What is the point in cursive writing?

[BufordTJustice]

When my DD started school last year and I was introduced to cursive writing I wasn't a fan but she is managing with it though half the time I can't decipher her writing at all. Now my DS has started I am really questioning the point of it. He is a summer baby and is really struggling. He cannot even write his own name. I believe this to be because he is struggling with this form of writing. I just don't see the point of it. In this modern world what place does being able to write in perfect joined up writing have? I did not learn to write this way and manage to produce legible script on the very, very rare occasion it is called for. Is it just me???

I am not a fan of cursive, because from personal experience, if you're not a neat and tidy writer then it can make your hand writing completely illegible. I really struggled with it as a child and got fed up of seeing my good work marked down because of poor handwriting. At age 12, my form tutor gently suggested I stop writing joined up and it was a revelation. Exam results went up as they could actually read what I was writing! I have a degree and a higher degree and never struggled with taking notes/exam essays so I think speed is a bit of a red herring.

I personally don't think that cursive is for everyone and whilst I don't mind that the school want to teach it, the absolute obsession with it does irritate me a little. I feel for all the kids with scruffy writing!

Wi was taught old school and that the pencil di not leave the word only to cross the t and dot the i. My daughter in Italy hasn't been taught properly IMO as they do loads of loops and I can't tell her r from n the l from the b and its a complete mess. Often she can't read it back to me either . so we battle on and I hope it improves ... We have tried making little suggestions on how to join letters properly and help her but having 3 different teachers in her first year of school teaching this hasn't helped much.

when I spoke to the teacher about ds not forming letters correctly she said that's fine.

Not the best advice from the teacher there. Correct letter formation is hugely important. It can be very difficult to unlearn an incorrect formation if it's been used so often it's become ingrained. It will take a lot less work to correct it now.

We're in Spain and children go to school from 3. They start with capital letters then lower case cursive and by six (at primary) they are beginning to do joined up cursive. It is very curly and I can't always read it (having not learned that way at all in the UK in the late 70s). Both DS and now DD seem to manage it ok.

My eldest was taught print script in Reception then cursive half-way through Y1 so her handwriting is not great (she's left-handed which doesn't help). the others were taught cursive from the beginning and have much better writing. My husband is dyslexic and he reckons his handwriting has improved now he's tried it. My youngest is in Y1 and they are taught "start on the line and it will all be fine" : cursive is a bit fiddly when they first start but does make their writing quicker it seems and much neater. By the time they get older, they tend to adapt it to their own style.

anybody got any workbooks for cursive? My 6 yo still struggles (is left handed), I got her a poster but cursive workbooks are hard to find/expensive.

GU anything help your left handed one? DD prints well but her cursive is illegible and i'm useless at helping her as i do a modified joining up some letters writing..

It is faster but I never do it as if I do my writing ends up as illegible scrawl.

My DD is also left handed (Y2, was 6 in July). We haven't really done anything different for her wrt being left handed except make sure she always has plenty of room to write if she is sitting next to a right hander and when she was learning her letters work really hard on the correct formation from the beginning.

I don't know how her writing compares to the others in her class as I haven't seen their writing but I think she does manage pretty well with the cursive when she is careful. It can be awful too though and I don't know if that is down to her or her left-handedness!

Being left-handed (I am) is not a problem with joined up writing provided the pen is held correctly with the hand below it (not hooked round)
back in my school days lefties had to write that way or they smudged the ink from the dip-in pen!

The most important thing about handwriting is fluency. That is, the style that allows the writer to express their thoughts without any brain space being taken up with thinking about how to write. This takes time for children for develop and will eventually probably become a mixture of cursive and non joined. Mastery at Year 6 requires that children are able to distinguish when to join and not join their letters for maximum fluency. Completely cursive is not the most fluent of handwriting styles but children are usually taught this first until they develop the skills needed to mix cursive and non joined.

Teacher here! (I come in peace). At my previous school I taught in Reception where we were 'introduced' to the wonders of pre cursive writing by a teacher who initially I respected but then went out of the classroom and into a more senior position. To justify her salary she brought in a whole raft of changes, whilst doing none of the donkey work herself!
I was against this change for various reasons but most of all it was because of the confusion for children, some couldn't even hold a pencil properly yet and how and most importantly to me, their imagination in writing was being stifled by the worry over how to form their letters. Stamina needs to be built up in Reception. Asking a child to write two or even just one sentence can by draining for them. Throw pre cursive into the mix and it adds a whole level of worry.
If you're still with me, my reaction was 'I don't like it, but if the Year 1 teachers say how amazing their writing is this time next year, I'll admit it was a good move.'
The next year, I ended up being moved to Year 1 (not voluntarily) so, low and behold I could reap what I'd sowed. Their writing was so good. Beautifully presented, legible and mature. Yes they (and I) had had to work on starting our letters from the bottom and on the line (and for those of you who have boys who tend to find writing a bit more of a problem than girls, in my experience, they like the fact that EVERY letter starts on the line. It's a fact) but their handwriting looked good. We did give handwriting sessions to parents, got them to try the pre cursive writing themselves so they could become more confident.
I moved schools the next year where they don't teach pre cursive. I found the handwriting looked immature, staccato and messy. I made the decision to introduce pre cursive to year 1 at Easter. I invited parents in, explained the importance for later on in school and life in general and by the end of the year, every child could form their letters in pre cursive and half the cohort could join their writing. Results have been that Year 2 teachers are impressed with how they came up with handwriting. The handwriting looks better than some of the Y3-4 children and parents have been keen to report how useful the sessions I held had been to them.
So what am I saying? I'm saying encourage your child as much as you can. Concentrate on letters which belong in families, i.e. start with a, c, d etc
Purchase wipeable boards with the pre cursive font on it and practise regularly. I would also say that it is extremely important that your child can form EVERY letter correctly as a stand alone pre cursive letter before you get them to even begin to join.

