Younger friends, can you write or read cursive? I’m curious.

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• Dennis G. Jerz I can tell you this - my son is 13 and they stopped texting cursive writing in his school district years ago - he could not read a work of cursive writing or sign his name- as a concerned and upset parent - I took it upon myself to teach him to write his signature - he will need this ability as he grows into an adult and I have worked with his so he can now read cursive handwriting - it was sad- he couldn’t even read a birthday card from his grandma- he can now! For me- a win for Mom!!!

  • Don Ammon nice!

  • I knew what you meant. It was a funny typo. I was 53 before I learned to text. Haha. And 6 when I learned cursive. Somehow it has gotten harder to read without a nun looking over my shoulder. I also have my grandmother's framed award for penmanship.

  • I corrected it! I meant to say teaching cursive

  • Did you mean to write "they stopped texting cursive?"

• I am 19 and can read that just fine. I can write it in lower case, the uppercase letters give me some trouble, I don’t remember them as well.

• No

• Ganley there's an intimate connection between writing and comprehension -- by which I mean the physical act of writing (rather than "keyboarding," one of my least favorite neologisms). Writing longhand in cursive is one of the most liberating experiences I can give to a student. Mine (French, American, even Panamanian) all comment on how helpful they find it. It's a skill we should not discard.

  • Anne, but one can still print and have the same exhilaration of crafting and creating. Additionally, while cursive works for you--and others, of course--there are many of this generation who find keyboarding (sorry) to equally as satisfying and productive.

    I relate cursive to stone carving, needlepoint, and papermaking. They're all skills that create something beautiful. And if you want to focus on the act of creation, then sure--keep going. However, for those of us who simply want a headstone, pillowcase, or sheaf of paper, the modern way works for us and might negate the need to teach it to everyone. My $0.02.

• But why do we care if people can read or write cursive?

  • I have no memory of the title of the movie or anything else, but as a teenager I remember seeing a scene from a black-and-white movie, in which a character opens a letter in the rain and a closeup shows the words dripping off the page (to a score punctuated with sweepingly emotional strings).

    A caption wouldn't convey the emotional impact of watching those words get blurry in the rain.

  • Dennis G. Jerz I can see your point about reading the letter in the movie. However, a simple caption, similar to a translated language, would suffice.

    As for historical documents, that’s different. German documents from the 1700s use an old script that I cannot read, even though I read and write in cursive.

  • Also, historians regularly deal with handwritten letters, notebooks, editorial marginalia.

  • In my specific case, I assigned a movie made in the 40s, that conveys information via closeups of handwritten note. Will my students need me to translate those notes? Would they bother to tell me if they couldn’t read such notes?

• i am having to teach more of my student assistants (undergrad) how to read it every year (an archives has lots of handwritten correspondence).

• My children learned French cursive (“attaché”) at school in France. They don’t teach children to print. They start in preschool (which is universal starting age 3), teaching kids to make swirls and loops for fine motor control. The teachers incorporate the loops and swirls into art projects. Then pre-K and K years they teach the writing. Lots of practice and activities, it’s a main focus of the curriculum. French handwriting is a big deal. Now my daughter is in 7th grade and all her classmates complain they can’t read her writing.

• My kids learn it at school. They must write in cursive by third grade.

  • Catholic school

• My students struggle to read it. The 8th grade English teachers at my school have found that we have to be careful when grading to write comments in print so that we don’t have to translate every comment that we write.

  • I'm 16 and I cant read cursive, OOF!

  • Thank you!

  • Kathleen Blake Yancey sure!

  • May I quote you on this point? I"m writing about just this topic.

  • Jeff Minkovich not in California!

  • I remember back in grade school the Nuns making us practice this over and over until it was correct and legible. is this not part of standard curriculum any longer?