Why do primary schools insist on cursive writing?

[Soubriquet]

It’s rarely used in secondary school and I’ve not seen anyone use it as an adult. Both of my dc’s writing is illegible half the time due to cursive. If they use printed, it’s lovely, yet the teachers keep insisting on cursive.

Why?

@Orangello I don't know anyone who writes "cursive" - it's different to "joined up"
(see pictures)

Cursive just means 'joined up'. There are lots of styles of cursive - 'fancy pants swirly stuff' sounds like it means looped cursive; when I was learning the fashion was for italic cursive.

Everyone I know uses cursive or one form or another, except when filling in forms that insist on block letters.

Because it develops muscle memory with spelling and it’s quicker. Much quicker.

seen secondary school kids stuff up exams because they have to print every single letter and they run out of time.

obviously I hate terminal exam culture- but exams are the basis of many secondary and university modules/courses, and being able to write cursive is helpful

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn obviously I can't speak for the school the OPs child is at but my daughter's primary was the "swirly" type.
She is 15 now and doesn't write like that at all. Took ages to get her handwriting back to being something you can actually read. She prints.

You’re wrong. Cursive just means ‘joined up’.

you’ve just displayed two different styles of cursive, one with a slant. ‘Joined up’ is just common terminology for discussing cursive with young children

cursive doesn’t mean calligraphy

Cursive in national curriculum terms just means joined. There’s no requirement for schools to teach loops and fancy leading/leaving strokes.

Teachers and schools didn’t make the choice, the national curriculum did.

I think the question should be rephrased as -Why does the Department for Education insist on joined up writing?

Don't think it's a criteria of grading for any other 'official' school exam though which is odd. I could be mistaken though.

Writing letters develops muscle memory - loops and joins and making illegible squiggles that might be an r, s, i, u, v, w, n, or m do not make it easier to remember how to spell anything - it also discounts completely the visual memory that also helps with spelling; plenty of people have the 'that doesn't look right' response to more commonly misspelt words; something that then can be a skill transferred to typing. Typing also creates a muscle memory that develops spelling.

My mother's ability to join all of her letters up did not make her able to scroll through a 500 line database and spot errors such as O instead of 0 or an incorrectly placed space in a postcode entry. It also made her addressed letters, along with tens of thousands of other post items, far harder for staff or machines to read accurately and quickly.

Cursive was inflicted upon children (after a brief lull where the importance of being able to communicate ideas clearly and quickly was foremost) as part of political party posturing about going back to the education standards of the 1930s and 1940s. It was a political decision designed to appeal to older voters, not an educational or practical one.

@fishshop if it's just normal "joined up" writing then it's fine and makes perfect sense. I loved doing handwriting practice at school - the way the letters were formed we used ink pens) was really relaxing.
But as I said my 15 year olds primary school (so just a few years back) insisted on the fancy stuff. They would display the children's work on the wall - 90% if it was difficult to actually read.
I am definitely all for normal regular joined up writing - but unfortunately some schools like the fancy stuff for unknown reasons.

Cursive isn't the only method of "joined up" writing! Personally, I don't like, think it looks clunky and it ruined my son's writing, which is barely legible, luckily now he's an adult and working, he barely has any need to write, so having crap handwriting doesn't impact on him.

But at least cursive is better than my primary school, where we had a demented headmaster who insisted on us writing in italic style using italic ink pens. Now THAT really was bad. In fact, at secondary, several of the teachers remarked that they knew by poor handwriting styles, which pupils came from my primary school!

I think today's pensioners were taught a better "joined up" style, no idea what it was called, but "women of a certain age" tend to have a very similar handwriting style which is easy to read, mostly because it's larger. For some reason, cursive seems to be taught along with some kind of weird teaching that it has to be tiny, which makes both writing it and reading it much harder.

This. We’d be far better off if we moved with the times and taught our children to touch type.

You don’t think people should be able to read clock faces? (And you are presumably an adult so had this conversation decade(s) ago?)

blinks

My handwriting was a dogs dinner and took ages whilst I felt I had to slavishly join each letter. When I went to secondary and was allowed to find my natural writing style, it became neater and quicker.

Like it or not, beautiful joined up writing isn't a skill that's worth much in life.

I write in cursive, and on they computer.Not only does muscle memory control my handwiting, but using handwriting accesses a different part of my brain, I have a better literary style. I would always choose handwriting for personal letters because of this, especially condolence, for example.
I can access all my school versions, Marion Richardson, unspecified cursive, a version of italic I copied from a friend, and the style I had to teach. They have stuck in my brain. Perhaps wastefully. I don't need to look like a primary school child. My best friend. a man, has a very awkward printing style. Goodness knows how he managed exams.
Joined is quicker, helps with spelling and writing whole words and the flow of sentences.
I think a good thing about Marion Richardson was the use of patterns, and I found writing to music as typing was taught at secondary made a tremensous difference to children's success in achieving a good cursive hand. (Scott Joplin was good.)

I find it much quicker to use joined up writing (it wasn't called cursive in my 1970's primary school education) and my writing goes to pot when I try to print! But DS2 doesn't use cursive at all and he is a very fast writer. So I guess it might depend on the person. Perhaps the way to go is to teach it, but not insist on it

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use cursive. At DC’s school (senior) it’s compulsory- if you can’t write in cursive you’ll struggle to write quickly enough in exams. That’s why you do the slow, boring stuff in primary- it’s like learning to play your scales slowly and carefully on the violin so that ten years later you can play Paganini.

We teach it because the government has told us we have to.

It's as simple as that.

Most of us think that neat and legible is most important.

For some that will be cursive. For others it will be printed.

I don't have a problem with teaching it, I have a problem with the way the expectation is applied across the board.

Cursive writing is a skill in itself. It's a lovely skill to have that could easily be eradicated due to keyboards ect.

I write cursive, it gives my writing thought process a lovely flow. It allows me to be creative with words. I can also touch type but it's not the same!

This ^

I hate to say it but in a previous job I saw a manager sifting job applications that had arrived hard copy in the post. She tossed aside all those which had obviously been written by a parent (it was sooo easy to tell) and maybe worst of all, all those written in capitals and not cursive. I was appalled but nothing to do with me so kept my counsel and said nothing.
Cursive is for grown ups. Please encourage your children to do the writing exercises. Believe me, with practice they will improve.

I’m an English teacher in a secondary school and ime everyone writes in cursive. It’s much faster apart from anything else. If you’ve got 45 minutes in an exam to write an essay you’re going to struggle if you’re printing.

From reading all these replies it seems the question should be "why do SOME primary schools insist on teaching a style of handwriting that looks like it's from the 1891 Census records" 😂
Because that's what my daughter's primary did.

@karmakameleon

This. We’d be far better off if we moved with the times and taught our children to touch type.

Nail on the head. It's a bit antiquated for kids to use ipads and laptops in classrooms and uni lectures and homework, etc., only then to have to write by hand for 2/3 hours in formal exams. Especially, when they're barely have to write anything by hand in most workplaces once they've left education.

But it's a skill that people can teach/practice themselves if they wish, like any hobby really. Nothing to stop people doing it either during or after school.

I think primary schools should prioritise touch typing above handwriting personally. It's much more relevant adult life.

Well yes, you're half right.
I think both should be prioritised.

We can't really teach much computing in my primary schools because we just don't have the devices or technology. The wi-fi is too slow for everyone to be practising at once as well.