Cursive – A Disappearing Skill?

I found yet another article about the waning relevance of cursive handwriting in school.  This article was in The Washington Post.  As in the previous article, the new national standards were cited as part of the blame.  Other reasons for the decline in teaching cursive handwriting are lean budgets and lack of time in the school day.  The new standards set the learning goals and objectives students need to be successful in the world after high school.  Obviously, technology is engrained in every aspect of our lives in some way.

It's hard to blame teachers for their reluctance to spend time teaching cursive.  After all, much of our testing is done online now.  In the near future, all of our standardized testing will be via computer.  Students need to be proficient typists in order to successfully complete their assessments in the time permitted.  Most people seem to agree that, while cursive handwriting can be beautiful and some of our older historical documents are written in cursive, the need to learn it is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Deborah Spear, an academic therapist, disagrees, but not simply because of the beauty of cursive or its usefullness in interpreting old documents.  She relies on cursive handwriting when working with dyslexic students.  "Because all letters in cursive start on a base line, and because the pen moves fluidly from left to right, cursive is easier to learn for dyslexic students who have trouble forming words correctly."  She states, "Yes, needing to read cursive is greatly diminishing in our society, but it's still very applicable as an instructional tool."

Steve Graham is an education professor at Arizona State University and also a top U.S. expert on handwriting instruction.  He says, "I can't remember the last time I read the Constitution.  The truth is that cursive writing is pretty much gone, except in the adult world for people in their 60s and 70s."  He ends with the assertion that, "The question is why teach two forms of writing when one will do the trick?  Something's gotta give.  Cursive handwriting is under pressure."

As for me, I can still be swayed either way.  I hate to see cursive go completely by the wayside.  I can't imagine signing my signature in print.  That just doesn't seem right to me.  I still write in cursive for students occasionally, just so they can at least learn to read it.  I practice reading cursive with my grandchildren.  In fact, my second grade granddaughter excitedly told me last week that she was going to be learning cursive over the balance of the school year. 


The article can be found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/cursive-handwriting-disappearing-from-public-schools/2013/04/04/215862e0-7d23-11e2-a044-676856536b40_story.html