When discussing the developmental stages of young children we know that gross motor skills develop before fine motor skills. When children approach Kindergarten they begin to apply the fine motor skills that they are normally being coached on. Most of us remember learning to write cursive around the time of third grade. Some of us may have spent half an hour a day doing drills on letter formation counting down the minutes until it was over while others of us may still use cursive in their everyday writing.
States that have adopted the Common Core Curriculum are no longer required to teach cursive in school. It is at each school's discretion whether they think that cursive holds value in today's current education system or not. I am one of the many adults who do not write in cursive at all, in fact, I can barely do it if I try. I moved to the states after third grade and missed the direct instruction of cursive and had to catch up on my own so that I could get by when it was mandatory to use cursive (on the pledge on the SATs for example). With the Common Core not including cursive in its plan it leads me to question the value of continuing to teach cursive in schools. I personally don't believe that it is necessary to know how to do it to function well in society or in a job. However, I have noticed in myself that when taking notes quickly it is more efficient to join my letters together. Many peers who use cursive state efficiency as the main reason they write in cursive. I read "The Great Cursive Debate" article (http://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/395-the-great-cursive-debate) and one thing I found interesting was the mention of special educators saying that cursive helps students with learning disabilities (dyslexia and dysgraphia especially) to get their thoughts out more clearly. I can see where the link would be made of having a flow in the formation of letters may help the flow of thought and would be interested to look into studies that support this or not.
If schools are to continue teaching cursive, I am then pondering another question - is third grade too early or too late to begin instruction?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteAllie,
I taught second grade for the past two years and we were required to teach cursive. The third grade teachers wrote in cursive and students needed to understand it. I was not aware of a requirement to write in cursive at our school, but students would be significantly disadvantaged if they had not at least learned how to read cursive at our school (This is a different kind of literacy too!). I have asked a friend at my old school if they will be continuing cursive this year with the addition of Common Core, but she has not been told. It will be interesting to see if teachers will still be told to cut out 20 minutes of their LA block to teach handwriting.
There is research to both support and disclaim the need for cursive instruction. I can remember two times specifically when I sat in IEP meetings where a student had deficient printing and it was suggested that he/she may improve their handwriting with cursive instruction. By second grade, habits are formed and handwriting is very difficult to improve/change. With cursive instruction, students have to relearn to write and practice slowly. Most kids love it and want to learn this new way of writing. I have had experience seeing children with poor printing have excellent cursive. According to a Learning Disability-help website, cursive can be a much easier way to write than printing (http://ldsupport.homestead.com/handwritingskills.html). With its continuous movement, less attention has to be paid to straightness of lines and perfect circles. It typically takes less time to write a cursive word than a printed word (once learned), which may help students who feel frustrated with the task of writing. As a teacher who had to occasionally trade science time for cursive time, I was frustrated. However, cursive instruction can be beneficial to some students.
Allie,
ReplyDeleteIn response to your question I think that third grade is not too late to start teaching cursive. When I was in elementary school I remember it was very rewarding to feel like I had mastered cursive, and knowing I was going to learn cursive in third grade since I had an older sister who did, made me very motivated. However, when teachers required us to use cursive it made me very frustrated. I had one teacher in my freshman year of high school who would not accept our essays if they were not written in cursive. I focused so much on the form of my letters, that I felt very stressed when writing. I think it is beneficial to explicitly teach cursive for reasons Kelly explained, as well as the statements you said, but I think the ultimate decision on which writing style to use should be up to the student. Let's face it, in this age of technology, it is not imperative that a student be perfect in either form of writing, as long as it is easily legible. I definitely know when to turn on my "teacher writing" and be super neat, but most times I write with a combination of manuscript and cursive. If you are interested in doing handwriting with your students there is a great contest I found: http://www.scholastic.com/zbhandwriting/?eml=SMP/e/20121011////ZanerBloser//Contest_header/SL1_V1///&ym_MID=1441766&ym_rid=19204971
Allie, you bring up a good point. I learned cursive when I was in third grade and was very excited to learn it because as Laura said, my older brother learned, so I wanted to learn too. I, to this day, write in modified cursive when taking notes and writing quickly because it takes less time to blend your letters together. I don't think third grade is too early, but am curious if it should be taught in third grade. With the high stakes testing so important and teachers already feeling the crunch of it all, there is little time to add the cursive instruction to the schedule. My roommate who teaches fourth grade in Baltimore County does not have cursive instruction in their school. Also, as Laura said, because of the technology boom, there is little need for cursive. Students should at some point learn how to write cursive letters for the Just in case moments, like on the SATs, but maybe there isn't as high of a need as there used to be when we were in school. I don't think that cursive should be a requirement to write in because some students don't learn it now a days or struggle writing in it.
ReplyDeleteI just read this article on cursive and other "old school" practices that are in question today. Take a look! http://ideas.time.com/2012/11/08/why-kids-should-learn-cu-cursive/?iid=op-main-lead
ReplyDelete