Why is cursive writing so important?

[Soubriquet]

My dc get their homework marked down if it isn’t in cursive (year 2 and 4).

I hate it. I can’t read what they are trying to say and I don’t know anyone who still uses cursive after primary school.

So why is cursive so important for children to learn?

I thought most western countries taught cursive. I had a lot of international friends as a child and remembered the French and American girls having beautiful handwriting.

Most people I know write joined up. I don’t remember it being particularly painful to learn at school - maybe it’s a good discipline? Muscle memory and all that.

I hate it. For those that struggle it makes their work unreadable and they end up being so worried about the writing they concentrate more on that than the content of their work.

Those who struggle with handwriting would be far better off spending the time working on making their own style of handwriting better even if that means not using cursive at all. It’s dropped at secondary school and children are free to write however they chose. My son is left handed life me and writing cursive is difficult when you can’t see the previous letters with your hand in the way. He had a scribe when he started high school for exams and able to use laptop etc as his writing was so bad. Since dropping cut dice altogether he no longer needs any of those things because his own writing is beautiful. It made a difference to his grades as he wasn’t worrying about the writing and the teachers weren’t having to guess at what he wrote.

My handwriting is a hot mess. I do "joined up" writing (as we called it in the 80s) but it's spidery and unintelligible to anyone but me. My husband is the same. We spent hours and hours on it at school but it didn't do me much good.

DD's writing is immaculate. My mum's is too.

I love how the French write.

It's for speed. DS can write at a furious rates and aced all his exams from GCSE to degree level.

I learned cursive in the 1970s however and my handwriting is now. Ames's; ruined by typing. It's as if my muscle memory has gone. The decline has affected my ability to express myself on paper too. It's as if my fluency has declined along with my neatness and flow. I have no such problems when typing.

By contrast DH's handwriting remains a thing of great beauty. And he can express himself with a pen in equal measure.

We learnt cursive in primary in the 70s and as pp said, it was for speed and for learning spellings. It was quite a fancy style.
By the time I started teaching primary in the 90s we were teaching cursive but a much plainer version and that worked very well. Children learnt hooks on letters from reception ready for joining and no extra curly bits like we did.

I use cursive writing all the time, and so does DH and my early 20s DC. It’s normal, I thought. It’s much faster to write.

I dropped cursive at 11 or so.

At 48 I am doing a second degree /masters and I hand write the notes in class and I am very quick, sane with in person exams, I can write tons in 45 mins and it's all very legible of course as not joined up. (Course now it's all online /typed so easier for everyone to read exams)

So cursive is not quicker for everyone. It's possible to note take quickly without it.

We were taught it as soon as we started Junior School (so, aged 7) - that was in 1981.

I've used it ever since - personally I find it a much faster way to write.

I learned Nelson style in the 70s, it made it ber easy to go from printing to joined. It's a lovely style and I have neat handwriting,not as neat as before I emailed /typed everything!

The most important thing is that children's handwriting becomes fluent and automatic, so that they can write quickly and without thinking about letter formation. This allows them to concentrate on the composition of their writing, which becomes increasingly demanding as they learn to write for different audiences and purposes, and move through the key stages.

It develops fine motor skills throughout primary school, and makes handwriting faster in the long run.

DS has dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD.
He's effectively had to double-learn many letters so that F is both f and a loopy thing that looks more like a skewiff 8.
He frequently can't read his classmates writing.
He struggles to process writing style and content and frequently runs out of time to make the point.
School ignores OT advice about not forcing a rigid style on him and allowing him to find his own hybrid style (and also it turns out are doing the pen licence bullshit meaning that in y6, he's still writing in pencil so needs to find a comfortable pen and learn how to use it on the threshold of going to secondary on top of all the other transition demands- only just found this out coz Covid)

What matters is efficient, legible handwriting. Far too much time and effort is wasted on specific style (and penalising children with an innate disadvantage)

When it comes to GCSEs and A levels they are still handwritten and the quicker, easier the handwriting style the more they will be able to write and the less physically uncomfortable it will be. Printing for a 2 or 3 hour exam would be difficult flowing, cursive writing much easier.

