Teaching Cursive to Left-Handed Writers
I was very surprised by the strong responses my post on cursive writing elicited. It’s a subject I’m very interested in, and thought not many others were. What a delightful surprise. Now I’m really looking forward to the several posts on the subject that I plan to make.
I want to jump right in with both feet and address the primary issue brought up by readers in my previous post’s comments–the issue of left-handers having a lot of trouble with cursive writing. Readers mentioned having to hold the pen at an odd angle, or slant the letters oddly to avoid the problem of wet ink getting all over the hand, arm, and paper as the writing hand is dragged through what has just been written.
One of the teachers in my school, who is the person who actually taught me how to teach cursive writing to children, just happens to be left handed. When I was a child, I remember very well that while right-handed children were told to turn their paper by turning it counterclockwise, that left-handed children were told to turn their paper clockwise. Sometime between the time I was a child learning to write (in the early 60’s), and the 1990’s, a change was made in the way to teach left-handed children. Fortunately, I was told about this change prior to starting to teach cursive, because the teacher who taught me is left-handed herself. The new method has left-handers turning the paper counterclockwise, just like right-handed learners.
Now, I’d like to ask my left-handed readers to try a quick, simple experiment. I think you will be surprised. (And please, I’d like to know about your reaction in the comments.) Hold a sheet of paper upright, in front of you, on the desk. Turn the paper 45° counterclockwise, so that the upper right corner points directly upward at 12:00 position. (This is how right-handers are told to turn their paper, too.) Now, write a few words across the page–I think you will find your hand/arm is in a comfortable position, and that your hand does not need to smear the pencil or ink. The left-handed teacher in our school showed me this, and showed me that any left-handed person can have beautiful penmanship, and to never accept that as an excuse from a child or parent. The first two left-handed children I taught cursive to did learn it with truly excellent results, although those two did have a little extra help (three or four hours total) of extra penmanship lessons from our left-handed teacher. Since that time, whenever I have a left-handed student who has been told either by his parents, or by others, that he could never have good penmanship because of being left-handed–and therefore lacked confidence–I arranged for that student to have a lesson or two from my previous left-handers, who were now in higher grades. It always helps the new student, and gives satisfaction to my previous students who now feel they are the “experts” sharing their own knowledge. My left-handers all feel very proud of their beautiful penmanship.
In our school, we use pencil. Only pencils were permittted to be used in our school through Grade 6 (I think this may be a British idea), until just recently. (In America, we started to use pen in Grade 4, and fortunately, I remember well how we were taught.) But the last two years, our administration has allowed me to begin teaching how to use a ball-point pen, for selected assignments only, at the end of Grade 3. We wait until everyone gets on our classroom list of “Excellent Cursive Writers,” and then we use it as a reward for the whole class being successful. Here, they are very eager to start writing in pen, since everyone else they know in other schools has been writing with cartridge pens since they were five years old. It makes them feel “really grown up.”
I would especially like to ask Bruce, one of my readers, a question. Bruce, do you have any thoughts on why Europeans are so against ballpoint pens (I even found this prejudice in France when I visited there last year), or why they think it is important for five-year-old children to start writing with cartridge pens? I’ve never been able to get a decent answer to this from anyone here.
Here, we have one additional issue come up when I teach children to slant their paper. This involves the children asking me how the paper should be slanted for writing Arabic, which is a type of cursive script written from right to left. The Arabic teachers don’t tell their students to slant their papers (and neither do non-American teachers of English, but I will get into this in another post). But just experimenting myself, holding a paper up on the blackboard for my students to see, it seems to me that if I turn my paper the normal counterclockwise direction, as a right-hander, I have no problems with needing to drag my hand through what has been written. A left-hander, however, turning his paper this way would obscure his writing line. In my opinion, it seems to work better for left-handers writing in Arabic to turn the paper 45° clockwise. John (another of my readers), as a left-hander,would you please give this a quick try, and give me your opinion (since I think you know how to write Arabic, as well)?
Eileen
August 28, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I have never fully figured out this obsession Europeans have about using liquid inks at an early age. (Of course, wouldn’t you know it, I happen to be someone who writes almost exclusively with a fountain pen myself – I love the feel of writing with it.)
