Written by Michael Albrecht
Cursive handwriting has long been taught in our schools. The debate has been heating up again as to the role cursive handwriting should have in our curriculum. Is it something our WELS primary grade teachers should continue to devote time to, or could that time be better spent in teaching alternate methods of communication? Is cursive handwriting becoming obsolete?
As educators, we certainly can question the validity of anything in our curriculum. Some see cursive writing as simply a tradition – something being taught without giving thought to why we are continuing to teach it. Others see enough benefits in cursive writing to rationalize the precious class time devoted to its teaching.
As early as 1955, the Saturday Evening Post declared that “increasing reliance on the telephone, typewriter, dictating machines, and electronic brains would seem to be making handwriting as obsolete as smoke signals” (Rothstein, 1997). One wonders if our new wave of technology – laptops, tablets, and smartphones – is bringing this warning to fruition. Common Core Standards, for example, do not include cursive handwriting. Is this a sign that cursive is being phased out of our school curriculums? We recognize that a focus on general keyboarding skills has, at the very least, decreased cursive handwriting time in classrooms.
Are there reasons to still teach cursive? Some feel that fluency in cursive leads to quicker composition and better quality of written text (Doverspike, 2015). Many point to the fact that almost all historical documents, including the Declaration of Independence, are written in cursive. Learning cursive may help students develop reading, communication, and fine motor skills (Blazer & Miami-Dade Public Schools, R.S., 2010). Cursive writing may activate different parts of the brain (Steinmetz, 2014). And, of course, we all need to learn to sign our names in cursive!
At one time, cursive was the principle manner in which handwriting was conveyed, so legibility and speed were critical characteristics to consider (Wallace & Schomer, 1994). Today, teaching basic computer literacy skills seems to be more important in a technologically competitive society. “Handwriting repair expert” Kate Gladstone admits that only about 15% of adults use cursive after high school (Carpenter, 2007). Most adults (including this writer) abandon cursive writing, opting for a hybrid form of mostly print letters joined occasionally in a cursive style. Teachers themselves are becoming less familiar with the cursive style and are having more problems teaching it. Research has shown that teaching two forms of handwriting has outlived its functional value in society (Wallace & Schomer, 1994).
So we ask ourselves – should we continue teaching cursive? Would it be more beneficial to spend time gaining mastery of, say, manuscript writing, rather than teaching two competing forms of physical handwriting? Can we admit that the role of technology in our world is continuing to grow, and we as educators need to find the necessary time to more fully teach keyboard-based communication methods, even if it supplants cursive in the process?
Let’s assume that cursive handwriting is slowly being displaced by other communication means. Are there ways that we as educators can compromise to keep cursive handwriting from becoming a lost art? One way to keep cursive alive is by focusing on the reading of cursive, as opposed to the writing of cursive. Writing practice could be given in simplified forms, such as learning personal signatures. The bulk of the time usually spent on learning the minutiae of connecting letters and forming correct loops could be spent on improving manuscript or learning methods of communication more pertinent to today’s society. Cursive can be taught in a unit approach in association with other language arts concepts. Cursive writing can even become an elective class to those would like to devote the time and effort into keeping this art form alive.
As professional educators, we need to be aware of changing societal trends that may lead us to incorporate different methodologies. If cursive handwriting is indeed fading away, we can keep its use alive through less traditional means in our school curriculums.
Michael Albrecht (DMLC ’90) teaches 3rd and 4th grade at Calvary-Thiensville WI.
References
Blazer, C., & Miami-Dade County Public Schools, R. S. (2010). Should Cursive Handwriting Still Be Taught in Schools? Information Capsule, Research Services, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, 0916, 1-8.
Carpenter, C. (2007). Is this the end of cursive writing? The Christian Science Monitor, 1114.
Doverspike, J. (2015). Ten Reasons People Still Need Cursive. The Federalist. Retrieved from
http://thefederalist.com/2015/02/25/ten-reasons-people-still-need-cursive/
Rothstein, E. (1997). Cursive, Foiled Again: Mourning the Demise of Penmanship . The New York Times.
Steinmetz, K. (2014). Five Reasons Kids Should Still Learn Cursive Writing. Time.com.
Wallace, R.R., & Schomer, J.H. (1994). Simplifying Handwriting Instruction for the 21st Century. Education, 114 (3), 413-417.
The benefits of cursive handwriting outweigh the challenge of working it into our schedules. Besides the research and evidence of its positive effects on the brain, people desire to express their thoughts with their own hand. Tablets and phones come with wands or pens because the typed word lacks the emotion people want communication to express. As schools cut classes like art and music to save time or money, our schools realize the benefit of these fine arts, and handwriting should be considered as such.
