Should my son learn cursive

[Palo Verde]

My son had a total waste of a third grade teacher and he never learned cursive. Now he's in 5th grade and in a very academically strenuous school.

Should I make an effort to teach him cursive? I've heard some people says it is a waste of time. What do you think?

[Really Not All That Bright]

It certainly can't hurt, and it will improve his fine motor skills.

[ShelliBean]

I don't know if you want to do it or hire a tutor or if he is in a different school talk to his teacher and see what she thinks is the best way for him to learn.

Does he have trouble reading cursive writing?

[glee]

I would recommend learning to touch-type.

[Green Bean]

Yes, he should learn cursive.

Learning cursive will help develop and refine his small-motor skills.

For most people, it's faster to write/take notes in cursive or some sort of modified cursive. And I expect a zillion people to chime in here stating that it's not true for them. But even if people's fast handwriting is "printing," learning the fluid motions required for cursive probably helped.

And it's a wonderful thing to be able to create an attractive handwritten document. Your son's cursive skills may never develop to the point where his cursive looks really beautiful, but it would be a shame to deprive him of the opportunity.

[Green Bean]

Originally Posted by glee

I would recommend learning to touch-type.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

[dactylic hexameter]

FWIW, I learned cursive in 2nd grade, was required to use it until 5th grade, and haven't used it since (just graduated college). Wait, scratch that. On the SAT (when I took it), you were required to copy a printed statement saying that you are who you said you were, etc. You were not allowed to print this statement - you HAD to write it in cursive. It was ridiculous, but there you go. I think I couldn't remember how to do a capital "I", so I just made it up. The one benefit of scripting is that you supposedly can write faster, but having just finished a number of lecture classes in college, I can say I never felt 'held up' by my printing.

[Freudian Slit]

I never felt held up by writing in print either. Plus, it's way harder to read cursive. I remember reading the Ann M. Martin Babysitters Club books, and HATING the characters who would write their little notebook reports in cursive. It looked pretty, sure, but the prettiest ones were the most impossible to read.

[Procrustus]

Look at it this way, your son is probably the last generation to even be given the chance to learn cursive. Want to deny him that?

I think it's a useless skill for most people, like being able to operate a horse and buggy. But harmless if he has no unusual difficulty

[overlyverbose]

I'm another cursive proponent. Then again, even at age 33, I'm a total dinosaur since I still write letters to a few of my friends. I'd third the fine motor skills and writing faster comments. I'd also say that fine penmanship seems to be dying out. I guess it doesn't matter unless you're sentimental like me, but it seems a shame that it's going the way of the dodo - I loved that my mom and I could address my wedding invitations and it looked every bit as beautiful as if a calligrapher had done it. Although I guess most men don't generally address wedding invites - not sure how that works anymore. I only got married four years ago, but things seemed to have drastically changed even since then.

[mmouse9799]

It may not have been your child's teacher. Many schools have removed cursive writing from the curriculum because of the availibility of computers and typing. (This was as of one of my education classes in 2003.)

It's more important to have legible handwriting than cursive handwriting, IMHO. I wouldn't stress about your son not knowing it unless it's a requirement in his current school.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Green Bean

And it's a wonderful thing to be able to create an attractive handwritten document. Your son's cursive skills may never develop to the point where his cursive looks really beautiful, but it would be a shame to deprive him of the opportunity.

I have- not to toot my own horn- gorgeous, fluid cursive handwriting.

I haven't written anything in cursive since before college, though- a good 10 years.

[Jayn_Newell]

Originally Posted by dactylic hexameter

You were not allowed to print this statement - you HAD to write it in cursive.

This is as good a reason as any I can think of to have him learn. It may not do him any good, but it certainly won't do him any harm, and you never know just when down the line he may find himself being required to write in cursive for some arcane reason.


Or you could teach him calligraphy. Send him to school with an ink well and a quill. It may take him longer to write his notes, but at least they'll look pretty

(Oh, and ditto on the touch-typing thing. Even when I was in high school things were switching to an expectation of students typing and printing reports at home. Tell him it'll give him more time to play video games by getting his homework done faster. Keyboarding was the most useful class I took in high school by a long shot.)

[Harriet the Spry]

Originally Posted by mmouse9799

I wouldn't stress about your son not knowing it unless it's a requirement in his current school.

Exactly. Ask. If they aren't going to require it, I say don't bother. He will get a lot more return on time invested for learning other stuff.

[BrotherCadfael]

I moved from a school where you learned cursive in 4th grade, to a school where you learned it in 3rd grade, missing it in both. Later, I learned the letterforms, but never developed the skill.

