American President Abraham Lincoln’s Cursive Writing
One of my readers asked if I could run a poll about whether or not it is important to learn cursive writing. In answering this poll, I’d like readers to consider these five points they may not have thought of in terms of the benefits of learning cursive.
1) Many historical documents are written in cursive. Those who do not learn cursive at ALL are actually unable to read it. These members of society are then unable to read original historical documents (such as Abraham Lincoln’s letter pictured above).
2) If a person cannot read cursive (even if he doesn’t use cursive himself) he generally has trouble reading letters/notes from other people which are written in cursive.
3) There are occassions in life where people do not wish to be embarrassed of their writing (whether it is in printing or cursive).
4) People do not always have access to computers and printers for every piece of communication.
5) Anyone who masters cursive can write at least fifty percent faster than someone who prints (I ran several timed tests with people who are both fluent cursive writers and printers).
After marking your response in the poll, if you feel like it, please leave a comment below (in the comments section) telling us which country or part of the world you are from, and WHY you think cursive IS, or IS NOT important to learn.
I think many of us want to know what others think about this issue. Thank you, readers!
First thanks for conducting this poll – I will be interested to see the results on your excellent blog.
I am from the UK, I live in North Africa, I am a qualified teacher and currently work in education but not as a teacher.
Personally I do not know how to write in American cursive and use a sort of low-grade Italic style when writing by hand but I do think cursive is an important skill for many reasons. On a practical level it is good to be able to take notes quickly and smoothly, without having to stop to think about your writing, and to produce finished documents that are pleasant to look at and easy to read. On a different level, it is good for children to master a skill properly, giving them confidence in their abilities and teaching them that attention to detail counts. It is also something that is part of their heritage and should not be discarded lightly. In some cultures, calligraphy is a very highly valued blend of artistry and skill and we should think carefully before arrogantly deciding that being able to ‘write’, literally in this case, is unimportant.
I am from Scotland and went through the Scottish education system which at that time taught cursive, but without too much importance attached to it. However I have found through experience that there are occasions where having clear and tidy handwriting helps- for example in CV’s (where employers wish to see handwriting rather than type) and hand written exams.
I do think it’s important that cursive be taught, but it was taught so strictly when I was a child (and I got such horrible marks) that I print whenever possible.
Have you looked at ABeka’s curriculum? They NEVER teach children to print. You learn cursive beginning in kindergarten. I am sure most of my boys would not be ready to do that.
I’m in Missouri. Public schools here spend about two weeks on the topic, which of course means children do NOT write in cursive, but they can at least in theory read the cursive and perhaps do a bit of writing if it were necessary. Cursive is not graded here.
I am amazed if children can read cursive after only spending two weeks on it. After spending several months teaching it, my children still have trouble reading it, and I find that is actually a separate skill that has to be taught. So when we finish “learning” cursive, I prepare worksheets handwritten in cursive for every subject of the curriculum. The kids then get several months of practice reading it on a daily basis. By the end of the year they are generally able to read it decently, but some are actually still struggling.
My oldest child seems able to read it, but all the others do not. That’s true about the historical documents, esp. if you want to go into geneology and find your ancestry, the census records were hand-written.
I will tell you why I voted NO on this poll. Teaching cursive writing misses the point. The objective should be to teach handwriting that communicates well, first and foremost. Some of us find this to be much more comfortable and attainable in a self-modified printing mode. It may be due to my being a left-handed person, but I didn’t find my grade school lessons in cursive to be at all helpful in finding quality methods to write and express myself.
I voted yes, and am 37; born and educated in the US. In addition to the reasons you mentioned, in my personal life it’s very clear to me that cursive is mush faster than printing, as well as more comfortable. When I used to write scientific articles, I always did the first draft long-hand, double spaced (for notes to myself). I can’t imagine having to print all of that text.
I found your site while researching European cursive. My daughter is currently attending 2nd grade in Italy. They start with cursive here. So coming from the US this year, she had to learn quickly how to read and write in cursive. She’s bright, and it didn’t take long at all for me to catch her up to the other children in the first couple of weeks of school. She loves it now, but I can’t imagine her being very good at it in kindergarten.
What’s amazing to me and my sister-in-law is that it’s very difficult to find cursive practice materials for Italian-style cursive, which is substantially different from US cursive. When we asked the teachers, they wondered why we would need something like that, when we have teachers. Funny. They have given us example cursive alphabets, but so far we have seen no examples of letters with arrows, the way you see in the US. That makes me think that in Italy, also, they are unconcerned with how the letters are formed, only that the end result looks correct. It seems inefficient to me. My daughter comes up with some crazy methods, like forming the cross of the lower-case “t” on her way down the body of the “t”, rather than coming back and crossing the “t” after the word is written.
