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?

When I was at school we called it joined up writing, I can't imagine writing any other way now at 40.
The only people I know that don't are my husband and dad who write in ugly capitals.
My 5 year old is already learning cursive at prep school

The first two links aren't England/UK based. Have you even had a look at an English handwriting scheme? All the letter DO NOT start on the line , you can still mix up b and d and so on. I'm actually familiar with several schemes. I'm also very familiar with kids with dyslexia and the vast majority of them struggle with cursive/adds nothing to their work or learning. In fact , it's just an added tick box exercise to work they already find difficult. Not to mention the complete mindfuck of them producing a decent piece of work and then being pulled up on the fact that it's not joined.

My school reports repeatedly moaned about my handwriting. It was perfectly legible and the stupid art teacher who wasted a term trying to make us all write in italics succeeded in making it worse. Over the years I developed my own style and it's absolutely fine now.

Both my sons write scrawl but touch type like the wind. It's the future.

French handwriting on the other hand. Is it some sort of secret code? And definitely no individuality allowed.

I will say - I learned cursive in primary school. Once I started secondary and most of my friends wrote in print, I wanted to be like them and followed suit. By the time I got to year 9 or so and had to start writing substantial amounts for exams/in lessons, I quickly realised cursive was far, far quicker and went back to it.

I still use pretty much the exact same cursive I was first taught, over 20 years later. I've never had anyone struggle to read my writing, and as I work in healthcare and write detailed notes frequently, I can't imagine trying to do all that in print. I'd say there's some utility in the time it saves you and the muscle memory that can help with spelling.

That said, if it's disadvantaging students with learning differences like dyslexia etc., allowances should be made imo and alternatives found.

I blame joined up writing on ruining my handwriting - I have stuff from when I was printing and it was so much nicer! It also didn't help with my spelling - I'm dyslexic and still struggle, even with two good English degrees!

Touch typing in primary? Let;s see how. One hour session perclass in the computer room. 15 computers, so one between two. Half an hour per child busy typing asdf, lkjh, while half the class does what? And no-one learns computer skills at all.
These are primary children. Aim for both hands, and more than one finger on each. and word processing, spread sheets, graphics etc
Not robotic skills for a defunct typing pool.

I already see that in a Facebook genealogy group I'm in. Over half the posts are 'can anyone read this?' Which is perfectly reasonable when it's secretary hand or census-taker scribble, but some are copperplate so clear you could read it from space and yet people are baffled by it being handwriting rather than type.

Touch typing is a really useful skill and some primary schools are teaching it. There are some great TT programmes for 7yrs plus. Twinkl even does a resource pack.

There may be such resources, but not keyboard time.

So it doesn't work like your post @Treaclewell - it can be a 5 minute slot in an IT lesson. Many schools have it as a unit in their IT curriculum. It's not half an hour of typing set keys while another child sits watching.

It's really important as so many schools now have a device per child at secondary and they need to be able to use it to note take and do homework on.
Also for children with deafness it's really important because they need to be able to lip read the speaker while typing so can't really be looking at the keyboard. It's great to see it becoming more of a thing in lots of schools.