Schools shouldn't teach cursive writing

[IShotTheDeputyItWasMe]

When I grew up, we'd learn to write using print ie not joined up. Then a few years later we'd have to re-learn in cursive. I remember finding relearning quite difficult eg the way "s" is written is very different. What was the point in teaching print and then expecting everyone to use cursive?

A lot of primary schools now teach cursive from the off.

But why teach it at all? Not many adults write pure cursive and sometimes cursive, particularly messy or very elaborate cursive can be really hard to read. It looks nice sometimes but what's the point in using it when print is much easier to read and most adults use it or a variation of print anyway.

I deal with old documents that are always written in cursive and they are a nightmare to read.

Personally, I mainly use print but do join some letters. But my writing is odd anyway because I also did calligraphy and have incorporated some of that too. My capital "h" is ridiculous!

I am for print writing all the way. Marking Year 7 English work was a nightmare as they'd all been taught cursive but not particularly well so their handwriting was awful. We encouraged print where possible and things improved massively.

DD is home educated and I've told her, print everything. Whenever I write anything, people tell me "you've got lovely handwriting" or "your handwriting looks like a computer font" - and that's because I ditched cursive as early as possible and perfected my print.

Is part of this stretching learning and never forgetting we are constantly going to be challenged to learn how to use new tools, develop new skills. I enjoyed many subjects, struggled to learn a few, but it is the process that helped me with what next. Cursive is something many struggle with, but that doesn't mean we should only learn that which is easy, does it? There are ways to teach IT and make it fun, maybe that's also an important part of learning, teaching anything well and giving it relevance.

good cursive is best
then print
then bad cursive.

I don't think we should make NC decisions based on your quirky prejudices.

I would happily dump RE in favour of writing practice, though. There's a quick win.

More time learning pencil grip and and letter formation would be great.

I have only ever written cursive. It’s faster and flows naturally. I think you’re being unreasonable and rather daft about it.

I agree. DS really struggled with cursive from the off in year 2 which dented his confidence because his words were barely legible and some of the boys would laugh at his handwriting. He was more focused on joining the letters up then whether you could read it. The teachers would then stress us out for his poor handwriting.

The focus should be on being able to write legibly and spell properly before cursive.

Cursive was a nightmare at primary school and my reports reflect it. I was ultimately diagnosed with ADHD as an adult but we were allowed to write in our own way from the end of primary and my speed increased tenfold!

I didn't learn cursive writing as a child in the 60s/70s and my writing is neat. I started teaching in England and had to learn cursive in order to teach it. What a dog's dinner!

I can't see any advantage to it (although we were told it helps spelling, slower learners etc). Any children of a similar age who don't do cursive have much neater writing in my experience.

🤣 this always makes me laugh
along side if your child can not grasp phonics then they will never learn to read.

my DD can not write well due to CP, she could not grasp phonics because of the sounds required were impossible for her due to speech impediment also due to the likely brain injury.

she is now in her last year of primary

all the way up until year 4 her English skills were really behind because she was not getting a chance to learn how to structure sentences, how to use language in writing etc because they were so focused on her using a dam pen and handwriting that she was never able to complete any work 🤣
same as phonics - year 4 she was 3 -4 years behind in reading.
Finally I managed to convince the school to drop her doing phonics and we took up sight reading at home and at school. She got funded a laptop and started learning how to touch type and used it especially in English.
she is now in year 6 and free reader, comprehension scores in practice SAT papers are very high. She is age appropriate in maths although probably excelling at the reasoning side.
She will never be a perfect physical writer.
I think this is our problem Is will tell ourselves and our kids this nonsense when actually there is other ways.

Cursive is a lot faster

It might be faster for some children. But it doesn't matter how fast a child can write, if you can't actually read what they've written.

As an English teacher, I fucking hate cursive. Trying to mark 32 essays in cursive is a brain drain. Neither of my children earned their “pen licence” and I didn’t care. I knew their secondary teachers would appreciate tidy print.

DS has struggled with cursive since he started learning it in primary. He’s now in Y8 and his last set of assessment exams were far lower than they should’ve been purely because his teachers couldn’t read his writing. His English teacher has told him to just stop trying to write in cursive and, immediately, his grades improved massively.

Turns out, he wasn’t stupid, the teachers just couldn’t read his entirely correct answers.

My children write faster in print. Most kid’s work I mark in cursive is barely legible.

Are we after speed? Typing is waaay faster. Or we could teach them all shorthand and tell the examiners to work it out.

I think want every child to leave lower KS2 using a neat, clearly-legible, consistently-sized writing that is correctly formed using an efficient and comfortable pencil grip.

I’m in a couple of minds about this. On the one hand, it’s probably awful trying to read year 2/3 work written in cursive. On the other, when I meet an educated adult who still prints, I wonder what happened (obviously I don’t ask).

From memory, we were taught some joined up handwriting in school (primary in the 80s) but it was largely left up to us if we used it. I was considered a bit of an oddity because I joined up.

Eye roll back acha because your post literally makes no sense. 😂

I would question the intellect of anyone who judges someone based on their handwriting. Mine is cursive but messy, my husband’s is printed and very neat, he’s smarter than I am. My daughter is a straight A student, she found cursive incredibly difficult to do, so she writes however works for her. My mum has what people would consider the loveliest cursive writing, she left school with one O Grade in domestic science. The smartest kid in our class wrote only in printed capitals. How you are able to write has absolutely nothing to do with how smart you are. What matters is the content of the writing.

Thank goodness we’ve moved away from such ridiculous notions and most work is typed nowadays so those who could not master the art of silly, flouncy handwriting are not immediately judged.

As a child we learned to print and then were taught cursive in Year 4. I think this is about right as many year 2/3s aren’t solid enough with printing.

I do think cursive is an essential skill that should be taught - and children should be taught to do it legibly when they are the right age. It is faster and more efficient and multiple studies show that the physical act of writing is important for brain development in reading and learning. We are more likely to remember something we have physically written than something we have read or typed or heard. And more likely to be able to write fluently with cursive.

My biggest shock really is how early we write kids off. It’s a sad sad place for them really.

My handwriting is a mix of cursive and non-cursive - I definitely don't link all the letters - and I managed 3 essay based A Levels and an essay based degree and MA with no issues with writing speed.

DS's handwriting is an absolute disaster area and I wish he'd never been 'taught' cursive. It's causing real issues at secondary for him.

What's a pen licence"

Someone I follow on Instagram was delighted that her daughter had been awarded this but I'd no idea what it was.

Do you think?

My daughter is dyslexic and has a nightmare with lower case "a" and for ages she couldnt get her head around how to do a joined up "o". I don't know that cursive helped her any. Now she's allowed to write print, her writing (although often still messy) is so much better and most of the time you can read it!

Her writing is also much better with gel pens or pencil, neither of which she's allowed to use at school. 🤨 We've found her some pens that apparently feel like writing with pencil and have super thin nibs. She's really happy with them and her writing is better and school haven't said anything about them. They are £12 each though! Obviously the couldn't be poundshop ones.

Yes, to wondering why they don't do typing! That is such a vital life skill.

Pen license is a license a child gets when they can move from using pencil to pen 🤣 my daughter has never got hers.’