Hand Writing RIP

[Siji]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15213845/?frak

Cursive writing rapidly becoming passé
Researchers see a downside as keyboards replace pens in schools

WASHINGTON - The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

And those college hopefuls are just the first edge of a wave of U.S. students who no longer get much handwriting instruction in the primary grades, frequently 10 minutes a day or less. As a result, more and more students struggle to read and write cursive.

Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say. But academics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades.

Scholars who study original documents say the demise of handwriting will diminish the power and accuracy of future historical research. And others simply lament the loss of handwritten communication for its beauty, individualism and intimacy.

"It's like so many other things in our society -- there's a sense of loss for what once was," said Laura B. Smolken, a professor of elementary education and early childhood development at the University of Virginia.

‘We really could care less’
At Keene Mill Elementary in Springfield, Debbie Mattocks teaches cursive once a week to her gifted-and-talented group of third-graders -- mainly so they can read it. All their poems and stories are typed. Children in Fairfax County schools are taught keyboarding beginning in kindergarten.

"I can't think of any other place you need cursive as an adult other than to sign your name," she said. "Cursive -- that is so low on the priority list, we really could care less. We are much more concerned that these kids pass their SOLs [standardized tests], and that doesn't require a bit of cursive."

Older students who never mastered handwriting say it doesn't affect their grades. "A lot of kids have just awful handwriting. . . . Teachers don't take off points for poor handwriting," said Matt Paragamian, a 10th-grader at St. Albans School in Northwest Washington. Many of his classmates take notes in class on their own laptops and do homework on computers.

Until the 1970s, penmanship was a separate daily lesson through sixth grade, said Dennis Williams, national product manager for Zaner-Bloser Handwriting, the most widely used penmanship curriculum. At its peak in the 1940s and '50s, most teachers insisted on as much as two hours a week, but a 2003 Vanderbilt University survey of primary-grade teachers found that most now spend 10 minutes a day or less on the subject. To adapt to this new reality, the Zaner-Bloser method has been changed to a 15-minute daily plan.

In Montgomery County, schools "don't have separate handwriting instruction for handwriting's sake," said spokesman Brian Edwards. Only a handful of schools in Prince George's County teach handwriting. Fairfax educators struggle to include penmanship.

"It is hard to fit it in," said Pat Fege, the county's language arts coordinator. The goal now is only to produce legible handwriting, Fege said. "It's just not the vehicle it once was."

Culture at a crossroads?
There are those who say the culture is at a crossroads, turning permanently from the written word to the typed one. If handwriting becomes a lost form of communication, does it matter?

It was at U-Va. that researchers recently discovered a previously unknown poem by Robert Frost, written in his signature script. Handwritten documents are more valuable to researchers, historians say, because their authenticity can be confirmed. Students also find them more intriguing.

"They feel closer to that person as an actual human, that somebody actually wrote that just like me," said Jim Mohr, a professor of U.S. history at the University of Oregon at Eugene, who wrote a book on diaries from the Civil War. "There's a kind of personal authenticity to individual writing that's hard to capture any other way."

Cognitive opportunity missed?
The loss of handwriting also may be a cognitive opportunity missed. The neurological process that directs thought, through fingers, into written symbols is a highly sophisticated one. Several academic studies have found that good handwriting skills at a young age can help children express their thoughts better -- a lifelong benefit. Children who don't learn correct technique find it harder to write by hand, so they avoid it. Schools that do teach handwriting often stop after third grade -- right after kids learn cursive. By the time computers are more widely used in classrooms for writing, perhaps in fourth or fifth grade, many children already have decided they don't like to write.

In one of the studies, Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, who studies the acquisition of writing, experimented with a group of first-graders in Prince George's County who could write only 10 to 12 letters per minute. The kids were given 15 minutes of handwriting instruction three times a week. After nine weeks, they had doubled their writing speed and their expressed thoughts were more complex. He also found corresponding increases in their sentence construction skills.

But Graham worries that students who remain printers, rather than writing in cursive, need more time to take notes or write essays for the SAT. Teachers may say they don't deduct for bad handwriting in class, but research tells another story, he said.

When adults are given the same composition written in good handwriting and poor handwriting, "they still give lower grades for ideation and quality of writing if the text is less legible," he said.

Indeed, the SAT essays written in cursive had slightly higher average scores than those written in print, according to the College Board.

It doesn't take much to teach better handwriting skills. At some schools in Prince George's County, elementary school students use a program called Handwriting Without Tears for 15 minutes a day. They learn the correct formation of manuscript letters through second grade, and cursive letters in third grade.

