Is Cursive Handwriting Dead

[Prospero]

I found this article on cursive handwriting (http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0310/16/a01-298601.htm) and was wondering what the general consensus was on teaching cursive handwriting to students.

I remember well learning it with minimal difficulty and forgetting it with even less effort. Just for fun, I attempted writing in cursive again after reading this article and found, much to my amusement, that I am probably back to the level I was at when I first started writing. However, I find cursive to be the bane of legibility. There's a very distinct difference between cursive and chickenscratch which many people seem not to notice the transition between in their own handwriting. Age, if anything, deteriorates language, unless you practice the art of calligraphy which one day I suspect I will try my hand at (forgive the pun). I don't think it should be taught as a writing form so much as a separate set of characters that need to be able to be read.

[UnrepentantSinner]

How will these children ever fill out a check properly if they don't know how to write in cursive?

Penmanship is a worthwhile tool to be taught to children. It's a shame that our educational system spends so much time reteaching the same stuff over and over during the elementary years that it neglects something as vital as being able to communicate via the written word.

While the days of needing an efficient and flowing writing method probably went away after the demise of the quill and fountain pen, there's no reason that children shouldn't be taught a way to quickly yet legibly write something down.

[Agammamon]

Probably the same way I sign my name.
1. Take pen in hand.
2. Put pointy end on paper.
3. Shake back and forth vigorously.

[Thanz]

Based on the last s***** bathroom I visited in a f****** s***** seedy bar, I'd have to say that there is no f***** way that f****** cursive f****** writing is f****** dead, a******.

[hgc]

You're going to find this strange, but as an adult I've conscouisly tried to improve my cursive writing. I used to write cursive with printed upper-case letters, and about the age of 30, I decided to switch to cursive upper-case. I learned from scratch how to do T's and F's and S's and G's and J's and so on. My handwriting looks a lot nicer now.

[Mendor]

We've had a thread on this before, and I didn't get an answer then, so I'll ask the question again:

What IS cursive??

The term has never been used in all my (12) years of schooling. In the first and second years of school, we learnt how to print, then in the third year, we learnt "joint-up writing" - which joins up some, but not all, letters (capitals are printed, letters like b and q don't have a join after them)

Is cursive "joint-up writing"? Or is it the fancier style that my parents learnt, where every letter must be joined up (and isn't very legible?)

I find printing very unnatural. No pupil in any of my high-school classes print. Some teachers occasionally print on the blackboard, but it's quite rare.

[hgc]

from m-w.comMain Entry: cur·sive
Pronunciation: 'k&r-siv
Function: adjective
Etymology: French or Medieval Latin; French cursif, from Medieval Latin cursivus, literally, running, from Latin cursus, past participle of currere to run
Date: 1784
: RUNNING, COURSING: as a of writing : flowing often with the strokes of successive characters joined and the angles rounded b : having a flowing, easy, impromptu character
- cur·sive·ly adverb
- cur·sive·ness noun

[arcticpenguin]

.

[Glory]

Originally posted by Mendor
We've had a thread on this before, and I didn't get an answer then, so I'll ask the question again:

What IS cursive??

The term has never been used in all my (12) years of schooling. In the first and second years of school, we learnt how to print, then in the third year, we learnt "joint-up writing" - which joins up some, but not all, letters (capitals are printed, letters like b and q don't have a join after them)

Is cursive "joint-up writing"? Or is it the fancier style that my parents learnt, where every letter must be joined up (and isn't very legible?)

I find printing very unnatural. No pupil in any of my high-school classes print. Some teachers occasionally print on the blackboard, but it's quite rare.

Yes, cursive is joint-up writing usually involving flourishes.

Cursive has two advantages over printing. First, it is faster. It is actually the result of people's rushiong and being a little lazy. Second, it is much harder to forge than printing, hence it's use when making a signature.