Today, I write in an almost illegible, sloppy print. My signature looks like that of a five-year old. Writing a note that I want someone else to be able read, such as an absence note to my kids schools, is a such a miserable process that I will fire up the computer, compose the note and print it out, unless there is a power failure.

And, yes, when i took the GREs, we had to copy the statement in cursive, and it took me at least ten minutes - while the entire rest of the group sat around and waited - the slowest had been done for at least five minutes.

So, YES! YES!! YES!!!

(I am quite literate, and am considered to be an excellent writer and editor. However, had I grown up in pre-word processor times, I would be severely handicapped in this regard.)

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Jayn_Newell

(Oh, and ditto on the touch-typing thing. Even when I was in high school things were switching to an expectation of students typing and printing reports at home. Tell him it'll give him more time to play video games by getting his homework done faster. Keyboarding was the most useful class I took in high school by a long shot.)

I took a touch-typing class in school, and learned almost nothing except where the colon key was. I learned to type by using AOL Instant Messenger, and now can hit 70 words per minute on a good day.

IOW, he won't need to be taught how to type. He'll learn.

[Shayna]

I had absolutely no idea that cursive was going out of fashion! I write in it all the time, especially inside greeting cards. Color me shocked.

[Sarahfeena]

Originally Posted by Procrustus

Look at it this way, your son is probably the last generation to even be given the chance to learn cursive. Want to deny him that?

I think it's a useless skill for most people, like being able to operate a horse and buggy. But harmless if he has no unusual difficulty

I guess it's "useless" in the sense that if you can print, that will be sufficient for whatever writing you need to do. However, I don't think being able to write a handwritten thank-you note or sympathy note in nice cursive writing will ever go out of style.

[Sage Rat]

My school made me learn cursive. It would take me an hour to two hours to write out a single printed page of text and my hand would hurt like hell when I was done.

Cursive can just merrily go off and die a tortuous death so far as I'm concerned.

[Acsenray]

Then, it's not "cursive" that was the problem. It was the method of teaching.

In real life, letterforms don't always have rigidly predictable patterns. Even fashions in typefaces change. If for no other reason, people should learn to write by hand so that they know how to read handwriting.

Originally Posted by dactylic hexameter

I think I couldn't remember how to do a capital "I", so I just made it up.

This is one of the strangest sentences I've ever had the opportunity to read in my lifetime. Do you think "cursive" letterforms are defined by law? I invent new letterforms nearly every time I write something by hand. That's how handwriting works.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

I doubt it would be a significant handicap not knowing how to write cursive.

It would, however, be a handicap not knowing how to *read* cursive.

I write in cursive very rarely, but I encounter written cursive quite frequently.

And, as others have mentioned, what could it hurt?

[Skara_Brae]

Can he sign his name in cursive? He needs to be able to do that at a bare minimum, I think...

[Argent Towers]

Cursive is awesome, and it is also in serious danger of becoming extinct. Definitely teach him cursive. I hated learning it when I was a kid, but now whenever I find myself doing any kind of hand-writing, I take great pleasure in lovingly detailing every letter in cursive so they flow together like a symphony. People tell me I "write like a girl" when they see my cursive, which is a backhanded compliment. I typically make it extremely ornate, with a lot of unnecessary flourishes and curly lines.

[Tom Tildrum]

Those of you who don't use cursive, do you sign your name using printing?

[DMark]

When I was living in Germany, I had a sweet, elderly woman who lived next door and she couldn't carry heavy items, so I would pick things up for her when I went to the store.
She would write me notes, in old German cursive, that I eventually figured out how to read.

Later, my German friends were in shock that I could read it, as most of them couldn't!

If you want to see an example of what her handwriting looked like, here is the font style.

But back to the OP - I learned cursive in school, and for the first sentence or two, I can write really beautifully - but it sure does get sloppy by sentence three, and by about the fifth sentence, even I can't read it anymore - thus I have learned to print really fast.

I use cursive for the occasional address on a birthday card, but that is about the extent of it.

[Acid Lamp]

No. He is in 5th grade now, and academics will be ramping up. IF he has time and is not involved in other enrichments,(Art, music, sports, etc) THEN he might have some time to spend on this essentially useless skill. With how jam-packed today's kids' schedules already often are, I wouldn't want to burden someone further.

Of course if he just hangs out all day playing video games, then go for it.

[emmaliminal]

Originally Posted by acsenray

This is one of the strangest sentences I've ever had the opportunity to read in my lifetime. Do you think "cursive" letterforms are defined by law? I invent new letterforms nearly every time I write something by hand. That's how handwriting works.

My WAG: dactylic hexameter meant that when it came to that I, s/he had to think about it, about the motion required -- it didn't just flow like other letters do.

