AIBU just tell my son he doesn’t have to do cursive writing anymore?

[Snowyslope]

My son is 9 and in year 5 so his reception and year 1 of primary school were quite disrupted by the lockdowns, he was also at a less than great primary school which we have since pulled him out of. He is doing great at his new school in all areas, except his handwriting. He joins from the bottom and it makes his writing hard to read and in spelling tests for example the teacher can mark it wrong because sure it looks like a different letter, when actually he has spelt it correctly it’s just his handwriting is letting him down. An example of this would be joining a p from the bottom to the next letter making the look like a lowercase e. It also takes him a long time to write anything in cursive which effects how much he actually writes and wants to write and will hinder him in things like his SATS exams next year for example. We have tried until we’re blue in the face to get him to stop joining from the bottom but it was left unchecked when he was at his previous school and now it is just ingrained. My question is- what are the actual consequences of him not doing cursive writing at school? I know the school is desperate for all kids to do it but I really can’t see the benefit of it, it’s just massively slowing him down and making him hate writing even more and it’s also hard to read- I’m going to speak to his teacher about it this week, but before I do I’m just wondering what will happen if he just stops doing cursive writing? Would he be penalised in his SATs exams for example? If it’s just a case of that the school want him to do it and there’s no actual penalty for him not, I’m quite willing to battle over it. Thanks

Teacher here. It does not impact SATs at all in terms of marking. Where it can impact is with the final judgement for writing when it is moderated, as cursive is a national curriculum object for Y5/6.
However, it’s generally understood that children can meet the age related expectation for writing as long as they only drop either spelling or handwriting, so if his writing is otherwise good then not writing in cursive should be fine 😊 (plus it also depends on how bothered you and he are about this final ‘judgment’ in Year 6 as I know even as a teacher that many find standardised testing irrelevant)

I totally get this.

My DC were in reception when this was introduced into schools and their writing has always been dreadful. They both turned out to be dyslexic which must have made it more difficult for them.

Speaking from experience, they will not stop trying to force him to write in cursive in primary, even if they are sympathetic to the issue. DS' teacher 100% got it, but... he still had to do it. In the short term, for tests and assessments, tell him to write without cursive as in tose situations, readability is more important.

However, what's important is to start planning ahead for high school at this point. If I was you, I would seriously consider an assessment by an OT. They can either work with him to improve it OR they can sign off on him basically not being able to do it.

If the latter, you go into high school with the immediate awareness that his handwriting is poor. If his non-cursive is just fine, great. If it's also a bit weak, this gives you a strong argument for him being allowed to use an ipad/laptop (and start using a typing learning app now). Some schools will allow for most lessons, some only for homework, but it sets you up ahead of time... because you can't use laptops/keyboards for GCSE unless it's already established as a need.

Actually, the problem is that it’s irrelevant what style letters children are taught if they are not taught the correct letter formation.
So for cursive, they need to be able to form each individual letter with lead in and out strokes in the right places. Then once they master this, they can join correctly.
Fluent writing is key to speed and accuracy. Joined or otherwise matters not one jot.

Cursive is faster. If the issue is that your DS has learnt incorrectly and is stuck in the habit, it would be worth going back to basics and mastering it correctly. I wouldn’t give up yet.

If there is an underlying issue eg dysgraphia or a spiky profile where his ability to write is out of sync with his other abilities and he is struggling to get his thoughts on to paper at the speed he thinks, you really want to address that before starting secondary school. If he can’t write quickly and legibly, he is going to be at a disadvantage in exams or when taking notes, it is also soul destroying when you have a lot to say but have to put all your energy into physically getting it on paper. It’s easy to get disillusioned with schoolwork if writing is so difficult for you. Switching to a laptop can make a huge difference but I would recommend moving towards doing that before starting year 7 so he can type proficiently when he starts secondary school.

How did it go unchecked at his last school? Surely you noticed it during homework and gave him writing exercises with the letters done in that dot-to-dot pattern for him to follow? Doesn’t matter if the school was shit and not sorting if, you would have?

I recommend this website

https://donnayoung.org/penmanship/cursive.htm

My DC writing was unreadable before doing some of these. Its free

The only issue is that technically, at the end of yr6, his teacher can not assess him as ‘at expected’ in writing if he is not joining his letters.
It’s a load of bollocks but that is the standard set.
I HATE the fact that handwriting has such a weighting when giving a final judgement. It’s crap.

It's also a bit silly in the 21st century. I work in communications, so arguably a role that requires lots of writing, but also lots of meetings and note taking etc.

I am now at the point where 1 A4 notebook can last me well over 6 months. I buy a pack of two once a year, or less. I record my briefing calls so I have transcripts and only take enough notes to get the big picture - and even then, I often find it easier just to make notes directly onto my computer.

I'm not saying we shouldn't learn to write, but I do think schools need to wake up to the reality that our children don't need to learn to write long, complex things physically any more.

HRTFT but I’d say it’s fine to drop cursive for now but try to revisit it when he’s older. It seems to have some strong mental benefits so it’s worth learning if he can, but for now legibility and speed will benefit him far more.

I'd just teach him semi-cursive. I just made the term up, but it's what I do.