I was taught penmanship in the fifth grade. I would emerge form Mrs. Harder's (yes, that was her real name) with an aching hand and a hatred of whomever it was that invented the written word. Mt mother explained to me that if one could write well, one could communicate with anybody in the world. You may require the aid ofa translator but you would eventually be able to communicate with anybody. I tried to take that to heart but I just couldn't. I have awful handwritting. Worse, my handwritting looks exactly like my grandmother's. If there is anything to handwriting analysis, I am in trouble, She was not a pleasant woman.

Glory

[MoeFaux]

I learned cursive writing in the second grade. I was the best in my class. We had penmanship books that we would practice in every day.
When I want to write something nicely, I'll write in cursive. But my writing is barely legible now. It just looks nicer.

[jimlintott]

Why is it that people say I write like a girl just because I have neat handwriting?

[geni]

I learned joined up writing when I was eight the problem is due to dyslexia (which ********** ********* **** ***** made that word so hard to spell) I handwriting is almost unreadeble. In the schools I have been to joined up writing has been the norm so it appears to be alive and well where I grew up.

[Kilted_Canuck]

This is how I write in school. Any wonder why all my hand in assignments I type on computer.

[Denise]

Originally posted by Kilted_Canuck
This is how I write in school. Any wonder why all my hand in assignments I type on computer.

I write very sloppy like you Kilted. One thing we have in common is writing a letter with as few strokes as possible. Like your R I noticed is written from the bottom up? Instead of up to down to up to curve.

[tim]

When I was a kid in the 50s we were required to learn an italic style. In grammar school one of my French teachers wrote in copperplate - as did my grandmother. my handwriting is a combination of the two. Looks ok though, and people pay me sometimes to write out wedding invitations and the like. Two bottles of expensive malt whisky per 50!
:cs:

[Blondin]

Originally posted by geni
... dyslexia (which ********** ********* **** ***** made that word so hard to spell)
Probably the same ********** ********* **** ***** that put the "s" in "lisp".

[Kilted_Canuck]

Originally posted by Denise


I write very sloppy like you Kilted. One thing we have in common is writing a letter with as few strokes as possible. Like your R I noticed is written from the bottom up? Instead of up to down to up to curve.


I just tested my writing, and I realized I do make a downstroke, but it is less than 1/8 the hight of the letter. I write very fast, up to a full looseleaf page in a minute.

[tygirwulf]

I write in cursive all the time, so it's definitely not dead for me. I don't write very fast, though, mostly because I want my writing to look good and I just can't get my hand to move that fast. I also write pretty small. The more I concentrate on what I'm writing, the smaller it gets. I just had to copy a friend's notes in a class of mine. She had seven pages of notes, which I copied down word for word in two and a half pages. And true to form, the parts where I was really paying attention to what was being said on the page, my writing was very small.

I print worse than I write cursive, but that is starting to change a bit.

[†= Crap!]

I haven't written in cursive since grade school.

I just gave it a try and had do a Google image search for an example because I forgot how to do certain letters. It took me a couple of minutes to produce three line of illegibility.

[lurkerjuzjoinedup]

Originally posted by Mendor
We've had a thread on this before, and I didn't get an answer then, so I'll ask the question again:

What IS cursive??



In Sydney in the 60's we learned Modified Cursive which was NOT joined. And looked very ugly and cut off, not flowing like my parents cursive writing. By the age of 15 we all we were doing our "own" brand of very artsy print. Funnily enough the 15 yr old's writing looks very similiar to mine at that age.

These days I write cursive, joined, flowing and neat. Only prob is my signature is easy to copy as was proved when credit cards were stolen.

[Glory]

Originally posted by lurkerjuzjoinedup


In Sydney in the 60's we learned Modified Cursive which was NOT joined. And looked very ugly and cut off, not flowing like my parents cursive writing. By the age of 15 we all we were doing our "own" brand of very artsy print. Funnily enough the 15 yr old's writing looks very similiar to mine at that age.

