Do you know how to write in cursive.?

Question

My 14 year old son has no idea. I was concerned and a couple of years ago I asked one of his teachers about it. She told me that NONE of the children today know how to write in cursive. They print everything.

Ok, in the real scheme of things, this is too minor to mention. But does it bother anyone else but me?

Dylan was taught cursive in 2nd grade but they never made the kids use it. So they all forgot how.

Answer 1

I learned cursive in grade three or four|


However, I scarcely ever use it anymore|

Besides, I get terrible writer's cramp after a few minutes writing|


Practically everything I do now is key boarding (my grade nine typing class has sure come in handy - and one that the teacher wanted to fail me in too)|

I would say that cursive is simply a technology, just like the ancient scribes had their own writing and calligraphy techniques|

Technologies come and go, as their usefulness waxes and wanes, just like the computer programming language COBOL was actually a required course for people working in the library, I don't think that anyone uses it anymore, but Visual Basic is what people now use (if I am not misinformed on that one, it has been a while since I have looked at computer programming languages)|


So about your son, I wouldn't worry|

It is like all those people worrying about calculators causing everyone to forget how to do math|

But calculators are amazing (especially the programming kind), because they free the cognitive processes that would otherwise be occupied in trivial minutiae, to concentrate their reasoning powers on higher level mathematical reasoning, so that much more can be done (but even this is being anticipated by computer programs such as *Mathematica - TM* or *Maple - TM* that can perform a vast array of *symbolic* mathematical operations, such as calculating the integral with respect to dx of x**2 and return the answer in symbolic form of (x**3)/3+C|)


The thing is, we cannot be stuck in one paradigm of doing things, with the constraint of course that we must always adhere to first principles that are unchanging, such as the law of *identity* and the law of *non-contradiction,* and things like that|




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Answer 2

It bothers me immensely, my husband and I are trying to decide whether to send our kids to school. We have been rather perturbed by what we have seen from our nieces and nephews and the neighborhood children as far as education and when we start checking out schools, we get so disgusted that we never make it beyond two in a day. Our son is just 3 months past 4 and has already passed the screening exam for kids entering kindegarten (which he will not do until fall of 2008 as his birthday is December). Our almost 2-year-old can sing his ABCs, count to 10, name his colors, and body parts etc. When he goes to playgroup, many of his friends can do the same. My older son's preschool is working on these now. The whole mess bothers me. My sons will definitely learn cursive, among other things.

Answer 3

I know how to do cursive. Well in Latin America, or at least in the country I grew up in, we were only taught to write in cursive. Now I write a mix of cursive and print when I write notes and stuff.

Answer 4

yes, I do, although I had to print out some examples of the (literally) old-school cursive writing to teach my son, as mine has strayed from the form I was taught in school.
I'm home schooling, and my kids will learn to write in cursive, and have good penmanship. There's actually a school of thought that advocates it's being taught before printing, as it's curves and loops are easier for beginning writers to master.

Answer 5

Your son should have learned how to write cursive in elementary. He was suppose to learn how to write cursive during the time he was learning how to write alphabets in print. I'm only a few years older than your son. If he doesn't know how to write cursive than his elementary school had a very poor curriculum.

Answer 6

Wow. That's kind of scary. But I'm not surprised. It does bother me. I was reading at an 11th grade level and writing in cursive by third grade (8 years old) as were many of my classmates. That was only 26 years go.

Answer 7

I was taught cursive, but now I print everything except for my name. The formation of letters frequently changes. I would not be too worried about it. There is no need to write in cursive anymore.

Answer 8

No. I can barely read cursive.

I'm not concerned about it. Cursive's all.. weird... and stuff. (Your kid will do fine, by the way. I made it through 4 years of college and I'm currently in grad school. All done, cursive-free!)

EDIT: I too was taught in the 2nd (3rd?) grade, and never used it.

Answer 9

It bothers me a little. Writing is such a huge part of human history and culture that seeing a small part of it fall by the wayside is a little disheartening.

That said, I can write cursive fairly well, although I do generally find myself printing most everything I write.

Answer 10

My kids both learned cursive in Elementary school (one is now 8th grade, the other 5th) I think they learned how in third grade. But my oldest did not know how to address an envelope! i was shocked...to much email. Of course I taught him how.