I was in grade school when Nixon was president and was told by the teacher that Nixon said that you could not take the pencil off the paper when writing in cursive. Does any one remember this or was this bs?
You wouldn’t be able to write separate words if you didn’t take pencil off paper.
Soyouhaverunonsentancesthatnobodycanreadorunderstand?
Actually handwriting is a lost art. I don’t want to quibble over semantics but the idea I’m trying to get across is that handwriting or penmanship was a style of writing that was taught back in the pen and ink days. The difference between handwriting/penmanship and cursive is that penmanship requires you to use the large muscles in your arm (vs just wrist and fingers as is usually done in teaching cursive). Your hand and wrist stay more firm and your arm moves more or the most. Most good Calligraphers still use this approach in writing decorative text. Though it is initially more difficult when starting out this way, one big advantage is that your hand fatigues less due to using the bigger muscles and over time you have more control and consistency of letter formation. I used to do some calligraphy when I was younger and this approach will help you get consistent letters without cramps or fatigue. It isn’t that people can’t have nice handwriting when learning cursive it’s that most will not. The disadvantage of the penmanship style is that it truly takes practice and patience. In our world of text messaging I think I know which one will win out ;- ) Recent research has also shown that students remember things better when they are handwritten (cursive, manuscript, whatever) as opposed to keyboarding as different regions of the brain are required that have more links to language formation than the more mechanical regions required for typing/keyboarding.
I remember hearing that too - don’t let your pencil leave the paper. My handwriting is very disjointed in a kind of artistic way, and my pencil leaves the paper all the time. I use cursive when I’m working with my students, but I write papers and grants on a computer. I did not teach our son cursive, homeschooling, because he was a perfectionist and there were too many tears in 3rd. He asked me when he was in Jr College how to make a ‘Capital J’ or something. I told him I use printed capitals.
My husband is a scientist. He prints when he is not on the computer. He told me the boys hate cursive, and my students corroborate this. The boys usually hate it.
I do genealogy. Some of the very old handwriting is absolutely impossible to read. I suspect these things change, even if it’s one style of h/w to the next. I don’t regret not teaching our son cursive, but I wonder if it was the right thing to do. I came to the conclusion that it was only used in Thank You letters to grandma.
My 3rd or 4th grade teacher said the same thing. No need to lift the pen off the paper when writing a word.