Why?
Posted on 06/17/2025 5:12:14 PM PDT by CFW
A child should be doing cursive as well.
Oregon lowered, and even eliminated, graduation requirements because too many black and illegal hispanic kids were failing everything. Now Oregon has the worst education outcomes in the country, BUT, high graduation rates. Success for progs.
“Red states have also led bans on the “three-cueing system” (or “MSV cueing”), another failed reading strategy that encourages students to guess unfamiliar words by using meaning, structure, or visual cues. Arkansas outlawed MSV cueing in 2021, followed by Louisiana in 2022. More states joined them after the release of Sold a Story, an influential podcast that exposed the harm done by these discredited methods.”
“MSV cueing” means guessing. Can you imagine learning to read by just guessing the word instead of sounding it out as we learned years ago? That may work in picture books — think “See Jane Run” -— (which may be the level of reading those schools think is sufficient) but it certainly wouldn’t work in a book on History or Science.
Cursive and phonics are extremely valuable but they are more a lot work for the teachers so they managed to get rid of them
“A child should be doing cursive as well.”
Why?
Bringing back phonics is one of the most important factors in improving learning skills and educational outcomes. If a child can’t read, then they can’t succeed in other subjects.
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I tell the kids: If you can read and do math you will be able to do whatever you need done.
That’s using the high-school requirements from when I came up, back in the 70s. No idea what the today requirements are.
Absolutely! On phonics.
Jerry Pournelle used to talk about this on his blog. His wife Roberta would be given the “uneducable” from the Los Angeles school system, and using phonics, she would have them reading in a few months. He talked about it all the time.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=phonics+Roberta+site%3Ajerrypournelle.com&source=web
I suspect their reading program is lost to time. A pity.
Despite the fact that in the fifties we knew these "new ways" did not work at all they not only continued and spread from reading to spelling to math.
Teachers used to be able to turn out functionally literate students only teaching for 12 weeks a year for four to five years.
These were not kids raised in homes with tons of books by parents who were highly educated. These were the children of dirt farmers who might have a Bible at home and many of them their parents did not speak proper English. But because the teachers were expected to produce results they used simple time tested methods to make sure the kids learned the basics. If the children wanted to learn more they could but the job of the teacher was to make sure they had a foundation to build from.
The states where the schools are returning to the time tested methods are showing where the problem is.
Not with the children, the parents or the fact the school building did not have fast enough wi-fi. It was with the teachers and their methods that were imposed by people who did not care if children were learning as long as they got paid.
So they can transcribe the Declaration of Independence onto new parchment...that has to be digitized to distribute?
Why should a child learn to read cursive?
One reason, to be able to sign their own name.
To be able to read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
To be able to pass the New York State Regents exams that nobody in New York seems to be able to pass.
lol
“Daddy, why is that funny looking paper locked up in glass, and what are those funny marks all over it”
Everyone with common sense gets it...
https://freerepublic.com/tag/freeperbookclub/index?tab=articles
I'd probably say that our John Hancock biography is the best so far.
But I thought I would add, I have read that learning cursive writing helps childrens' brain development in unique and important ways. I'm not sure if there's a definitive determination about it though.
A rule of thumb regarding the education of children is that anything adopted by blue states is wrongheaded...
This rule is pretty much always correct.
If this continues then shortly placing any document/sign/whatever written in cursive in public view will be prohibited.
It would be unfair to the poorly educated you see....
You know it would come to be, there is simply no doubt.
“Bringing back phonics is one of the most important factors in improving learning skills and educational outcomes. If a child can’t read, then they can’t succeed in other subjects.”
That and tossing CALCULATORS into the trash in math class.
But the BIGGEST FACTOR in improving school performance, in any state, is to tell the ‘education experts’ to fuck off and instead listen to home schoolers, when it comes to reading and math (for starters).
(sorry for the nasty word, but it’s appropriate here)
“Back in the 1930s we somehow got the idea that people had been teaching the basics wrong for ages and we should throw out everything we knew worked and start over from scratch.
Despite the fact that in the fifties we knew these “new ways” did not work at all they not only continued and spread from reading to spelling to math.”
You are so right!
My Dad had only an 8th grade education. He had to quit at that time to work on the farm, as so many young men did back then. But, he could read. And, read he did. There was always a book by his chair. We were poor, but there were always books in the house and don’t you dare say “I’m bored”. The response (if not “go shell some peas”) was “Go read a book”.
One. Many people can’t read the Founding documents or other cursive works, because they’ve never learned cursive.
2. With tablets replacing paper, there still is a place to learn it.
3. It is faster than printing.
I agree with getting rid of calculators. There is no reason to use them until college.
“I agree with getting rid of calculators. There is no reason to use them until college.”
I think they can be used in science classes, at least the non-programmable types, and then only at high school level. But nothing in math classes, ever, including college.
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