I am a retired Reception teacher who has invigilated GCSE and A level exams and would also like to add that a comfortable, efficient pen grip is very important. I once noticed a student struggling to write with a very uncomfortable grip. I walked round the Hall to check that children I had taught in Reception (same area) and was pleased to say none of them had this extra handicap. I used to have discussions with parents of Reception children who didn't think pencil grip was important because their child could write their name holding the pencil in a fist. They wouldn't be able to write for 2 hours like that and bad habits are very hard to unlearn.

@Onesundaymorning

The most important thing is that children's handwriting becomes fluent and automatic, so that they can write quickly and without thinking about letter formation. This allows them to concentrate on the composition of their writing, which becomes increasingly demanding as they learn to write for different audiences and purposes, and move through the key stages.

But it gets to a point where the teacher going on and on about writing starts to dint a child's confidence and they are no longer thinking about anything other than hating school, the subject, the teacher...or all three.

I also think the style of cursive they are teaching matters.

I learnt Nelson in the 80s and my writing is still mostly joined up (I don't consistently join some of the more difficult letters) but as a busy professional my writing is considerably more legible than some of my peers who appear to have been taught a much more "copperplate" version of cursive.

I have done post graduate exams that involved writing 10 short essays in 3 hrs. Having fast legible writing was so important.

I find using the right pen really matters too - some pens write faster than my hand does and it ends up look really messy. My favourite cheap pens for work are Pentel Superb ball points with a fine ballpoint. Fountain pens are generally a disaster (and I've tried loads!),

You find your niche. I work in an area of my profession where hunting out the right pen really isn't that unusual!

I never got it either., it may be ok for some children but not others, they introduced it when my ds was about 7 / 8 and his writing went from readable to illegible, my younger son has lovely handwriting but doesn't use cursive and was always being told to , I just told him to continue as he was and spoke to school, said his writing is clear and thats all that matters he can write fast enough and in life as an adult he will barely have to write by hand in most jobs
My older one now left school getting out of habit or cursive and can start to read his writing again

I don't use cursive writing and i don't print either
I just write and join some things up not others but have pretty neat handwriting

I don't think cursive is just joined up either , I join up but don't use all the little flicks etc that in cursive

I learned ‘joined up writing’ in primary school and my handwriting was terrible. I remember being the last one sitting down finishing their work when we did ‘hand writing lessons.’ I had to concentrate so hard to make it legible. It definitely dented my confidence and as soon as I could stop (secondary school) I did. I’ve printed everything since and it’s made no difference in exams etc

@Perfect28

Because the SATS insist on it in ks1, optional by ks2 though. Personally I would insist on them not sitting the Sats and teach them to write however they want to.

The KS1 SATs don’t. There is no writing element to them, it’s just reading, grammar and maths.

If you are talking about KS1 assessment- then it doesn’t matter either. Only greater depth children need to demonstrate some cursive handwriting skills.

My kids were taught writing using handwriting without tears, starts with print and moves to cursive. Ds 2 and Dd both have nice writing, (Ds 1 is left-handed and never figured it our tidily) Dd uses cursive in 6th form as it's faster than printing. I use it daily as it's faster too, at work I need to write notes and take messages to pass on.
School sent Ds 2 home with the cursive practice book for handwriting without tears, it worked out really well.

@NoLongerTroels

My kids were taught writing using handwriting without tears, starts with print and moves to cursive. Ds 2 and Dd both have nice writing, (Ds 1 is left-handed and never figured it our tidily) Dd uses cursive in 6th form as it's faster than printing. I use it daily as it's faster too, at work I need to write notes and take messages to pass on. School sent Ds 2 home with the cursive practice book for handwriting without tears, it worked out really well.

My dcs school did the same - Dd had lovely writing Ds always struggled and thee were tears - one size doesn’t fit all.

@worriedatthemoment

I don't think cursive is just joined up either , I join up but don't use all the little flicks etc that in cursive

that's because you based your writing on cursive then adapted it to what works for you.

My son was told at school he needed to improve writing by using cursive writing, even though his printing was clear and legible. I wondered why it might be important and remember finding an article (by an occupational therapist I think) which described it as being valuable for developing fine motor skills and dexterity, which is useful for other things such as sewing etc From that I decided to encourage him to continue to practise and he did get the grasp of it, it also helped with speed in exams.

[quote yorkshireteaspoonie]@Soubriquet what's being left handed got to with it?[/quote]
@yorkshireteaspoonie
If you are righthanded try writing right to left on a page.

Right hand writing left to right on a page results in a pull motion while left hand is a push motion.