Posted on 10/11/2006 8:16:23 AM PDT by Millee
The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.
When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.
And those college hopefuls are just the first edge of a wave of U.S. students who no longer get much handwriting instruction in the primary grades, frequently 10 minutes a day or less. As a result, more and more students struggle to read and write cursive.
Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say. But academics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades.
Scholars who study original documents say the demise of handwriting will diminish the power and accuracy of future historical research. And others simply lament the loss of handwritten communication for its beauty, individualism and intimacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
As "Gen Reagan", we learned to write cursive.
But penmanship was a different thing.
Not sure if my mother actually had "penmanship", but her cursive is very beautiful (albeit I rag on her that I can't read her writing).
100 years ago+, everyone wrote incredibly beautifully. That wasn't just genetic. It was learned by lots of practice.
I rather think it's a shame we don't spend MORE time on cursive than I did, rather than less.
Why?
I haven't written in cursive since well before 1995, probably since high school, 1984. Yikes, 22 friggin years. I'm getting old!
I quit writing in cursive when I was in college. My handwriting was far neater in print.
My sixth grade teacher, if you were lucky enough to get her, promised her students that none would leave her class at the end the year WITHOUT properly learning cursive writing. She called anything less "baby writing".
To this day when sending notes or thank you cards at least half will respond "where did you learn to write so beautifully". This is a lost art. It is not being taught in school. But then, nothing else is being taught either.
I hate to see cursive go away and should still be taught. Some of the greatest scripts and documents in history are done in cursive after all
Good. It's much easier to read.
Thank God! Hopefully that means that schools aren't grading penmanship anymore (although I guess they don't actually give any grades anymore).
Look for spelling to be the next thing phased out. But then the problem becomes when schools start eliminating all of the "basics" that we were raised on, that gives them a lot more time for leftist indoctrination.
Cursive is a waste of time and effort. I learned cursive to a T well only 15 years ago and I never use it except to sign my name. Instead of waxing nostalgic over something that wasn't particularly valuable in the first place, why don't these articles talk about how difficult and incredibly inefficient it was to write a research paper with a typewriter (or worse yet, a typesetter) versus modern a word processor today.
That sounds vaguely familiar and pretty insane!
SD
Kids should probably learn cursive writing (just as they should learn Roman numerals) but it's hardly the make-or-break skill needed in writing.
Good writers are good (and prolific) readers. Good note-takers are good listeners, not zippy stenographers. Keyboards offer a degree of clarity that hand writing can't approach for most people.
The document examiners and scrapbookers will just have to muddle through somehow.
I have a lovely signature. I signed a hundred thousand dollars a week in paychecks on one job I ran. You get to signing yur name very quickly in those situations.
SD
I know you dot your "i's" with little hearts... don't deny it.
I don't think it's entirely the fault of learning to type. My children printed quite well, then they were taught an intermediate style that is a cross between printing and cursive writing. After that, neither of them could print or write very legibly.
My penmanship is so poor, I use all caps (caps & small caps) in my writing to minimize the chance of being illegible. The only cursive writing I ever do anymore is signing my name.
Generally speaking, I'd agree with you. However, my Dad's handwriting is much better than my Mom's! My paternal grandmother's handwriting was quite beautiful. I think she made him practice! :-)
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