These days I write cursive, joined, flowing and neat. Only prob is my signature is easy to copy as was proved when credit cards were stolen.

Sorry your cards were stolen. Actually, according to a guy from the FBI's credit card fraud dept., or what ever they call themselves, the hardest signatures to forge are the neat ones. If your signature is illegible, nobody really knows what to look for when comparing. It sounds like you were hit by someone whop knew how to forge.

Glory

[EvilBiker]

Being left-handed, I hated cursive. I found it a faster way of writing, though. Too fast, actually. My wrist would smear the text as I followed on, especially with ball-point.

Changing to ink pens helped a bit, as the ink (especially the lighter inks) dry pretty quickly, but I still had problems that only a really funny writing position sorted out - I could NEVER get all the characters to be the same size, which made my writing look really crappy.

My mother then suggested I take up an italic style, which works great for me. As fast as cursive (after a lot of practice), but thanks to the writing position my letters achieve a certain elegance. The original italic style was pretty disjointed, but with care and attention I got something that is a cross between cursive and italic, which works nicely.

Most of the time I just use a 0.5mm pencil...

[Ove]

My handwriting is "#¤%&/ but who cares? Just the other day I tried to remember when i had last written anything else than grocery lists and small post-it notes and i really couldn't remember, i just don't do any handwriting anymore.

How will these children ever fill out a check properly if they don't know how to write in cursive?

Why should they? nobody uses check's anymore.;)

Seriously though, one thing is to make your signature, most people can do that, another thing is to write letters in cursive. My fathers handwriting is stunningly pretty, really, it looks like taken out of a guide book in cursive writing. Trouble is, nobody today can read what he writes. My handwriting OTOH is ugly, sort of half way printed, halfway something else BUT EVERYBODY CAN READ IT.

Forget handwriting it is a thing of the past.:D

[lurkerjuzjoinedup]

Originally posted by Glory

Actually, according to a guy from the FBI's credit card fraud dept., or what ever they call themselves, the hardest signatures to forge are the neat ones. If your signature is illegible, nobody really knows what to look for when comparing. It sounds like you were hit by someone whop knew how to forge.
Glory

This is interesting. Husband's signature is a scribble - you can't read his initials let alone is surname. Have tried "forging" it for 22 years and still can't get it right.:wink:

I stopped the cards within 5mins of them being stolen didn't stop the rotters from running up more than $300.00 worth tho'.

[roger]

I find it very difficult to read cursive writing, even when very well written. The r's m's and n's all sort of blend together, as do other letters. I find it very tiring.

edited to add: I just looked around my desk to find examples of my writing. Apparently I have invented my own writing style. I connect some letters together, but not at all in the way you are supposed to, and only certain combinations. For example, 'st' is written like a printed s, but then I continue the line from the bottom of the S, swooping up around and over the top of the s, and then dropping straight down to form the t, which I then cross with a second line. So I'm basically printing, but not picking up the pen between letters. Yes, it's illegible to anyone but me, why do you ask?

[MetalSeagull]

I worked for 9 years as a public school occupational therapist. I spent a good part of my work week teaching print and cursive. Generally, I made very little progress improving kids' cursive. Some of it was because we taught a different method than the classrom teachers. Partly, it was because we didn't have authority to give grades or enforce homework. Children also begin printing earlier now, at 5 instead of 6. They develop bad writing habits that make learning cursive even harder.

The article is pretty accurate. Many teachers don't have instruction time for cursive anymore. If they do, many have a cursive-optional paper and test policy, so the incentive is less. Also, let's not forget the furor and outrage that would result from students failing a test because of poor legibility. It's a different age, and few parents would support a teacher in that situation.

My opinion on it now is if a child is struggling with cursive-- its illegible, it takes three times as long, the kid hates writing but doesn't mind printing-- then print. I think teaching a child to write their signature is still important, but otherwise you can get along just fine without it.

