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?

Better snobby than chavvy. Standards have slipped very far over the last few years. People are ruder, more aggressive and more selfish than they used to be.
The decline in decent handwriting is only one small aspect of it.

What? All of them? In every single country?

I'm from the "continent ". My handwriting was and still is awful.

Actually, this is a good point.

I took “touch typing” as an option in secondary school. (Yes, I am that ancient) This helped me not only type effectively but also helped with spelling as my fingers automatically knew which pattern to move in.

We don’t teach touch typing as part of computing in the primary school I work in. We teach handwriting, which has its place, but touch typing should be added.

I can actually do the pretty curly swirly "on the continent " handwriting. I just hate it because it's fussy and it takes me ages and I have to think about it. If we're actually being snobby, English cursive found in most schemes are a bastardised version, that skips the majority of loops and curls and as such, it's actually harder to join the letters properly. A lot of the letters are just lower case print with a little tail added, for which you actually have to lift your pen off the paper for.

So the standards are crap and unrealistic to begin with anyway.

I achieved a CSE grade 1 in my touch typing back in the dim and distant past. I can type fast, but I know when I have spelt a word wrong as my fingers don't go in the right place for that word (iyswim).

My writing is scruffy but readable, and I have spent many years whilst my two were at school not knowing that cursive writing is just joined up writing that I was taught to do. I thought it was some magical way of writing 😀

There is a need for learning to write but also learning how to type.

My DP is also from the “continent” - some letters joined up, others not, impossible to read. His N looks like an M and his M is like a conjoined M + N.

(Not that my handwriting is any better!)

@Hastae that's how we learn them. Extra squiggly bits. One of the things I had to unlearn here. Oh and my 9's were wrong too. My writing is also a mix of joined and print and it's pretty awful unless I'm really focusing or modelling for the children at school.

I'm a teacher and I hate teaching it. It's painful watching the kids to try to do it. My natural handwriting is a mix of cursive and non-cursive. When I write on the board, I have to write in cursive and I really need to concentrate and I don't think it is as neat as my natural writing. Kids should be taught it but also have the freedom to develop their own style.

It also puts children off when learning other subjects because they are aware how hard it is so try to get away with writing as little as possible.

Marking is also difficult when some children write in fully cursive as I just can't read it. I would rather they write legibly, whatever that means to them, in their own style.

DD has just finished Sixth Form and still writes in cursive, very similarly to how she did in her final year of primary school. It’s very neat and legible to me and teachers etc however classmates who never mastered it can’t read her writing! It surprised me that the vast majority of pupils in a very well off grammar school were writing in print if I’m perfectly honest. In my opinion cursive is far faster and develops a nice flow

I work in healthcare - if I were to write in print then it would take me all day to do notes!

I meant they should all be taught to type. So hours on handwriting and zero on typing seems like madness to me. People who’ve be trained to type properly are so much faster and more efficient.

handwriting is a lot quicker than typing unless you're a fast typist.

I wouldn't say I was an especially slow writer (yes I do use cursive) or an especially fast typist, probably standard speed for an office worker but my typing is a fair bit quicker than my writing

It's not important, generations of kids were labelled thick and stupid because they couldn't write, separated out and ridiculed, time to move on.

Yeah every parents evening I get nagged at about their handwriting and I agree it’s awful. You can’t read it half the time. Yet when they print, it’s beautiful and I understand every word

I write in cursive, no one else can read it though...

Dts are in y7 and dropped the cursive as soon as they got out of y6. Seems to take them longer to write now but they are both dyslexic and mostly use laptops in school.

Yes, I agree. I've never been taught "proper" touch typing, but by sheer stealth of doing so much of it, my typing speed is 2 or 3 times faster than writing, that's with a kind of bastardised version of touch typing using 3 fingers of each hand rather than 4 of each plus a thumb. Even though I've never been formally taught, I can still type without looking at the keyboard as muscle memory means I instinctively know where my fingers are and know where the keys are. If you actually asked me to label a picture of a keyboard without the letters shown, I'd probably struggle as it's automatic to type most of the words I use regularly just by muscle memory. I've always regretted never being taught proper touch typing as I know I'd be even quicker. It used to amaze and impress me back in the day when I watched our typing pool when they were typing - not only the sheer speed, but also the accuracy!

I would hate to have gone through life printing each letter separately, it must take forever. I'd be surprised to see an adult writing like this, I'd think they had some kind of difficulty. It's laborious, like those who can't touch type and jab away with 2 fingers.

Wish I'd never been forced to write like that. My handwriting is appalling. My sister who was in the year below me, prints and has neat, legible writing. On the other hand. It gets me out of a few jobs at work. I'm forbidden from writing the ward diary for the day. And from updating any of the whiteboards. Which suits me fine. 😂

Thing is that as you get older (like 12-15), most people begin automatically joining words as they write until they have a readable but still fast script. They don't remain printing each letter in turn unless it's necessary (because those taught in cursive aren't able to make their writing legible) to do things such as writing on a whiteboard, filling in forms or creating notices/displays/menus. It's altogether a far less testing experience at school when they get credited fully because their work can be read by examiners and teachers, as well.

Another benefit is that they don't get things returned to them because a machine has been unable to read them or applications that require a handwritten cover letter/handwritten aspect of interview resulting in being rejected because the interviewers cannot read anything that's been written.

I always write in cursive, except notes to my grandchildren who can't read it.

I do wonder about future historians. How will they read original documents written before typewriting became standard?

I agree

Think it'll be debunked in ten years time

It's quicker, for me. Like a PP I learned italic handwriting at primary school and have nice handwriting now. I'm definitely more expressive in my writing if I'm handwriting something, so use it in cards and for personal letters. I can also touch type. They aren't mutually exclusive!

I agree with a previous poster that, for me, it unlocks my imagination when I hand-write. I find this especially evident when I use a fountain pen. I find it quite difficult to print with a fountain pen; cursive is much easier, and you avoid unnecessary blots. I work on a computer all day, producing technical assessments, but creativity requires a pen.

Actually, there’s a lot of research around dyslexia / spellings / writing stamina that shows positive links between cursive writing and those skills.

https://blog.empoweringwriters.com/blog/the-importance-of-using-cursive-among-students-with-dyslexia#:~:text=Although%20it%20is%20quickly%20becoming,to%20get%20confused%20with%20directionality.

https://dyslexiaida.org/why-bother-with-cursive/

https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/advice/children/how-can-i-support-my-child/handwriting

Schools don't have to teach cursive, and in my experience they don't. Most do, however, teach joined up writing.

As PPs have said this is because joined up has better flow, is quicker and aids muscle memory.