Cursive Writing For Kids

Apr 28, 2008 10:04 AM

Guest :

Another advantage - on college entrance tests, oftentimes students have to copy a passage in cursive, as I found out to my distress, having forgotten most of the cursive letters except those in my name. That's another thing - many people sign in cursive!

May 9, 2008 7:12 AM

Guest :

typing is coming upon us

May 14, 2008 10:14 PM

Guest :

I'm sixty years old and I stumbled into this cursive site because my handwriting is clumsy block letters. I learned cursive in grade school but gravitated towards block. My Mom had beautiful script and I thought I would now learn it as art form and daily gift to myself and my family. To often kids don't practice life art, art that they will used every day for the rest of their life. I don't regret any choice I ever made (couldn't change it anyway) but I can correct a mistake and share penship all the rest of my life. Surely the value of a mindful cursive writer wielding a simple pencil must be vastly superior to a keyboard writer suddenly without technology. Clarity and purpose in a handwritten document is apparent. A mindfully written and beautifully presented handwritten document includes a glimpse of the emotion of the writer.
A handwritten letter transmits far more information in far fewer words. All upsets are caused by a lack of communication. Mindful cursive reaches to the core the human experience and offers endless gifts that last generations. If you are an adult look at a sample of your parents or grandparents handwriting and see if that doesn't evoke more than a typed letter might from you to your kids. Give the kids a life gift, teach them to really communicate how they feel and let all of us reap the rich rewards for generations to come.

Aug 27, 2008 7:25 AM

Guest :

Hi,
I have been homeschooling for 1 1/2 Yrs now. I had decided not to teach cursive to, my G'son likes to print. My husband prefers printing and I thought about it and decided, back then, to let him print. One day I haded him a paper and asked him to read this to me, please. I think I was bust doing something and thought nothing of asking him to read it for me. He handed it back to me and said, "Granny I can't read this." I asked him why & he told me, "It is in cursive."

Hearing him tell me he could not read this paper told me, I NEED to teach him cursive. I would not let him go threw life not knowing how to read printed penmanship and I will not let him tell me now. He needs to at least know how to read cursive and to do that, I need to teach him to write it.

Later in life, print or not, I don't mind which he uses but knowing how gives him the choice!

My new out look on not teaching cursive writing. Whether he uses it or not, he needs to be able to read it!

Oct 17, 2008 1:58 PM

Guest :

One problem I would like to suggest is that most of the books that children read are all manuscript. Students in the first and second grade often cannot identify cursive letters. If they learn cursive first, learning to read will be more difficult.

Nov 13, 2008 12:23 PM

Guest :

It is often hard enough to get children to enjoy creative writing--and I think that process is more important than how it is written. Boys in particular seem to find cursive time consuming, and then they don't want to write at all. In addition, seems silly to spend too much time on something our children will spend little time doing in their adult life in the 21st century.

Dec 1, 2008 1:45 PM

Guest :

It is totally a waste of time the only reason for learning cursive is for a signature. I found that recently people find it difficult to write faster in cursive than in print considering that print is better known by people. This "art" is different every time but i think kids need to only learn to read it so if someone send them a typed invatation or something. Another thing is that we have computers now and all we have to do is type it highlight it and change the font.

Feb 28, 2009 5:29 PM

Guest :

it takes like a month or 2 to learn cursive, well and then you can remember it for life

Mar 11, 2009 8:23 AM

Guest :

Cursive is pointless. Why have two ways to write the same thing? I can write in block just as quickly as I can in cursive and it is much more legible. The content should express your thoughts/emotions,not the writing style. If that's a legitimate argument, why not have kids paint everything so it can be as colorful and expressive as possible.

Cursive is dead. Let it go.

Mar 16, 2009 9:33 AM

Guest :

I am an occupational therapist working with preschool to post-highschool students. Children in the U.S. are being short changed in the neglect of handwriting. Handwriting is a valuable cultural endeavor for much more than aesthetic reasons alone. My take on handwriting is this - requiring kindergarteners to write is silly; at least a third of them don't have the fine motor or attentional skills to do so with good form, and many of them develop very bad habits that are carried over throughout their life. The idea of teaching cursive prior to print may have merit. Print and cursive are crucial parts of any school's curriculum because of this: It provides a micro gymnasium for the body and mind. Even though writing a letter occurs in a very small space, it requires a complex integration of movement, pressure, and visual processing. Angular, straight, and circular movements are all sequenced in a specific order to imitate fairly complex visual images and motoric movements. This activity provides an organizing foundation for the central nervous system that other skills can be integrated with. The visual spatial and coordinative skills that develop with a highly structured handwriting curriculum provide a neural structure for organizing other kinds of information and skills. Research shows that students perform higher in all subject areas when they participate in a fully developed handwriting curriculum. Unfortunately, curriculums across the U.S. are so crammed with peripheral content and schools spend so much time doing and teaching things that families should be responsible for, many gradeschools do not have formal handwriting curriculums. The idea that handwriting is no longer necessary because of technology is incorrect. When I look at my parent's handwriting and then my grandparent's handwriting I can see the unfortunate cultural decline from a time when people took pride in their handwriting, and took the time to make it a beautiful thing. Maybe somehow this idea can be ushered back into modern society, but right now I don't see that happening.

Apr 13, 2009 6:39 PM

Guest :

I learned how to learn cursive of the age at least 9 or 8 and I have to say cursive is better than printing. I have been complimented by alot of people who think I have good hand writing. I think kids should learn to write to script because it is easier and makes writing easy and you can write with it quickly if you are aexpert like me.