If you look back over personal letters from generations ago, almost none of us can match their writing for beauty and control. I wish I could write like that, but it's not something I feel cheated about. I don't think kids are missing much in having writing that is less attractive than their parents'.

I print-write, with some letters connected and some not. It's not pretty, but its fast and generally legible.

[Ove]

My opinion on it now is if a child is struggling with cursive-- its illegible, it takes three times as long, the kid hates writing but doesn't mind printing-- then print. I think teaching a child to write their signature is still important, but otherwise you can get along just fine without it.

Hear hear - My point exactly.;)

[Eventually]

I was taught cursive in elementary school and it was graded. It was a miserable experience and the only bad grades I ever got in school. I think children should be taught to write in whatever way is easiest for them that they can produce legibly.

Thank goodness for typing! My handwriting, both cursive and print, is awful, so I type everything I can, which hasn't been a problem except for wedding invitations. When I informed the families that I intended to address the evelopes by computer they acted as if I had just proposed that a ritual sacrifice be done in the ceremony. Go figure.

[ASRomatifoso]

I sign my name in cursive and that's it. 17 years in the military has made me into a block capital kind of guy:)

[VicDaring]

It's interesting that several people in this thread have linked cursive writing/good penmanship to good writing and the ability to communicate clearly.

The two have little (and by little, I mean nothing) to do with each other.

There are plenty of people out there with perfectly lovely, swirly, flowing, looping handwriting, who can't make a subject and verb agree, much less express their thoughts in an organized, interesting manner.

I predict cursive writing will, in the not-too-distant future, die an unceremonious death. I say good riddance.

[jj]

Originally posted by VicDaring
It's interesting that several people in this thread have linked cursive writing/good penmanship to good writing and the ability to communicate clearly.

Yes, in some sense it's very similar to some of the teachers I had when I was growing up, who took one look at my handwriting and assigned me to learn how to lift garbage cans.

I'll put it bluntly, my handwriting (cursive or otherwise) is very nearly illegible at best. I'm quite dyslexic on the writing side, and letters can come out this way, that way, or just fall off the stack and not get written at all. On top of that, my manual dexterity is quite lacking, so even the upside-down or backwards letters are not very well formed.

(Why do I specify 'writing' side? Well, because that's how it works. I've never had any trouble reading, or disambiguating left from right when reading text, because it's already there and established. I can't read mirror-writing that well, but I can, if I bother to unset some distinctions in my brain. What's more, when giving directions, I will point in the right direction, never mind what what comes out of my mouth, i.e. if I point right and say "and then turn left", just turn right... You'll be cool... Drawing maps is fine, no problems there. You figure. I flunked spelling over and over again, ditto handwriting, though.)

I can, however, as you guys can tell, type up a storm. The computer/keyboard/typewriter do it for me, they go left to right, they make the letters the right way, and they create uniform shapes to the letters.

As far as qualifications, I think I more than qualify as a research scientist, hardware and software designer, expert on human auditory (and visual) system function, applied acoustician, and pretty good amateur photographer.

So I would submit that the state of one's handwriting is simply irrelevant.

The two have little (and by little, I mean nothing) to do with each other.

Yep, you mean nothing at all.

There are plenty of people out there with perfectly lovely, swirly, flowing, looping handwriting, who can't make a subject and verb agree, much less express their thoughts in an organized, interesting manner.

Well, other than Ian, and some others of his particular ilk, (ilk, ilk, ilk, ilk!!! :) ) I dare say most people think I can express my thoughts in a direct, organized fashion. Some may disagree, but that's a different issue. :p

I predict cursive writing will, in the not-too-distant future, die an unceremonious death. I say good riddance.
It's useful for checks. That's why my spouse writes all of them. I've had too many people look at the ones I've written and say "whazzat?".

[VicDaring]

Actually, I'm pretty sure I even print my checks, and my signature is just two capital letters and some squiggles.