Joining up letters IS quicker, but for some letters (like anything after a lower case b, or s) it can be a real pain. At the end of the day, he's going to be the only one who reads his handwriting (even if we're talking scientific written journals, which are meant to be left at the institution for future reference).

This will show you that cursive is part of reaching the expected standard in writing. It doesn't matter for SATs but it does for writing as there's no SATs test for writing. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-assessment-frameworks-at-the-end-of-key-stage-2

It's not necessarily that simple. My son was not joining letters correctly for a long time, he was one of the year group where they taught cursive straight away without printing letters first and then hit by covid in Year 1. He wouldn't let me correct him and would actually get really upset as he believed he was doing it the way school had showed him. As he was meeting all other targets, school were uninterested in correcting it even though I raised it multiple times. So, this just re-enforced what he was doing as if it was wrong, school would correct it, wouldn't they? Well, no, not until a couple of years later.

The emphasis on cursive writing in upper primary is pointless and in many cases self-defeating. But hey, it's a requirement for SATs, so who cares if it destroys a kid's self esteem.

Anyway, yes it's required to hit age expected for writing, no it makes no difference to any other paper. My son needed his papers partly transcribed for SATs because his writing is often illegible if writing at speed. He got nearly full marks in Reading, and great marks in Maths too, SPAG was a comfortable pass which for a child with Dyslexia/Dyspraxia was pretty fantastic.

It's a shame he doesn't have the life skill of being able to write legibly, which he could have achieved if he wasn't forced to write bad cursive for years and told that he wasn't trying hard enough. On the other hand, hardly anyone writes anything now anyway, and after a few months of arguing his secondary school gave him a laptop. At secondary school writing needs to be legible, not pretty.

My DS11 just started year 7 gave up joined up writing in year 6. He writes beautifully but just not joined up. It didn't matter to his SATS scores, he still got very good results. His writing, when trying to join was illegible and it looked like he spelt words incorrectly when he hadn't. His secondary school don't care how he writes.

My DS14, year 10 he also struggled to write joined up and stopped as soon as he hit secondary school. However he now does a mix of both, some letters joined some jot everything is perfectly legible.

I'm a high school English teacher, and primary schools’ insistence on cursive writing is the bane of my life! Every year I get a handful of reluctant writers who were told that their handwriting was no good and now consider themselves ‘rubbish at English’. Their minds are properly blown when I tell them that as long as they can write legibly, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s cursive or not.

And don’t get me started on bloody pen licenses …!

i used to write normal letters and add the joined up bits where needed

If you're a high school English teacher you'll be aware why primary schools HAVE to push this, otherwise they'd have little to no pupils at the expected standard in writing. Then they'd get slated by Ofsted and parents.

I'm 53 and have stopped cursive writing... people can now read my handwriting.
Utter bollox to try to make kids do this

I would (check with the school first just in case) definitely encourage him to print his letters in spelling tests. That just seems logical to me anyway. They are assessing letter by letter and you also want him to be thinking about each letter he writes.

Otherwise, and this might not work, could you get him interested in something like calligraphy? If you like art etc there's lots involved like drawing celtic knots and you also learn sort of the logic of doing certain letter joins even if the calligraphy itself is super time consuming.

IME cursive gets dropped as soon as they get to secondary. I'm a dinosaur and write in cursive with a fountain pen. No one can read it apart from me. My kids hardwiriting is lovely, non cursive and readable.

There is always one judgey person on these threads and here you are 😂 actually his school was so terrible that the only homework he ever got was maths sheets and reading. He had seven teachers in one year the last year he was there, was bullied and barely produced any work in class, at the time we heavily suspected he had adhd. Like I said we have tried over the years when we became aware that his writing was not as it should be for his age we tried until we were blue in the face to get him to join correctly. Back then, and now he was having tutoring outside of school, so it’s not like we don’t pay attention to our child’s education. Moved him to a new school and for the first time ever the handwriting was mentioned by a teacher as a problem, yet it still hasn’t improved. So thank you for your comment, have a lovely day.

Cursive writing can get in the bin! My son is dyslexic and can't read cursive writing, the whole of primary school I was reminding teachers not to use it on the board etc. They all respond ' oh yes, we did learn that in the dyslexia training' but it continued. It's madness, his dyslexia is so severe that his writing is at yr1 level and he is in yr7 and it took so much badgering by me to get the school to 'allow' him to use print rather than cursive.

Ds2 has just gone off to uni and is finally allowed to type his work, he types at professional level typing speed but his handwriting has always been inconsistent and messy. He just cannot master it. School were really good about it, tried all sorts and then said I can read it so it doesn't matter if it isn't the taught method.

A lovely teacher also blew his mind and told him that pen licenses were silly because even if you are still using a pencil on the last day of year 6 everyone uses a pen in year 7. I was really pleased about that because lots of children lord their pen licence over others. He also hated handwriting pens and didn't like the way they felt in his hand. I agree with him, I have favourite pens.

I would time your son writing cursive for a few minutes then write the same thing again in his own handwriting and see how many more sentences he writes, then go and talk to his teacher.

Cursive is supposed to be quicker but I never learned and still got all As / A*s at GCSEs with severe dyslexia and no extra time. I think it’s more important children learn how to write fast using their preferred writing style.