The only explanation I have – and it is me trying to figure out what’s going on, as opposed to actually knowing anything about it – is that there is a cultural bias toward valuing the time it takes to do something “beautifully”. The ball point is neither an art tool (as would be a pencil) nor something that, at the end of the day, is anything other than functional (no glistening ink, no ability to create broader and finer strokes by turning the pen, etc.). As we know, most European products are built with a focus on beauty, quality and longevity; most Europeans value the mix of centuries that makes up their towns and cities; food is something to be savoured (at least at the end of the day); and so on. Learning to write well using liquid ink would therefore be an unconscious continuation of that theme.
Cultural values and their ability to embed themselves deeply is something we have experienced during our two years living in the United States. As with many other Canadians, we came to the USA with our social and communitarian values from Canada. (As I put it once to a colleague, who was asking the inevitable question of “which party would you support if you could vote?”, “at home I am a Progressive Conservative, which is right-of-centre in Canada but to the left of your Democrats”.) Our then 4-5 year old daughter, however, was quickly changing before our eyes, to become far more individualistic, “me”-oriented, to the point where she would (precociously) argue with us about “her rights”. No one set out to teach her these values: they are part of the American cultural heritage and were just implicit in the way things are done – and she, being young and malleable, was picking them up from teachers and school friends.
So cultural values do run deeply; hence my explanation.
Bruce
August 28, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Happy to try–and comment!
Tilting the paper to write Arabic works both clockwise and counterclockwise. But I write with a ‘hook’: my hand and wrist form a circle over the page. My preference is to have the paper aligned vertically on the workspace, though.
For writing Western languages, I find it easier to write with the paper paper rotated counterclockwise. Attempts were made to try different rotations while learning cursive.
In my particular case, I transferred schools in second grade, mid-year, and came into a class that was already learning cursive, in pencil. I had to do some catch-up. By third grade, I was writing with the rest/best of them, though it took me more practice. And just to date myself, we learned with straight pen holders, nibs, and ink wells! This was only back in the mid-50s.
My son learned cursive in the equivalent of the fourth grade in the UK. There, all assignments, excepting math and sciences, were to be done in ink. That was the case through his last year of public (i.e. private) high school, nine years later. Sciences and math could be done, depending on circumstances, in pencil or ball point. Why this split, I haven’t a clue.
August 28, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Well, my mother told me about learning to write with ink wells, and the naughty boys used to dip the ends of the braids of the girls’ girls sitting in front of them into their inkwells! That was in the 1930’s. In the 1960’s we were never taught to write with anything except ball points (at least in my school).
I have been told by some British people who are younger than I am that they always used pencil in grade school. So it must be something that varies regionally.
Here, I have a really hard time getting my students to do their math in their workbooks in pencil, and to show their work. Their parents are used to the way it’s done here. In order to keep notebooks neat (and so people can’t change their answers in math), all math here (not at our school, but in most schools of this country) has to be done in INK! Any calculations are done on a piece of scrap paper, which is thrown away, and only neat answers (without work shown) are copied into the workbook, or notebook. I have to train both students, AND parents, that this is NOT the way we want it done in English.
Bruce, I think your thoughts about tradition in using fountain pens may be right on the mark. I hadn’t thought of it that way. It makes sense. I have never been taught to write with a fountain pen, and at this point, I wouldn’t have a clue as to making upstrokes and downstrokes, or varying strokes to width. I would only know how to do normal writing. But that’s all they teach kids here, or in France anymore, for that matter, too.
Thank you both for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this matter.
Eileen
September 5, 2007 at 8:46 pm
[...] Read the whole thing. It’s pretty interesting. [...]
September 12, 2009 at 7:37 am
Dear elementaryteacher,
I am left-handed and I have to turn my paper to the left (counter-clockwise, or anti-clockwise as the British would say it) when I write in cursive so that my letters slant to the right.
If I were to turn my paper to the right (clockwise), I would have to awkwardly bend my wrist or strain my fingers to get my hand to easily slant my writing to the right.
Whoever came up with the idea that left-handers should turn their paper clockwise (to the right) and still slant their writing to the right obviously wasn’t left-handed and didn’t have a clue. The whole purpose of turning the paper to the left is so that your writing would slant to the right without having to make your hand write to the right. That’s the same regardless of handedness. Imagine turning the paper to the right instead of the left. If you were to write normally, your letters would naturally slant to the left because the paper was turned right. If you wanted to make your writing slantless (or vertical slant), you would have to make your fingers slant your writing to the right to compensate for the paper being turned to the right. And then, if you wanted to slant your writing to the right on the paper, you would have to really strain your fingers to further slant your writing to the right because your paper would already be turned to the right. Ridiculous!