Writing on the Wall Dying Art as Schools Give Up on Teaching Cursive Writing

Public schools in the Highlands no longer teach it, and some parents object

By Kimberly Hiss

Melinda Higbee has iv children in the Garrison School District. The youngest, a fourth-grader, tin can't write in cursive or sign his name, and she's not happy nearly information technology.

"If his grandmother writes him a card in cursive, I want him to exist able to read that," she said. "I don't remember we should be graduating kids who tin can't understand a handwritten note from a future dominate."

Since the statewide adoption in 2013 of the standard curriculum known as Common Core, many public schools have dropped education in cursive writing, citing time constraints. The curriculum, which has been adopted by 42 states and the Commune of Columbia, requires only that children know how to print by first grade and type by fourth form.

A educatee practices cursive writing. (Photo by G. Johnston/Canstock)

The exclusion of cursive writing has sparked fence amongst educators, parents and politicians in New York and beyond the country. 9 states take added cursive instruction back to public school curriculums. In Ohio, 1 school commune made it part of fine art class.

"I remember xxx years agone sitting in my own 5th-class course, and afterwards each lunch period we'd have our cursive instruction," says Brent Harrington, principal of Haldane Simple. "Today, the writing that students and adults practise is predominantly on the estimator, so in that location's less of a necessity for cursive and the cess of penmanship."

Spencerian script was the cursive used in the U.S. from about 1850 to 1925. It fell to the wayside with the introduction of the typewriter.

Still, he said, Haldane has chosen to retain some class of didactics, even if information technology's not a formatted function of the academic year. "We're not using a specific curriculum with set assessments and benchmarks," Harrington says. "But children are exposed to cursive writing in third grade with the goal of ensuring that they can at least sign their name."If there are parents with concerns, Harrington says, no i has expressed them to him.

Buoy is taking a like tack. "Our teachers may provide some exposure to cursive writing after students gain mastery of printing, typically around grade 3, based upon student readiness, just are not required to," interim superintendent Ann Marie Quartironi wrote in an email. She, also, said she has heard no complaints.

At the Garrison School, Higbee and other parents of fourth-graders who were non taught cursive in the tertiary class emailed their concerns in September to Principal John Griffiths. 1 parent called cursive a "fundamental learning tool" and expressed doubts that teachers did non take time to teach information technology.

Griffiths was sympathetic but said providing instruction would be challenging within the boundaries of the Mutual Core. "It had to exist scheduled in a style that may not have led to the most even implementation for all children, and then some kids were getting it more than others," he said. The concerns expressed by parents "recommitted us to the importance of cursive writing," he said.

The Palmer Method, developed past Austin Palmer in the late 19th century, was a simplified way of the Spencerian Method and became the standard taught to school children.

There has been give-and-take most the feasibility of calculation cursive pedagogy at the end of 2d grade and the beginning of third form, he said, also as lessons in afterward grades to ensure that students exercise. But he said that kind of instruction has to be balanced with other curriculum requirements.

"We demand to make sure we're roofing everything we're supposed to in terms of Common Core and other areas such equally social-emotional learning and anti-bullying," he says. "Equally an administrator, I need to be careful not to stress the system so that whatever nosotros do, we have time to do it well and touch on students' lives."

Is cursive good for yous?

Advocates for the value of cursive point to enquiry that suggests information technology helps the brain procedure data.

"Cursive is very of import for a child'southward cognitive development because information technology allows the brain to integrate sensation, movement and thinking in a very efficient way," said Mercedes Burke, a pediatric occupational therapist in the Haldane school district. "Scientists accept performed [brain browse] studies with children while they were doing cursive writing and, unlike typing, it activates multiple areas."

Handwriting Without Tears, a popular modern method

With cursive writing, she explained, the motor part of the encephalon, the cerebellum, is activated past the forward area of the brain, the frontal cortex. "Writing in general isn't being taught as information technology used to, and it'south actually affecting children later on," Burke said. "They accept to write notes in course, and if they're not writing by mitt, the cognitive integration that helps them digest and analyze information is missing."

Non everyone agrees with that assessment. Anne Trubek, author of The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, has written that "there are few instances in which handwriting is a necessity, and in that location will exist even fewer by the time today'south 2d-graders graduate."

The Cursive National Vacation

National Handwriting Day is celebrated Jan. 23, the birthdate of John Hancock.

She and others argue that research shows no departure in the neurological benefits between printing and cursive; handwriting is beneficial, but it doesn't have to be cursive. And she notes that keyboards are great for students with poor handwriting, who at least one study showed are oft graded lower by teachers. Cursive survives, she and other critics contend, in large part because of tradition.

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Source: https://highlandscurrent.org/2016/12/17/cursive-dying-art/

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