I’ve heard that most schools don’t nowadays; that kids will learn how to sign their name in cursive, but that’s about it. Anyone know what the real deal is?
18-year-old who learned from his grandmother in kindergarten, and was taught by the school in either 2nd or 3rd grade.
I read thousands of standardized test essays written by students from all grades. Far too many of them are written in tiny cursive.
My daughter is in the fourth grade and started learning cursive in the third.
I have a third grader who is learning now. (California public school.)
I learned it in the third grade, but it was never spoken of afterward. The emphasis both before and after was on typing–I don’t know why, exactly, 3rd grade was spent on cursive.
I remember it being said that it’s faster to write in cursive, and perhaps it is, but not in the ornamental script they taught. That took considerably longer than printing and was far less legible afterward. And you must not at all deviate from the prescribed form and stroke order and direction, oh no, no matter how slow and deliberate each one is. Of course, both hands pale in speed when compared to typing, so I fail to see what the point was at all. In high school, cursive wasn’t allowed. It took too much effort to decipher and was near impossible to make corrections to.
3rd grade was also the first and last time pens were ever used. We were told that, from then forward, we’d have to use pens for every assignment we turned in because pencils were inferior… somehow. That didn’t pan out, either.
Heck, you should hear the way my kids swear after just a few years in public schools. It’s enough to make a sailor blush.
My friends’ daughter started learning it in kindergarten. It was her school’s philosophy that it’s faster and will serve them better long-term. No idea when my son’s school teaches it, but I’d be very surprised if it were dropped altogether by a large number of schools.
My daughter is in first grade (TX public school) and is starting to write her name in cursive. Frankly, I’m not sure if that’s part of the curriculum or if she picked it up on her own. Neither would surprise me.