Tom Griswold of the Bob & Tom radio show has been complaining about cursive writing for a week (why does it have to be taught along with printing when so few people can do it legibly anyway?), so he must have seen an account of this study:
Six of every 10 primary school teachers grade assignments for penmanship, even though many of them feel ill-equipped to teach the subject, according to a not-yet-released national survey by a Vanderbilt University professor.
Steve Graham, a professor of special education, found that 80% of the teachers surveyed did not feel prepared to teach handwriting and that the majority indicated they did not enjoy teaching the subject.
I wouldn't want to admit my handwriting is bad, but if I don't transcribe my notes within an hour or two, even I can't comprehend half of it. The worst part is that, knowing this, I usually start out printing but subconsciously drift into cursive about halfway through.
Comments
Sadly, cursive writing is going the way of the Dodo, thanks to the advent of the keyboard. I hope that trend stops, though.
Used to be...WAY back in ELEMENTARY school, we *had* to do it. My problem was always the lower case "f"...hard as anything to get both the TOP loop and the BOTTOM loop *equal*. And after PAGES of repetitive and boring practice (as well as having MOM stand over me while doing it), I've long since overcome that problem, thankfully. And we won't get into that capital letter "Q" that looked like something Zorro slashed across a page.
Of course it drives my wife crazy when I hastily write up some list for groceries, causing her eyes to strain at what she sees. And there are those few times when I myself find I've "written another prescription" vis-a-vis sloppily handwritten something that even I have to guess at to it's TRUE meaning. Was that SAUERKRAUT...or was that SANIFLUSH?
Maybe all that "chicken-scratch" was trying to tell me something.....as long as I can write LIKE a doctor...shouldn't I have BECOME one?
Nah...Don't have the "patience" for it...LOL!
B.G.
I'm like Leo. When taking fast notes, I default to cursive and the faster I go, the quicker I'll need to transcribe in order to recall what the truncated words and long wavy lines meant when I jotted them.
I guess I go cursive at top speed because a single penstroke per word is faster, given all that time wasted lifting the pen while printing.
Nowadays my laptop is more satisfactory for notes than handwriting, of course, IF my portable is with me and the tapping won't disturb the proceedings. At session's end, a raw draft is instantly ready to print out, transmit or proof.
I never learned shorthand (that was for secretaries). But I have been convinced for years now that all career writers should learn shorthand for its many practical applications: fast-talking interviewees, forays to research archived records, and all those unanticipated encounters when you're going to have nothing available but a borrowed pen and paper.
Funny post, B.G.
Another sad commentary on the times we live in but should have seen it coming. A century ago, people learned how to write cursive, a half century ago, almost, I learned to write using the Palmer method (I think) and I like to assume that my handwriting is legible. Today, there isn't much emphasis on it, nor does there seem to be enough emphasis on correct grammar structure or spelling, for that matter. But listening to Bob or Tom criticize it, goodness, I gave them up because I couldn't take anymore of the inane laughtrack and what seemed to me to be increasingly juvenile humor as a result of my advancing age. It is a laughtrack, isn't it?
Good handwriting does not have to mean cursive ... or printing, either, for that matter.
As a handwriting-historian who keeps current with research (and who has taught and evaluated handwriting for 15 years), I'd like you to know that (according to research done in 1998 by this same Steve Graham, whose work I respect) the fastest and most legible handwriters DO NOT write in cursive. Nor do they print. High-speed, high-legibility handwriting tends to use print-like letter-shapes and to join some but not all of them: just doing the easiest joins (the ones that actually do increase speed) and skipping the other (harder, slower) ones.
This way of writing actually goes back to the first-ever handwriting books (published during the Italian Renaissance) and pre-dates by a century or so the so-called "traditional" cursive.
Oh, by the way ... no law requires, or ever did require, cursive for a signature or other writing. (Don't believe me? Ask a lawyer!)
Dave wrote:
>...nor does there seem to be enough emphasis
>on correct grammar structure or spelling...
Don't get me started, Dave! -- (:^O
I can't complain too much about computers and word processing; they've made the process of writing much easier. Spell check, editing on the fly, moving whole paragraphs around. And research! I can instantly look up something, while I'm writing, that I once had to stop and make a trip to the library to find out. But writing is more than a process. When I'm in a reflective mood, wanting to use the act of writing as a way to think (rather than just typing in something that's already formed in my head), I still like my pen and legal pad. And, by the way, you know what else we're using as we give up the physical act of writing? Doodles, which can probably give you more insight into a person than reading a 150-page report by a therapist. Can't doodle on a laptop, friends.