In a recent daily exercise, the second-graders at Yorktown Elementary School in Bowie carefully formed letters on individual chalkboards -- first with a wet sponge, then with a tissue, then in chalk and finally in pencil in a workbook. In the future, these kids will produce far more legible letters than kids without this kind of specialized instruction, said Lynne Maydag, the school's handwriting coordinator.

There are always going to be some kids who struggle with handwriting because of their particular neurological wiring, learning issues or poor fine motor skills, teachers said in interviews. For those kids in particular, the growing dominance of typing is liberating because they can write without stumbling over letter formation. Educators often point to this factor in support of keyboarding.

Paragamian, the St. Albans sophomore, was never great at handwriting, and says he can barely read or write cursive even now.

It doesn't bother him. "These days it doesn't matter," he said, "because any important thing you turn in is typed."

[Winnow]

"I can't think of any other place you need cursive as an adult other than to sign your name," she said. "Cursive -- that is so low on the priority list, we really could care less. We are much more concerned that these kids pass their SOLs [standardized tests], and that doesn't require a bit of cursive."

So true. Besides my signiture, which is completely illegible on purpose, I can't remember the last time I used cursive.

As for the SATs, they should be taken on non-netconnected computers in testing facilities so the students can use a keyboard to type their essays.

[Fairweather Pure]

'The worse you do on this standardized test, the more money the school gets, so don't knock yourselves out.' - Edna Krabappel

Heh, I always think of that Simpson's quote when standardize testing comes up.

I would also like to add to the death list "any letter form other than block style". The vast majority of the "rules of typing" went right out the fucking window when email became the norm.

[masteen]

As for the SATs, they should be taken on non-netconnected computers in testing facilities so the students can use a keyboard to type their essays.

Fuck that. Let the little semi-literate retards get lower scores. I've been grammar-nazi and handwriting coach for my sister's kids for a goddamn reason!

[Psyloche]

I hate cursive writing for anything other than writing notes in classes/meetings that only I will read. I can't stand people who write in it because most people write so illegibly that it is just chicken scratchings anyway.

My parents used to write grocery lists in cursive and a lot of it was almost unreadable except for the fact that they verbally told me the list as they wrote it, so I could guess a lot of the items.

[Aslanna]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15213845/?frak

Cursive writing rapidly becoming passé
Researchers see a downside as keyboards replace pens in schools

"I can't think of any other place you need cursive as an adult other than to sign your name," she said. "Cursive -- that is so low on the priority list, we really could care less. We are much more concerned that these kids pass their SOLs [standardized tests], and that doesn't require a bit of cursive."

Apparently sytle > substance.

Not to date myself but I can remember growing up and going to grade school in the 70s and having to do the cursive writing stufff. With the paper with the two lines with the dotted line in the middle. It didn't help at all. Even in college for notes I didn't use cursive. I don't really think it's that big of a timesaver. Keyboarding would have been a much more useful skill to learn.

[Sylvus]

My handwriting was never good, even throughout school when I rarely used computers/typewriters and was in practice. In meetings and stuff now when I'm taking notes, I find that if I write for more than like 2 minutes I'll get cramps in my hand, as those muscles just aren't used to doing that anymore.

Who cares if people can write in cursive? It's completely unnecessary now. Half the time it's difficult to read another person's cursive anyway, styles vary so much.

[Wulfran]

I can't stand people who write in it because most people write so illegibly that it is just chicken scratchings anyway.

Ditto.

I got into the habbit of printing when I was in college because my instructors wanted assignments in 2 forms: typed/word processed or for some of the harder core engineering things they wanted it printed as per drafting/blueprints. Cursive was not accepted in any scenario. It got to a point that I can print faster now than I used to be able to write in cursive, which was one of the biggest arguments I heard about using it, and there is no guessing about if its an "f" a "g" or a "j".

[Truant]

we had to learn cursive in the second grade. it was so much slower than my printing that I immediately forgot it that year, as it was way more effort than it was worth to continue trying to write in cursive.

To this day, I cannot write in cursive. I can write in print very fast, however!

[Zaelath]

Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say. But academics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades.

2 things:

1. "research shows" no such thing, this could just as easily mean kids that produce shorter, simpler compositions also have shitty handwritting. The cause and effect relationship here can't be established. Hell, is the idea that if you sat a stupid kid down and made them practice cursive four hours a day until they had excellent penmanship; they will write more intelligent prose? Rediculous.

2. I can however, see writing shorter compositions just because people that aren't "built" for cursive tend to cramp up fast. Pain is not a positive motivator to just keep on writing for children (you have to be an adult before you lose it and decide you like pain).