[Santo Rugger]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

Those of you who don't use cursive, do you sign your name using printing?

No, but I've seriously considered signing my name in print. My print is much more consistent; my signature never even looks the same. My print, on the other hand, has been pretty much the same since high school. The biggest difference is that I now put a tail on my lowercase t, because I kept getting it confused with plus signs in circuits class.

[Thudlow Boink]

The whole point of cursive is that the letters flow together, so that you can write a whole word without lifting your pen from the page (or your marker from the dry-erase board, or whatever), as opposed to printing where you have to make each letter separate. This allows you to write faster and more fluidly, at least once you get the hang of it.

[Manda JO]

I wouldn't insist on it, but if he wants to learn, I'd make the time to show him how.

You only get to encourage so many enrichment things above and beyond school, and I wouldn't make this one of them. The rudiments of a foreign language or sentence diagramming or the basics of logic would all be more useful, IMO. And I'm an English teacher.

[dactylic hexameter]

acsenray and emilyforce,
what I meant was, if you look at this link , it shows the capital 'I' as I was taught it. I couldn't remember where the embellishment/leadinthingy was supposed to go, on the left (which really makes little sense), or on the right. In the end, I think my "I"s ended up more like the capital "L" shown in the link, with a shorter foot.

I'm a she, btw.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Originally Posted by Tom Tildrum

Those of you who don't use cursive, do you sign your name using printing?

When I said I rarely write in cursive anymore, I wasn't including signatures. My signature is really more of my own unique mark than it is proper cursive, anyway.

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by Manda JO

I wouldn't insist on it, but if he wants to learn, I'd make the time to show him how.

You only get to encourage so many enrichment things above and beyond school, and I wouldn't make this one of them. The rudiments of a foreign language or sentence diagramming or the basics of logic would all be more useful, IMO. And I'm an English teacher.

This.

My mom is a sixth grade teacher, and when she told me the story of a parent this year who was insistent that his son improve his cursive, and she asked him why on earth he'd waste his time with some archaic skill he'd never have to use...well, that's when I knew the final nail was in the coffin of cursive.

If my mom and Manda JO say it's not worth it, it is, indeed, a dying art. Let it go. You'd make better use of your time having him teach you how to txt.

[dalej42]

You may as well teach him hieroglyphics.

[glee]

Originally Posted by glee

I would recommend learning to touch-type.

Originally Posted by Green Bean

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

True, but he will undoubtedly type a lot more than he writes.

Anyway I don't think cursive is important - printing is easier to read.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Originally Posted by dalej42

You may as well teach him hieroglyphics.

Yeah, but won't it be embarrassing when Grandma dies and he has to get someone else to read her hand-written will?

Seriously, I encounter documents in cursive all the time. I get actual handwritten letters to the editor at my newspaper, there are reams of handwritten documents in my family genealogy files, people loan me books with their names written in cursive in them, I got a handwritten list of books from a librarian (wouldn't it be fun to call a customer and say "I can't get you those books because I can't read cursive?"), people leave little notes on my desk when I'm not there, of which probably 1/4 are in cursive, and on and on and on.

You can easily get through life these days without writing in cursive. Not being able to read cursive is a definite handicap.

[Harry1945]

I'm saddened that this is even a topic for discussion.

[Acsenray]

Originally Posted by dactylic hexameter

it shows the capital 'I' as I was taught it. I couldn't remember where the embellishment/leadinthingy was supposed to go, on the left (which really makes little sense), or on the right. In the end, I think my "I"s ended up more like the capital "L" shown in the link, with a shorter foot.

Being able to "write cursive" has nothing to do with memorizing the specific stroke sequences and letterforms of any particular hand. It never mattered whether you could reproduce that specific hand's capital I from memory. That's not what being able to write by hand is about. The failure to understand that is apparently a key to understanding how terrible your handwriting instructor was.

Originally Posted by InvisibleWombat

When I said I rarely write in cursive anymore, I wasn't including signatures. My signature is really more of my own unique mark than it is proper cursive, anyway.

Originally Posted by dalej42

You may as well teach him hieroglyphics.

There is no such thing as "proper" cursive. Every person's handwriting constitutes a "unique mark."

Rubbish. Because "cursive" writing is no longer used by any living person to communicate in a living language? People will always be writing by hand. It's a valuable skill to know how to write by hand and read what someone else has written by hand. The specific letterforms will, as they always have, evolve over time. The skill in question is largely the mental flexibility to handle variability, something that will always be part of human language.

[HMS Irruncible]

Originally Posted by autz

My son had a total waste of a third grade teacher and he never learned cursive. Now he's in 5th grade and in a very academically strenuous school.

