The Great Debate: Cursive Writing
This year I welcomed a new student into my third grade EAL class who transferred from a European school system. This student is new to both the country and the English language, and is working hard everyday to adjust. I was surprised to note on the first day of school that this student had been primarily taught cursive writing in their previous school as opposed to printing, which is more typical for lower elementary in the North American system. My new student struggles to write in print when copying from the whiteboard, however, has neat and proper penmanship in cursive. My other students are fascinated by this ‘fancy’ writing, and they immediately all wanted to learn how to write their names in cursive.
As a child in Canada, I was taught cursive, however, cursive writing has not been part of our mandated curriculum for years in North America. Out of curiosity, I brought the topic up with my American colleagues, who are in the same age bracket as myself, to hear more about their experiences with cursive. Everyone had a similar story, they were all taught cursive script writing, but have never actually taught it as part of their curriculum requirements now. I began to wonder why is cursive no longer taught in schools? Is it simply a dead form of writing? If so, why? Are there benefits to learning cursive writing that my students are missing out on? Would teaching cursive simply be a waste of time for students who will type more than write as adults anyways?
I was once again surprised when I began to do some digging into the topic online and I found that there is actually quite a debate amongst educators as to whether we should be teaching cursive or not. Those who believe that cursive writing should hold a place in the elementary school classroom feel that beyond the obvious benefits of manual dexterity and fine-motor control, it also provides a vital link to history. Advocates of teaching cursive correctly note that many important primary source and/or historical documents that have been left to us are in cursive script. Not to mention that private family documents from previous generations also most commonly exist in script, and it would be a shame if this link between past and present generations was lost due to simply being unable to read cursive.
The beliefs of those who advocate for cursive are in great contrast to educators who feel including cursive writing as a mandatory portion of the language arts curriculum is unnecessarily burdensome for young learners. Especially considering that most of their writing in the later grades will done via computer. These educators feel that elementary age students should be spending the time learning strong typing and computer skills, as opposed to cursive. They raise the suggestion that if cursive script writing is to be included, perhaps it could become a part of the arts/design subjects as a form of calligraphy.
Im certainly curious to hear from other educators on the topic. Do you, or does your school mandate, that you teach cursive writing? If so, what benefits do you see your students receiving from learning this skill? And if you oppose, do you focus on other more technical communication skills instead?
Links for further reading:
https://medium.com/life-unvarnished/cursive-writing-is-dead-and-it-shouldnt-be-155336c0fece
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