At what age did you learn how to write cursive? Why (or why not) do you think it’s an important skill to learn?
I think I was in second or third grade when we learned how to write in cursive. I’m willing to bet, once upon a time, kids learned even younger than that.
My eldest daughter is in fourth grade, my youngest in second, and neither of them know how to write in cursive. Emma’s teacher in third grade introduced it, but then the school hired a new teacher and Emma moved into a different class. The new teacher didn’t teach cursive.
It appears to be up to individual teachers whether or not they’re going to introduce cursive writing. I wonder, when did this become optional?
I was looking into this topic and found the following message on a parenting board:
“I have had this discussion with friends before. I think the kids should know how to print and type. Forget cursive penmanship. To me it is a waste of time. I never write in cursive, always print. My kids all print neatly and it is always legible. I have an aunt whose writing I can never read in her cards to us. Her strokes are so long and flowing that words stretch up to an inch when they only have 4-5 letters. Rarely do people these days write. Its all print or type. Besides your signature, why take valuable school time to teach a dying form? Even Doctor’s don’t write prescriptions much anymore. Its all done electronically because of how easy it was to forge or for a pharmacist to missread a prescription.”
Do people really believe that learning how to write in cursive isn’t necessary, and is becoming a dated skill… like learning Latin or how to kill a chicken? Good penmanship used to be highly valued in our society, but our ability to write neatly, beautifully, is rapidly becoming a lost art. Is it because we’ve entered a digital age?
I’ve taken it upon myself to teach the girls how to do it (write in cursive, not kill chickens). I found a good website with free handwriting lessons. They come in the form of printable cursive sheets which kids use to practice their letters through tracing. Hopefully, all this repetition will lead to good handwriting.
There is an interesting article here, which looks at the importance of teaching handwriting skills to kids, especially as it pertains to children with learning disabilities.
There is something to be said for beautiful penmanship, isn’t there? I love a beautifully handwritten note or card, don’t you? But it’s more than that. Learning to write cursive takes a lot of work. Think of what’s involved: fine motor skills, co-ordination of hand-eye-brain (lor’ knows how many neural pathways are being defined in their little plastic brains while they’re writing), dexterity, and above all, patience and time. I think these are all things worth developing.
Emma has a spelling test every week. The other night I wrote out, in cursive, the ten words she needed to know for her test. As she slowly, carefully, copied them out (in cursive!), I realized that by taking extra time to write out the words she was also taking extra time to learn how to spell them. I think I’m going to start doing this every week.
I am lucky that she seems to be enjoying it so far.
Perhaps we can ask Santa to bring us a really good calligraphy set. And maybe I should pick up some handwriting lessons as well. My penmanship could use some help. ;)
I’d love to hear what you think. Do your kids know how to write in cursive? Are they learning it in school? If not, will you be the one to teach them? Is cursive dead?