Aw, honey

[checkers65477]

Conversation with a student this week:

Me: ...so, if you want to put a reserve on a book, you just write the title and your name here, and we'll let you know when the book is ready for you to pick up.
Student:  *writes*
Student, looks up at me, eyebrow raised: You can read cursive, can't you

Comments

[willow_41z]

I can read and write cursive, and I do sometimes! Not frequently, since my cursive is hard to read, but when I need to write quickly.

[checkers65477]

Yes, see, it IS faster than printing, don't you think? Very handy for those classes where you have to take a lot of notes.

[emerald_happy]

"While the terms cursive or script are popular in the United States for describing this style of writing the Latin script, this term is rarely used elsewhere. Joined-up writing is more popular in the United Kingdom, double writing and cursive is popular with Australian schoolchildren, and linking is more popular in New Zealand. The term handwriting is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand."

Thanks wikipedia. For a moment then I was so confused.

Here everyone writes cursive, had it drummed into me at school.

[checkers65477]

Interesting, Em. What do you call it?

Leave it to the Brits to still require it. They teach it here, briefly, but don't do any drumming.

[emerald_happy]

'Joined up writing' or just 'writing' and we call non joined up writing 'print'.

[pigrescuer]

''Joined up writing''sounds so Primary School. :D

I don't really understand why it's supposed to *not* be legible.

[rosaleeluann]

I can read and write in cursive, but I'm not sure about my younger siblings :D

[checkers65477]

My nephew, who is 13, recently had to sign something and had no idea how to write his name in cursive. He had to learn it and practice a bit so he could do it. Not quite as bad as making an X like they used to do (John Smith, his Mark), but still.

(edited for idiotic typot)

[hebe0]

I can't always read _my own_ joined up writing....

[checkers65477]

Me, too. When I try, it's very nice. Other times, my printing is much prettier.

[aged_crone]

I've read articles about all the benefits of teaching handwriting, and making children practice; all kinds of fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination and more. It's very odd that schools don't emphasize it, but of course they're too busy about teaching-to-the-standardized-test.

I have to say that when I saw your post, what I thought was:

CURSIVE!! FOILED AGAIN!!!

[checkers65477]

:) Ok, what cartoon character said that all the time?

[aged_crone]

I don't know!!!

[jade_sabre_301]

Yosemite Sam? Or Daffy Duck? I'm leaning towards Sam but I'm not actually sure.

Also the reason that nowadays they teach cursive in like third grade but never require kids to write in it is because they assume everyone will be typing. I think my eleven-year-old cousins were taught how to sign their names, and that was it. Which, again, I totally agree with what you say about fine motor skills and the like (I guess they get those from video games instead? :-b), but there you go.

It's like the death of diagramming sentences. Now, I doubt diagramming was ever widely taught up to its full potential, but I really wish I had had time to explore it more for its visual and kinesthetic possibilities--for students who need to see the whole sentence in bits. Anyway.