop that tidal wave from approaching. My goal for next year is to teach and develop both so that my students will have a well developed skill set – no matter which direction they may need to go in.
I am interested in your thoughts… let me know what you think!
Have a great day!
Mylene says
I agree with you 100%! Please continue fighting to teach it and encourage other teachers to do as well! Cursive writing is part of someone’s identity I find.. and it’s faster and neater then printed handwriting and we need to know how to write properly… it’s the base and we use it everyday; I don’t type and print on my computer for my everyday needs. In fact I never do! I love the ”old fashion way” lol ”old”. It’s what I remember being excited for the most when I started school, I was so looking forward to cursive writing! Because it is an art… the base of calligraphic poetry! 🙂
iheartgrade3 says
Great comment, Mylene! Although I know some people who would argue that if you can print letters then you don’t really need cursive writing. You can imagine the discussions we have in the staffroom about this topic! lol!
kategladstone says
Dear Miss Monica —
Like you, I am a handwriting teacher. I’m wondering whether you could please provide me with the published source (if any) for the Virginia Berninger quotation that you used. In other words, was it from a book, an article, or some other published material? If so, I’d very much like the original source information for wherever you are quoting her from: author, title, and date of publication of you have that handy.
Further, I have a question about the best classroom use of information on signatures. When you teach students about signatures, about what makes a signature legal, and so on, do you think it would make a difference to them — or to you — if they were aware of one of the most surprising facts about our signatures? The fact is:; 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.) tell me, too, that the least forgeable signatures are the plainest: including the printed ones.
All writing, not just cursive, is individual — just as all writing involves fine motor skills. That is why a first-grade teacher can immediately identify (from the print-writing on unsigned work) which of her 25 or 30 students produced it.
I think that telling the truth (about signatures, for instance) is as important in teaching handwrlting as teaching any other subject — don’t you?
Other fun (and important) facts about our handwriting:
/1/ Researchers who have measure the speed of cursive and printed handwriting have found that legible cursive writing averages no faster than printed handwriting of equal or greater legibility. (Sources for all research are listed below.)
/2/ Further, research shows that the fastest, clearest handwriters are neither the print-writers nor the cursive writers. The highest speed and highest legibility in handwriting are attained by those who join only some letters, not all of them – making only the simplest of joins, omitting the rest, and using print-like shapes for letters whose printed and cursive shapes disagree.
_Reading_ cursive, of course! still matters. Simply _reasing_ cursive! though, can be taught to print-writers in just 30 to 60 minutes — even to five- or six-year-olds, once they know oh to read print. (In today’s computer-conscious times, there’s even an iPad app to teach how: “Read Cursive” — http://appstore.com/readcursive .) So why not simply teach children to read cursive — along with teaching other vital skills, such as some handwriting style that’s actually typical of effective handwriters?
Educated adults increasingly quit cursive. In 2012, handwriting teachers from all over the USA and Canada were surveyed at a national conference on handwriting i. The conference was hosted by Zaner-Bloser, which (as you know) is a major publisher of handwriting textbooks and a steady promoter of cursive. Among these professionals who obviously cared about handwriting (or they would not have come to the conference), only 37% (fewer than two in five) actually used cursive for their own handwriting. (Another 8% used print-writing.) The majority — 55% — wrote a hybrid: some elements resembling print-writing, others resembling cursive. I wonder what you think of this reality — and I wonder what your students would think of it, now or later on, if their natural curiosity (and the strong interest in handwriting that you are helping them to develop) should ever happen to lead them to the handwriting information site where this fact is documented (link provided below).
Do your students and you ever run into the people who talk about having research saying that cursive makes you intelligent, makes you graceful, instills proper etiquette and patriotism, or confers other blessings no more prevalent among cursive users than elsewhere? This comes up for me, often — because, whenever I ask to look at their research, here is what happens:
/1/ either the person who claimed to have the research then claims that he or she cannot provide any traceable source,
or
/2/ if a source is cited, when I actually look up the. Original research it always turns out that it was misquoted or was incorrectly described, somewhere along the line. (For example, the research study that is most often cited as “proof of cursive” is an Indiana University research study a years ago, that was not even about cursive. The subjects were in kindergarten, and the research was on printing and keyboarding. This has not stopped people from using the study to promote cursive by incorrectly describing the study — to the media, to school boards, or to legislatures when testifying under oath — as a study of print-writing and cursive. (Documentation available on request.)
Mandating cursive to preserve handwriting resembles mandating stovepipe hats and crinolines to preserve the art of tailoring.
