Cursive Out Of Common Core Standards, But Still Hanging On
RSSBy Lauren Barack
Should cursive still be taught in school? Apparently not, according to the Common Core Standards, which leaves handwriting behind as it embraces other requirements such as keyboarding. Yet teachers and librarians say that while not required, cursive still plays a role in a child's education-although perhaps not as intensively as before. Currently, 46 states have adopted the Common Core curriculum, bringing some commonality to what all students are expected to learn across the country-and eventually, what they will be tested on as well. While most educators agree that keyboarding-or learning how to use a computer's keyboard-is a critical skill in our increasingly digital age, there are still uses for handwriting, albeit fewer. And the standards should not be the only criteria by which schools select what's taught. "I think one of the greatest misconceptions about the Common Core State Standards is that they represent the final word in what's right for student learning-if something is not in the document, it is not important and therefore should not be taught," writes Carolyn Jo Starkey, a librarian at Buckhorn High School in New Market, AL, by email. "If states find the common core standards lacking, they can add other content relevant to their learning community to their commitment to providing the same basic common core-based education as other members of the coalition. There are several areas, in fact, which some groups find the standards to be deficient, cursive handwriting being one of those areas." Some note that as fewer students are taught cursive, the ability to read historical documents may decrease-much like an ancient language slowly disappearing from common use. Cursive is still taught at Messner's school, and her own policy dictates that students can complete handwritten assignments in print or cursive. The choice is left to the child based on what they find more comfortable, as long as Messner finds it legible. To her, digital tools such as the Comments feature of Microsoft Word, have positively changed the way she approaches writing, and she also believes it's made the process more inclusive, opening the door to would-be writers who may have felt shut out by their less-than perfect handwriting skills. "I still remember a note on one of my elementary school report cards that suggested I would never be much of a writer, thanks to my messy script," she says. "I think (thankfully!) those days are gone (though every time I have a new book released, I am sorely tempted to send that teacher a copy of it!)" Cursive is a basic foundational skill. What happens when students attempt to read cursive? Does that mean that when I am writing on the board I must print because my middle school students can't read cursive writing? I too, allow my students to print or write in cursive, as long as it is legible..... and that is the key point; a significant amount of my student's papers look like a chicken did a dance across the page. I'm concerned that without physically going through the process of communicating carefully with written language we are neglecting entire portions of the brain, where language, spelling and word choice are reinforced by pairing them with motor and other graphic areas. The writing draws upon other skills that will be similarly lost like planning and fitting items within a limited provided space. Also, there's significant dexterity likely to be lost without learning to write, for hours a week, in legible cursive.
Further I find it personally horrifying that subsequent generations may be unable to read seminal cultural documents like the Declaration of Independence. Handwriting matters ... But does cursive matter?
Research shows: the fastest, most legible handwriters avoid cursive
— joining only some letters, not all; making the easiest joins,
skipping the rest, using print-like shapes for letters whose cursive
and printed shapes disagree. (Citation on request.)
Reading cursive still matters -- learning this takes just 30-60
minutes, and can be taught to a five- or six-year-old who knows
how to read. The value of reading cursive is therefore no
justification for writing it.
When following the rules doesn't work as well as breaking them, it's
time to re-write and upgrade the rules. The discontinuance of
cursive — in Indiana and 48 other states — brings great
opportunities to teach some better-functioning form of handwriting
that actually approaches what the fastest, clearest handwriters do
anyway. (There are indeed textbooks and curricula that teach
handwriting this way. Cursive and printing are not the only choices.)
A final note: whatever your elementary school teacher may have
been told by her elementary school teacher, cursive signatures have
no special legal validity over signatures written in any other way.
(Don't take my word for this: talk to any attorney.)
Kate Gladstone — CEO, Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That
Works
Director, the World Handwriting Contest
Co-Designer, BETTER LETTERS handwriting trainer app for
iPhone/iPad
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com Times change and it is time for cursive to go the way of Latin. We also have an ethical obligation to train all children for professional careers.
Our children will no longer be able to read seminal documents in their original cursive. However, I don't know anyone who can read the Magna Carta in its original Latin. Moreover, the Declaration of Independence is written in a script so dated that it makes it next to impossible for modern eyes to read.
There is only so much time in a school day. We have to choose- do we teach cursive or do we teach keyboarding? For many middle-class children, it doesn't really matter. Middle-class children will go home and play on their computers. BUT, for children of poverty, school is the only place where they can interact with computers. If we insist on teaching an obsolete skill, we are dooming our neediest students to non-professional jobs. * = Required information
"Do I think cursive should still be part of the curriculum?" asks Kate Messner, a seventh-grade English teacher at Stafford Middle School in Plattsburgh, NY, and author of Marty McGuire (Scholastic, 2011). "I think it should stay, for now, though perhaps not with the write-neatly-or-you'll-never-amount-to-anything attitudes of the past. Cursive handwriting is still very much a part of our society, in personal signatures, which are essential, and to some degree, in handwritten notes from person to person."
Reader Comments (5)
Posted by Dori Moore on July 19, 2011 12:46:08PM
Posted by Ruth on July 19, 2011 02:48:56PM
Posted by Kate Gladstone on July 19, 2011 08:37:10PM
Posted by Lisa on July 21, 2011 07:40:37AM
