Saturday, September 6, 2014

Is Cursive A Thing Of The Past ?

Cursive:
Cursive, also known as longhand, script, joined-up writing, joint writing, running writing, or handwriting is any style of penmanship in which the symbols of the language are written in a conjoined and/or flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. However, not all cursive joins all letters. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts.While the terms cursive or script are popular in the United States for describing this style of writing the Latin script, this term is rarely used elsewhere. Joined-up writing is more popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland and India The term handwriting is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, the term running-writing is also popularly applied. In reference, cursive is often said to have been "written", as opposed to having been "printed" in traditional block format. Cursive is distinct from block letters, in which the letters of a word are unconnected and in Roman/Gothic letter-form rather than joined-up script. This style may also be called print script, print writing, block writing and sometimes simply print. The curlicue letters of cursive handwriting, once considered a part of American elementary education, have been slowly disappearing from classrooms for years. with most states adopting new standards that don’t require such instruction, cursive could soon be eliminated from most public schools. it is impossible to read cursive if you can't write it. There are so many children today who can't even read cursive writing, let alone write it. They'll never be able to read anything that was written in the 19th century. They won't be able to read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or anything written during the Civil War. They're missing an entire portion of our country's history. A major part of many exhibitions, original written documents are written in cursive, not to mention online genealogical research, and even reading your own family's own old mail, all of which requires the reader to be able to decipher handwriting from times past. Reading cursive means you need to be able to write it. Handwriting is something most college students avoid whenever possible, and now the public school system is making it even easier.Many states are no longer requiring schools to teach cursive writing. This decision has been met with some controversy on the Internet. The older generation seems more hostile to the idea, while the younger generation is applauding.
Keyboard skills and typing are now being emphasized in the public school system which is a thing of the 21 century.
Look around you during class, How many of your classmates are writing in cursive or typing on a laptop? Besides the older people,Years from now cursive writing will be as foreign to our grandchildren as shorthand is to us.  almost no one uses cursive. Cursive writing is no longer required due to shorthand not being used anymore and this wonderful invention called a computer. Sure, it is important to have legible handwriting, but  would anyone classify cursive as “legible.”

Is cursive writing that important? 
The only argument I can formulate is the act of a signature. A signature does not have to be in cursive. As long as you print your name, or simply put an “X” down, it is legal. This makes you wonder why you had to learn cursive in the first place.

For many students, cursive is becoming foreign . students take notes on laptops and tablet computers than with pens and notepads. Responding to handwritten letters from grandparents in cursive is no longer necessary as they, too, learn how to use email, Facebook and Skype.
And educators, seeking to prepare students for a successful future in which computer and typing skills have unsurpassed penmanship, are finding cursive’s relevance waning, especially with leaner school budgets and curricula packed with standardized testing prep. So they’re opting not to teach it anymore.It’s seeing the writing on the wall Cursive is increasingly becoming obsolete.”
cursive “a dying art.”
Cursive writing is a traditional skill that has been replaced with technology, Educators are having to make choices about what they teach with a limited amount of time and little or no flexibility. Much of their instructional time is consumed with teaching to a standardized test.”Since 2010, 45 states — including Maryland — and the District have adopted the Common Core standards, which do not require cursive instruction but leave it up to the individual states and districts to decide whether they want to teach it. A report the same year by the Miami-Dade public school system found that cursive instruction has been slowly declining nationwide since the 1970s.
“The standards define the learning targets that need to be met to ensure students graduate from high school prepared for success in college and careers. The decision to include cursive when teaching writing is left to states, districts, schools and teachers.”
A few D.C. traditional public and charter schools offer cursive; most others don’t. In Montgomery County, cursive is part of the curriculum, it is up to educators to make the time to teach it.
The Virginia Department of Education mandates that third-graders should be able to read and write legibly in cursive. Although cursive is technically part of the curriculum in Fairfax County, the reality is that it’s not widely taught.
Proponents of cursive say that many of the country’s historical documents were written in the fancy script, including the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They believe that future historians who lack the ability to read cursive might not be able to study original historical documents.

The truth is that cursive writing is pretty much gone, except in the adult world for people in their 60's and 70's. Today’s teachers value typing more than handwriting, and that by the 12th grade, about half of all papers are composed with computer word processing.
When you think about the world in the 1950s, everything was by hand. Paper and pencil, it’s now a hybrid world.” the argument for keeping cursive around centers more on tradition than practicality.
 It’s like a work of art, “It’s pretty, but is that a reason for keeping something, given that we do less and less of those kinds of cards anymore?. cursive writing is an integral part of working with students who have dyslexia. Because all letters in cursive start on a base line, and because the pen moves fluidly from left to right, cursive is easier to learn for dyslexic students who have trouble forming words correctly.
needing to read cursive is greatly diminishing in our society, but it’s still very applicable as an instructional tool.”Several states have tried to resurrect cursive. California, Georgia and Massachusetts all have laws mandating cursive instruction, and last month, legislators in Idaho passed a bill instructing the state Board of Education to include cursive in the curriculum.
Some experts contend that nice handwriting can lead to better grades in school. recently conducted a study that found that children with neater handwriting developed better reading and math skills than their chicken-scratch peers.
According to a 2006 College Board report, SAT essays written in cursive received a slightly higher score than those with block print. But only 15 percent of the essays were written in cursive. At Broad Acres Elementary in Silver Spring, students receive minimal cursive instruction, The children spend more time learning to read it than write it.At St. Francis International School, which is across the street from Broad Acres, cursive receives more prominence. cursive and neat handwriting have played a crucial role in the preservation of history For centuries, monks in monasteries cared for fragile books and labored making copies of the manuscripts by hand.“The question is why teach two forms of writing when one will do the trick?”“Something’s gotta give. Cursive handwriting is under pressure.” 
 

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