I want to know how they teach handwriting in Poland. Nearly all the children I know who have learned early handwriting skills in Poland have beautiful writing. I suspect they spend a lot of time practising letter shapes and joins, but the result is fabulous.

I think it depends on the type of cursive. We were taught to print and then looped cursive, which is very curly indeed, in the equivalent of Year 3, in Ireland. I think very young children would struggle with looped cursive. I can still write in looped cursive, but I tend to use a semi-joined up form, with a mixture of print and cursive letters, most of the time.

I think cursive is crap. Sorry. Just learn how to print the letters so you know what they are really really well, and then stop taking your pencil off the paper until the end of a word.

Learning cursive seems to lead to dreadful ugly almost illegible adult writing. Looks dreadful. I once started a convo with one of dd's reachers about her writing and she responded with surprise, as dd's handwriting was apparently one of the best in the class. Awful.

Can you tell I hate it

I hate cursive with a passion.

My DS started cursive in year 1. After a whole year no one could read his writing and we were told 'bear with it we promise it will be wonderful'.
He is now in year 6, low and behold we still cant read his writing and he is constantly getting upset that his work is marked wrong when he has clearly (according to him anyway) written it correctly. The staff just cannot read it. Its just loads of silly extra swirls and flicks that don't need to be there and they make letters look like one another with no clear distinction.

It is not faster either, I wish people would stop saying that it is, you write as fast as you do because of how much you practice and not because its cursive. I have a friend who writes in cursive and 'for a laugh' after a bottle of wine we both wrote the same paragraph out to see who was fastest. Mine was in good old fashioned scribble, hers in cursive. Guess who finished first? In addition to finishing first everyone could read my paragraph, several struggled to read hers maybe that was the wine, not very scientific but it proved my point.

Its also crap for children with hypermobility. It makes a word twice as long as it needs to be which means its twice as difficult for those children to write.

Marking place as was wondering the same as op

TA here, we have been using pre cursive/cursive for about 4 years now. When we began the children I was working with in year 3 really struggled to start writing a different way. I find the children who have done it since reception are much better at it.
My personal experience of it is that my DS1 hated it, he started in year 2 and really found it difficult. He's in year 9 now and aways prints, no teacher at high school has ever commented on it.
I have read that it is quicker, helps with spelling and also with letter reversals.

I teach older kids but also think that cursive is completely unnecessary these days.

Also, different countries have different versions, so it doesn't even follow that it's some kind of universal style that everyone can read.

We no longer live in an age when all important documents are painfully coped by hand, and therefore have to be done in the exact same style by thousands of different clerical workers. The main point of it has disappeared.

Children do need to be able to form writing in a legible manner, but that mainly comes from practice and confidence.

Countries with good handwriting all have a national writing style. For example French handwriting is a definite style. I feel that if the uk had an official style if handwriting then we would have better handwriting as a nation.

Dd has wonderful handwriting because she has only been taught one style. She also practices handwriting every day during morning registration.

Older children had to learn new styles of joined up handwriting when the head changed. The reality was that changing handwriting style made their writing messier. They needed to stick to one style of handwriting and practice that regularly.

Children in England often lack the core and upper body strength to write. It would be interesting to see if Scottish children in P2 have better hand writing than year 1 children. Starting reception later gives more chance for muscles to develop.

Maybe rather than worrying whether children learn cursive, pre cursive or print hand writing we should get them to practice the monkey bars. (Assuming they don't break their arms)

really
Children in England often lack the core and upper body strength to write. It would be interesting to see if Scottish children in P2 have better hand writing than year 1 children.
that is a bit of a sweeping generalisation. I learnt joined up writing as did my peers at age 5 when rural children where I lived were not at the height of good nutrition (immediately pre-war and rationing still in operation)
How much upper body strength does it take to push a pen? It is easier now with no need for the dipping of pens in inkwells?
Cursive writing is elegant and enjoyable to read (even if it no longer a must have 'life skill')

"Children in England often lack the core and upper body strength to write. It would be interesting to see if Scottish children in P2 have better hand writing than year 1 children"

I can only speak from a very small sample of pupils I've taught who moved from Scotland (P3 into Y2) not the best handwriting in the class and not the worst.

I think you should also remember that not all schools teach fully joined cursive from the start. We wait until the end of Y1/beginning Y2 (depending on child's ability to form letters correctly before introducing joined).

It's also good for dyslexia, as the letters are not as similar- d p b are formed and joined quite differently. having said that, I'm sure there are pros and cons in both.

And both can be taught badly....