American President Abraham Lincoln’s Cursive Writing
June 5, 2009 at 8:04 am |
First thanks for conducting this poll – I will be interested to see the results on your excellent blog.
I am from the UK, I live in North Africa, I am a qualified teacher and currently work in education but not as a teacher.
Personally I do not know how to write in American cursive and use a sort of low-grade Italic style when writing by hand but I do think cursive is an important skill for many reasons. On a practical level it is good to be able to take notes quickly and smoothly, without having to stop to think about your writing, and to produce finished documents that are pleasant to look at and easy to read. On a different level, it is good for children to master a skill properly, giving them confidence in their abilities and teaching them that attention to detail counts. It is also something that is part of their heritage and should not be discarded lightly. In some cultures, calligraphy is a very highly valued blend of artistry and skill and we should think carefully before arrogantly deciding that being able to ‘write’, literally in this case, is unimportant.
June 5, 2009 at 9:40 am |
Thank you very much for your thoughts, and I’m looking forward to comparing them with other people’s thoughts on this subject.
June 5, 2009 at 9:33 am |
I am from Scotland and went through the Scottish education system which at that time taught cursive, but without too much importance attached to it. However I have found through experience that there are occasions where having clear and tidy handwriting helps- for example in CV’s (where employers wish to see handwriting rather than type) and hand written exams.
June 5, 2009 at 10:51 am |
I do think it’s important that cursive be taught, but it was taught so strictly when I was a child (and I got such horrible marks) that I print whenever possible.
Have you looked at ABeka’s curriculum? They NEVER teach children to print. You learn cursive beginning in kindergarten. I am sure most of my boys would not be ready to do that.
I’m in Missouri. Public schools here spend about two weeks on the topic, which of course means children do NOT write in cursive, but they can at least in theory read the cursive and perhaps do a bit of writing if it were necessary. Cursive is not graded here.
June 5, 2009 at 11:23 am |
I am amazed if children can read cursive after only spending two weeks on it. After spending several months teaching it, my children still have trouble reading it, and I find that is actually a separate skill that has to be taught. So when we finish “learning” cursive, I prepare worksheets handwritten in cursive for every subject of the curriculum. The kids then get several months of practice reading it on a daily basis. By the end of the year they are generally able to read it decently, but some are actually still struggling.
–Eileen
June 7, 2009 at 3:13 pm |
My oldest child seems able to read it, but all the others do not. That’s true about the historical documents, esp. if you want to go into geneology and find your ancestry, the census records were hand-written.
June 11, 2009 at 7:23 pm |
Hey,
when can we see the results of the poll ??
Happy holidays,
Susan
July 12, 2009 at 6:51 pm |
Click here to see the results of the poll!
–Eileen
June 22, 2009 at 6:31 am |
As we get older, especially when in the business world I think cursive just looks more professional and more mature.
Sorry for the delay catching up on my feeder!
July 12, 2009 at 6:53 pm |
Here’s the link to see the results of the poll:
http://elementaryteacher.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/results-of-the-reader-cursive-poll-is-cursive-important-yes/
–Eileen
October 2, 2009 at 4:47 pm |
I will tell you why I voted NO on this poll. Teaching cursive writing misses the point. The objective should be to teach handwriting that communicates well, first and foremost. Some of us find this to be much more comfortable and attainable in a self-modified printing mode. It may be due to my being a left-handed person, but I didn’t find my grade school lessons in cursive to be at all helpful in finding quality methods to write and express myself.
December 5, 2009 at 1:57 pm |
I voted yes, and am 37; born and educated in the US. In addition to the reasons you mentioned, in my personal life it’s very clear to me that cursive is mush faster than printing, as well as more comfortable. When I used to write scientific articles, I always did the first draft long-hand, double spaced (for notes to myself). I can’t imagine having to print all of that text.
I found your site while researching European cursive. My daughter is currently attending 2nd grade in Italy. They start with cursive here. So coming from the US this year, she had to learn quickly how to read and write in cursive. She’s bright, and it didn’t take long at all for me to catch her up to the other children in the first couple of weeks of school. She loves it now, but I can’t imagine her being very good at it in kindergarten.
What’s amazing to me and my sister-in-law is that it’s very difficult to find cursive practice materials for Italian-style cursive, which is substantially different from US cursive. When we asked the teachers, they wondered why we would need something like that, when we have teachers. Funny. They have given us example cursive alphabets, but so far we have seen no examples of letters with arrows, the way you see in the US. That makes me think that in Italy, also, they are unconcerned with how the letters are formed, only that the end result looks correct. It seems inefficient to me. My daughter comes up with some crazy methods, like forming the cross of the lower-case “t” on her way down the body of the “t”, rather than coming back and crossing the “t” after the word is written.
Anyway, interesting topic. Thank you.