Cursive in Schools

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. We talked a couple of weeks ago on the show about whether cursive

Writing should be taught in schools. Oh, yes, we did. And boy, did we get a response.

Wait, people had opinions about that? What a surprise.

Very, very, very strong opinions. Let’s see. Ask a public radio audience a question about

Cursive writing. Yes. Yeah, and it was really striking because we talked about this years ago

And the response was kind of mixed, but this time it was overwhelmingly in favor of teaching cursive writing to kids in school.

But even from the teachers?

Oh, especially from the teachers.

Yeah, we heard from Walt Hamilton who said, as a teacher, this is one of my soapbox issues,

Scientific studies have confirmed that cursive writing is good for the brain, especially in relation to reading.

Children with dyslexia benefit from cursive because each word is one stroke, going left to right,

Letters cannot be confused, B and D, for example, and it aids small motor coordination and focus.

Strategies for dyslexics are actually good for all children, so I’m a huge fan of bringing cursive

Back into school. And we also heard from a professor of English at a community college

Who shared an interesting experience. She said, last year a student and I were reviewing one of

His drafts in my office, and on a separate piece of paper I was recording the elements we identified

For him to address later, and I was writing in cursive. I filled almost half the page when he

Asked me if I could print it or send it to him in an email, and when I agreed but asked why,

He told me he could not read cursive. We had quite a discussion, but he said he could neither read

Nor write cursive. I minimized my shock and sent the notes in an email, but I was profoundly

Depressed about this. I went home that day thinking he would not be able to read a facsimile or the

Original of the Constitution or any number of documents. It broke my heart. Yeah, we got a lot

Of responses like that. A lot. I’ve talked to my son about this who was not taught cursive in school

Either. He’s 11 now. Oh, he has. He can write his own name in cursive, but when you give him something

In cursive, he can figure it out. So I’m kind of wondering if we’re not really talking about

Teaching people to write cursive so much as we’re teaching them to read cursive. Oh, that’s an

Interesting point. You might have the knack for reading it and still not be able to write it.

So he says it’s fine.

He says he can manage it.

But I wanted to share one other tweet that we got.

This is somebody who goes by the handle Dr. C. Cole on Twitter.

And she’s a librarian and teacher in North Texas.

And she says, I work in archives, special collections, and frequently need to decipher handwriting from earlier eras.

Some of the undergrad student workers have trouble with this because they didn’t learn cursive.

Wow.

So this is almost a professional capacity where not having cursive is a problem.

It would be a detriment.

You would not be able to accomplish your job.

Right, if you’re working in the post office.

Right, yeah, absolutely, because plenty of people still write in cursive.

Yeah, but that’s an interesting point about being able to translate it rather than generate it.

Right.

But I do think that the point that people made over and over and over, very emphatically when they were writing to us,

Was that there are advantages to being taught to coordinate your hand and your mind with generating cursive writing.

I should note that I am no prime example of cursive writing.

I have been asked to use a laptop in school in order to write my exams because my handwriting was so terrible.

Nobody wanted to wade through 40 pages of a blue book in my handwriting.

Well, we’re still taking your calls and emails about it.

The address is words@waywordradio.org, and you can call us 877-929-9673.