Should I make an effort to teach him cursive? I've heard some people says it is a waste of time. What do you think?

If he's a girl, yes. For some reason girls need to write in cursive. If not, no.

[Jayn_Newell]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Relief

If he's a girl, yes. For some reason girls need to write in cursive. If not, no.

If he's a girl, then he has bigger problems than learning cursive.

[even sven]

Does he want to learn cursive? I can count the number of times I'm written in cursive since 3rd grade one hand. If it's something that is of interest to him, by all means learn it. But if he doesn't care, find a better use of your time.

[PastAllReason]

The things you learn on this message board. It wasn't until I was reading here in other threads about cursive "going out of style" that I had any clue that students got through school without being taught and learning how to "write" (as opposed to print). The first thread on this subject made me go

[Palo Verde]

He's going to be involved in after school activities (soccer and band) in addition to a really seriously academic course load. I don't want to add anything I don't have to.

I guess I just feel weird with him not knowing this, like he really missed something. He can read cursive just fine. But it seems most of you think cursive is dying, so maybe his time would be better used ramping up his keyboarding skills.

[Fretful Porpentine]

I vote yes. Most people can write cursive a lot faster than they can print, and handwritten exams haven't gone out of style yet. It'll give him a significant advantage when he has to take, say, the AP English exam and write three essays in two hours.

[kittenblue]

Originally Posted by autz

He's going to be involved in after school activities (soccer and band) in addition to a really seriously academic course load. I don't want to add anything I don't have to.

I guess I just feel weird with him not knowing this, like he really missed something. He can read cursive just fine. But it seems most of you think cursive is dying, so maybe his time would be better used ramping up his keyboarding skills.

I think if you go back and count, it sounds like more people said Learn It!

One thing that really breaks my heart is when I see a man's handwriting, and it is obvious he never advanced past third grade. He drops in my estimation of his intelligence. Please have your son learn cursive. It doesn't have to suck down hours and hours of his time or interfere with his busy schedule. Tell him he can get out of doing home chores while he practices......

[Argent Towers]

Originally Posted by autz

But it seems most of you think cursive is dying, so maybe his time would be better used ramping up his keyboarding skills.

It's not dying the way someone with terminal cancer is dying - it's dying because nobody wants to bother learning it anymore. The same way other things are dying, like woodworking or being able to fix your own car or do small repairs in your own house without calling in a division of specialists who'll charge you your left nut for something you should know how to do yourself. Cursive can be "revived" if people would just care enough about handwriting to learn it. Don't let keyboards take over and the hand-written word become extinct.

Now more than ever, you should teach him cursive.

[Tamex]

My daughter (going into sixth grade) learned cursive in school, but she was never required to write that way in any of her other classes, so she doesn't. She prints exclusively, except for her signature (which she writes slowly and carefully and is very beautiful).

She is also left-handed, but I don't have any idea if that is why she prefers to print. Her teachers have not seemed to care so far--we'll see what middle school brings.

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by Argent Towers

Don't let keyboards take over and the hand-written word become extinct.

Now more than ever, you should teach him cursive.

Why? I'm not saying that to be argumentative, I really don't get it. Any situation in which he needs to write quickly, like taking notes, he can either record on MP3 or bring a laptop to class. Any situation which requires him to write, like filling out a form, he can - has to - print neatly. The GRE doesn't require cursive anymore; I don't know about the SAT, but if it requires it this year, it won't in 5, because it's been out of many curricula for several years now.

I can understand and agree with the arguments for teaching him how to read cursive, at least for this last generation on the cusp of the tradition. Yet, to be honest, I read and write modern cursive, but all bets are already off when it comes to cursive more than 2 generations back. I never would have deciphered the "s" in the linked German cursive font set, for example.

I just haven't seen a logical reason to teach him how to write it other than (completely understandable) sadness that something we once knew how to do won't continue. It's okay, really it is. Most kids don't know how to dial a rotary phone, either. I bet most adults couldn't thresh wheat with a gun to their head or tan a hide if their kids' lives were at stake. The world changes, and with it the skill set a person needs.

[ShelliBean]

Please do not teach him to write in cursive. The sooner we can convert reading and writing in cursive as a foreign, rare and, most importantly to me, marketable skill, the sooner I'll start raking in the big bucks.

Millions I tell ya.

[BrotherCadfael]

Originally Posted by glee

Anyway I don't think cursive is important - printing is easier to read.

You clearly haven't seen my printing.

Legibility, folks. Cursive is (from what I can tell) a better way to, for example, take notes on the fly that can actually be read. I regret that my circumstances caused me to miss it, and pit the educators and others who didn't think it worth bothering to teach.