SOURCES:
Handwriting research on speed and legibility:
/1/ Arthur Dale Jackson. “A Comparison of Speed and Legibility of Manuscript and Cursive Handwriting of Intermediate Grade Pupils.”
Ed. D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, 1970: on-line at http://www.eric.ed.gov/?id=ED056015
/2/ 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
/3 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
Handwriting programs and resources that fit research on the habits of the most effective handwriters (some sites disolay student work) — http://www.BFHhandwriting.com, http://www.handwritingsuccess.com, http://www.briem.net, http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com, http://www.italic-handwriting.org, http://www.studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/hwlesson.html
Zaner-Bloser handwriting survey: Results on-line at http://www.hw21summit.com/media/zb/hw21/files/H2937N_post_event_stats.pdf
Background on our handwriting, past and present:
3 videos, by a colleague, show why cursive is NOT a sacrament:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CURSIVE —
http://youtu.be/3kmJc3BCu5g
TIPS TO FIX HANDWRITING —
http://youtu.be/s_F7FqCe6To
HANDWRITING AND MOTOR MEMORY
(shows how to develop fine motor skills WITHOUT cursive) —
http://youtu.be/Od7PGzEHbu0
Yours for better letters,
Kate Gladstone
Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
handwritingrepair@gmail.com • HandwritingThatWorks.com
iheartgrade3 says
Wow! Thanks for all the great information you have posted here! Your love and passion for this topic is evident with each counter argument you write.
Please keep in mind that I teach grade 3 and I teach cursive writing to my students because I want to. I see it as an art form and a skill that once mastered, is in a student’s “toolbox” for his or her lifetime.
As for teaching about signatures, it is all in good fun at this level. The students enjoy experimenting with their newly learned cursive letters and enjoy the artistic challenge of coming up with their own personal “identity” on paper.
Your enthusiasm for this topic is wonderful. Thank you for sharing it with me.
Have a great evening,
Miss Monica
kategladstone says
Thanks, Miss Monica, for responding as kindly as you did — and, more importantly, for finding my argument valid. As a calligrapher, I’m well aware of the artistic possibilities of handwriting — which are at least as great in those forms of handwriting that lack the various drawbacks of cursive. In my observation and experience, the form providing the best balance of legibility, speed and appearance — and the greatest possibilities for flexible individualization without risk to the quality or practicality of the writing — is italic handwriting rather than conventional cursive. Signatures can be developed and individualized in any form of handwriting, certainly — although (again, this is in my experience and observation) developing and _maintaining_ an attractive, legible, and rapid signature is far easier in italic than in other forms of handwriting.
Your enthusiasm about handwriting, of whatever form, is cheering. Certainly it is better than my typing. (I am somewhat dyslexic and dyspraxic— an earlier message of mine meant to note that I had checked the _Canadian_ laws on signatures!)
kategladstone says
Re signatures: I’ve checked the Cabaduan laws as well as the US laws. Cursive is not what makes signatures legal. Legally, your signature is WHATEVER you habitually produce when asked to produce your signature. So why do you want your students supposing otherwise?
iheartgrade3 says
Hello again,
As I wrote on my blog – Each of my student’s will need to know how to sign their names in order to sign autographs, documents, passports, cheques, legal papers, banking papers, etc. Until technology advances to the point where my students will be able to “sign” with their fingerprints, it is a neccessity for them to develop a signature in order to protect their personal and financial identity – especially in today’s digitally driven world.
There is nothing written on my blog about the legality of a signature – but my students can relate to a signature from their favourite hockey player, seeing their parents sign cheques, and the daily signature of their parents in their school agendas.
Your argument is valid and thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Have a great evening.
Miss Monica
kategladstone says
May I also note, Miss Monica, that your three excellent reasons for handwriting are just that— reasons for handwriting in any form, and _not_ reasons specifically for cursive?
If you have any reasons specifically for cursive (that do not also apply to any of the other forms of handwriting in general), I’d be curious to see them.
Again, thanks for the extent to which you are willing to keep an active mind on this subject.
iheartgrade3 says
I will make sure that in the future I will not use handwriting AND cursive writing interchangeably!!
Have a great day!
kategladstone says
Thanks, Miss Monica, for your promise to make sure of that! I am sure that you are also informing your students (and others concerned: colleagues, parents, etc.) about the importance of clarity and accuracy on matters of handwriting — because handwriting matters. If you’d ever like any support with this, or you just want to discuss handwriting concerns, please get in touch. (I do workshops nationally and internationally — have done them in Canada before — so let me know if you’re interested in making that happen for your school or other group, too.)
Kate Gladstone — http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com