Has anyone considered the potential value of reviving shorthand? I have wondered if shorthand could replace cursive (or go along with it) and have significant benefits, especially as youth go on to high school and college, where note taking is an important skill.
For comparison (just some cursory online searching) handwriting might approach 20 words per minute (studies show that cursive is barely faster than print). Typist speeds range from 40 WPM (proficient) to 75 WPM (professional). But there used to be shorthand competitions where they competed at 280 WPM.
Consider the books we have that were originally shorthand notes (Luther’s Table Talk. C.F.W. Walther’s “The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel”). Who could do that now?
Here’s a great article on Gregg shorthand: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/yeah-i-still-use-shorthand-and-a-smartpen/373281/
Shorthand has always fascinated and puzzled me. I would think it could be very valuable. In determining how valuable it would be to revive, I would also ask why it went way, or what replaced it. I suspect that the ability to take shorthand notes and re-create a lecture, for example, may have also had something to do with the listening abilities of pre-electronic age brains. In other words, it may be more than a method that needs reviving.
Your comparison of the speeds of handwriting, typing, and shorthand made me think of a recent study that evaluated the ability of students to recall information from lectures. It compared those who wrote notes by hand and those who typed notes. Those who typed their notes were able to record significantly more information. But when it came time to recall the same information on a test, the students who wrote notes by hand were better able to recall the lecture. The hypothesis, I suppose, was that difficulty of deciding which notes to write down when writing by hand led to stronger encoding of the information. But those who typed larger amounts of notes did not have to think as hard and therefore were less able to recall. I think that even took into consideration the fact that those notes were all reviewed between the lecture and the test.
I wonder if the same effect would occur with something recorded in shorthand. That said, for the sake of recording something quickly, it could still be very valuable.
Thanks for sharing information about the study. Do you happen to know the title or authors of the study? I’d like to locate and read it.
Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M.. The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note-taking. Psychological Science.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614524581
Thanks!
I would guess that there are a number of reasons shorthand fell out of widespread use:
– Voice recorders can preserve the spoken word exactly without need for fast writing (Although recordings do still sometimes need to be transcribed).
– If cursive letters become unused over time, shorthand would even more so, since it resembles printed letters even less.
– Being able to write/read well in shorthand takes a lot of practice, and classrooms never have time to teach everything they want to.
– There are many career paths where shorthand would not be directly useful (though if you’re going to argue for this, you could also argue against cursive and many other things taught in school).
– Unless the teachers know it, it would be difficult to teach.
The reason I wonder about about it is that, unlike cursive, it would offer something distinctly different from printing or typing. Functionally, cursive is simply a more beautiful and flowing form of writing. For many people, a lack of care and practice makes it lose its beauty and its flow and so they stop using it. Could shorthand do something different? Could it actually improve listening skills? The question fascinates me.
Much of the literature and commentary on this issue often fails to distinguish between the merits of teaching handwriting in general, and cursive handwriting in particular. Many of the arguments made above on both sides actually apply to handwriting in general (on the decline, yet scientific evidence of its benefit, etc), and not just to cursive.
Writing by hand brings all the benefits mentioned in the earlier comment, not to mention the social and emotional advantage of writing by hand. A hand-written letter or thank-you note carries great weight—all the more in a time when few people take the time to do it! One could make the case that the more handwriting becomes “obsolete”, the more valuable it becomes.
Cursive (from latin curro – run) is simply a running hand. In the past century or so, the traditional cursive taught has typically been something similar to the Palmer Method, which was a modernization of Spencerian script. Interestingly, it has only been about that long that two forms of handwriting were even taught. Previously, cursive was the first and only handwriting taught, which didn’t require students to learn a second set of letter forms, most of which are formed significantly differently from the other. Some educators, realizing this, have reverted to teaching cursive from the beginning (Google: “cursive first”).
There are other forms of cursive, most notably, italic cursive, which avoids using separate letterforms. Most adults revert to printing, yet maintain a few joins for the sake of speed. Italic cursive allows for the fact that students do not typically receive enough practice with traditional cursive beginning in 3rd grade to overcome the manuscript letterforms they have already learned. Getty-Dubay and Barchowsky Fluent Hand are two methods for learning Italics.
We should not too quick to eliminate cursive writing from our curriculum. An article from Psychology Today states that learning to write in cursive is an important tool for cognitive development. Specifically, cursive writing trains the brain to learn functional specialization, which is the capacity for optimal efficiency. When a child learns to read and write in cursive through consistent practice and repetition, he or she must effectively integrate fine motor skills with visual and tactile processing abilities. This multi-sensory experience supports cognitive function and development.
Completely agree with you!
Great presentation of the thoughts on both sides. Argue if you want but most adults use of cursive declines with age today. Not good or bad, just different.
As a teaching professional, weigh the facts and make a choice. An educated, fact based choice. Thanks, again!