Have you been wondering why your child hasn't been learning cursive? or why your child's teacher hasn't been forcing him to write in cursive the way you had to?
Most teachers believe that cursive is important. After all, we want students to be able to read cursive and sign their names to important legal documents some day. While most educators see value in cursive, many state's standards did not place value on cursive. Also with the pressure on schools and districts to continuously raise test scores emphasis has been placed on tested subjects. That means during the school day we are spending every spare minute (not that we have any spare minutes) on reading and math in the elementary grades. This article linked below gives reasons why we should not give up on cursive just yet.
What Learning Cursive Does for Your Brain
My freshmen this year were the first in our district to not get any instruction in cursive writing. I had a few students who wanted something faster than print and were kind of inventing their own cursive - boy, was it a mess. O's that looked just like a's. M's with only 2 humps and n's with just one. It really made me think about the decision not to teach it. These kids wanted it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree! My 4th graders this year hadn't had any formal cursive. They were introduced to it, but hadn't had enough practice and direct instruction to make it accurate and legible. We "reviewed" it in 4th grade meaning we gave them morning work packets that reviewed the letters. Again there was no direct instruction. O's and a's looked like cursive s's. It was a mess. There were letters they had no idea how to form, and they all said they couldn't read cursive if I tried to write on the board or on a chart in cursive. I'm open to ideas if anyone has a way to fit it all in!!!
One workshop presenter that I saw many years ago called it "constipation of the curriculum." He said, "We keep adding things in that have to be taught,but we never eliminate anything."