[theDentist]

No surprise.... my handwriting was horrible to begin with...

[wideawake]

Kids print on the SAT because they are deathly afraid that their cursive will be harder to read and they may lose points on the most important exam of their young lives.

[ahayes]

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.

I'd theorize that is because children who write more develop compositional skills and penmanship simultaneously.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Wow. This surprises me not at all. My cursive is appalling. If I want something I am writing to be legible, I print it.

[proudofthesouth]

Once I completed my schooling I stopped writing cursive. My handwriting is a combination of printing and cursive. It must be genetic cause both my parents write the same way. My signature is the only time I write cursive.

[sarasota]

I've got a granddaughter in first grade whose teacher doesn't even teach the children how to print. Cursive only. I've forwarded the article to my daughter and await her comments. I fear it will impair a child's ability to read.

[SoCal Pubbie]

In other news, the printing press has limited the use of calligraphy to proclamations, official documents, and wedding invitations.

[dead]

Many educators shrug.

As they should.

Who cares if kids print instead of writing cursive?

[JamesP81]

My handwriting always has been horrible, but this isn't good. Being in the computer field, I kinda saw this coming long before anyone else did. They teach typing but people can't even write anymore. It's not a good situation.

[cripplecreek]

I write my signature but mostly print.

[ikka]

A customer of mine is truly a computer nerd. When I get a check from him it looks like it was written by a 2nd-grader.

[mainepatsfan]

My grandmother has letters written by her great-great uncle from Virginia during the Civil War. Unbelievable penmanship.

[caver]

I print because I've been a draftsman for over 30 years. I only use cursive when signing my name.

I have noticed that plenty of young people in high school have terrible writing, print or cursive. There is obviously less time spent on penmanship.

[Protagoras]

Now if we could only convince MDs to print or type instead of write, we could save many lives each year.

[Toby06]

I haven't written in cursive since well before 1995, probably since high school, 1984. Yikes, 22 friggin years. I'm getting old!

[Horatio Gates]

I have impeccable cursive handwriting, hat tip to the Ukrainian nuns, but barely ever need it for anything since I don't hand write letters anymore.

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

[Sloth]

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.

Good. It's much easier to read.

[wagglebee]

penmanship instruction seems a relic

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.

[mjwise]

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.

[Gingersnap]

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.