[kyoukan]

My friend teaches grade 12 high school. She shows me some of the stuff that is handed in these days Entire essays written in internet shorthand or text messaging shortcuts.

The revival of text based communication was supposed to make society smarter, dammit.

[Siji]

My friend teaches grade 12 high school. She shows me some of the stuff that is handed in these days Entire essays written in internet shorthand or text messaging shortcuts.

The revival of text based communication was supposed to make society smarter, dammit.

And your friend probably passes all those papers. Even if he/she doesn't I would say that a lot do and therein lies the problem. Teachers have been conditioned to be happy just to have a student turn "something" in. Or maybe they're not conditioned, they just don't give a fuck anymore.

[Zaelath]

My friend teaches grade 12 high school. She shows me some of the stuff that is handed in these days Entire essays written in internet shorthand or text messaging shortcuts.

The revival of text based communication was supposed to make society smarter, dammit.

That has zero to do with cursive and 100% to do with teenagers being trendy fucktards. I'd agree not to flunk them based on illegibility on the basis that they take their paper, this dictionary, and go write it out in english and return it tomorrow.

I appreciate that for testing purposes they only need to "make themselves understood" so you shouldn't mark for spelling, even on an english paper if a reasonable attempt is made, but eventually they need to be employed and if they turned in that garbage on a job application I wouldn't even let them push a broom for minimum wage.

[Arborealus]

My friend teaches grade 12 high school. She shows me some of the stuff that is handed in these days Entire essays written in internet shorthand or text messaging shortcuts.

The revival of text based communication was supposed to make society smarter, dammit.

And worse still...they cannot communicate well orally...They have no idea how words are pronounced...throw them a word like facade...

[vn_Tanc]

My friend teaches grade 12 high school. She shows me some of the stuff that is handed in these days Entire essays written in internet shorthand or text messaging shortcuts.

The revival of text based communication was supposed to make society smarter, dammit.

And worse still...they cannot communicate well orally...They have no idea how words are pronounced...throw them a word like facade...

My stepson is 11. His teachers are directed not to correct spelling as long as the meaning is clear. I despair every time he tells me he "holded" something instead of "held" it. He's a bright kid who reads every day as well.

[Zaelath]

That's probably correct english in the US, I know "teached" is.

[Marbus]

I write in cursive like you are suppose to write. Block printing is for drafting or for little kids... I grew up in the 70s as well and moving up to writing in cursive was a "big deal" back then. We didn't get a lot of time on it after that but writing like a first grader wasn't an option in any class, you did it right or you did it again...

It's funny because I went to public school in Arkansas but as I've gotten older I've realized how luckly I was to go to school where I did. Unlike most schools in the state, and obviously a lot of other places, people expected you to learn, act correctly etc... definitely paid off for me.

However in regards to writing I can remember growing up, being a little kids, who could wait to be able to write as well, as beautifully as his Grandmother. She definitely had the best cursive I have ever seen. She kept all the county ledgers by hand for like 20 years while my mom was little. They still have them in storage and you can read them almost better than you can a 10 year old document printer from a printer because of the fading from the printer ink.

I also always felt like your art and style actually said something about you, being able to write well IS important IMHO... and I'm left handed as well so I had to focus much more than many of my friends to be able to write well since everything leans right.

Just my opinion though...

Marb

[kyoukan]

I print everything, and dot my i's with lilttle 's.

[cadalano]

my handwriting just keeps getting worse and worse, but it depends if anyone else needs to be able to read it. If i'm just taking notes, which is 95% of my writing these days, then I'll abbreviate any word thats longer than 5 letters. I also will never really take my pen off the paper, even though i'm printing... so it ends up just looking like cursive for retards. I can go slower and make it legible, but otherwise I'm the only person that can understand my own handwriting. I'm the fastest typist I know, though, and thats all that matters!

[Marbus]

Well as a former UNIX admin I type fast as well, personally I can't imagine not being able to do both. I do have to focus to keep my writing neat these days though as I use to work in a Hospital with at risk youth and charted for 2 to 3 hours a night... you write that much on top of grad school and your handwriting goes quickly unless you try

Marb

[*~*stragi*~*]

cursive is fucking stupid and i can't read anyone else's but my own anyways and mine doesn't look like anything oddly

[*~*stragi*~*]

I print everything, and dot my i's with lilttle 's.

that is so cute kyoukan you are so CUTE

[Leonaerd]

I actually noticed just last week that my handwriting is turning into mud. I usually write cursive style, because when I use other styles I cannae read my writing.

[kyoukan]

[Animalor]

After I read the study, I tried to write out a paragraph in cursive. The first few lines sucked but it definatly came back after that and was much more legible.