SURVEY- WRITING WITH CURSIVE
As the (former) principal of a regional safe school, I have found that a great number of my students (students who have multiple suspensions or are expulsion eligible) cannot read or write cursive.
This means that any teacher who uses cursive on the chalkboard will encounter problems with these students. The last thing these students want to admit is that they cannot decipher what, it seems, everyone
else knows. They also cannot sign their names.
Cursive writing is certainly not nearly as important as it once was, however, there is still a place for it. I know this doesn't answer your questions, but I thought this information might be of interest as you look through the responses to come.
We start cursive writing in second grade. Our teachers ask that soem of their assignments be written in cursive. We don't push for cursive all the time after second grade.
Here is our expectations.
Develop cursive (2-3), Required in all Communicative Arts (4-5), Teacher choice (6-8.
1. 2nd grade cursive is taught
2. 3rd grade cursive is expected
3. NO, we do keyboarding in 4, 5, & 6th
Cursive writing is introduced at the second half of the year in second grade. There are normally two writing books for second grade. When they reach third grade, they should be using their cursive writing skills.
Interesting question. I would be interested in the responses, as well. We insist on cursive in 5th grade, but in 6th-8th let the kids write in whatever is neatest. Most of our L.A. work is wordprocessed by 7th grade.
At what grade is cursive writing taught? 2nd
2. At what grades are students expected to write in cursive? 2nd as soon as the letter is learned, so it starts as a combination of cursive and manuscript
3. Has any district or school stopped hitting cursive writing as hard in exchange for keyboarding? I question keyboarding. Right now, keyboards are in, but thumb boards are becoming the rage. I think it may be more important to teach understanding of the keyboard and what certain keys do. But it won’t matter because something new we can’t even imagine is coming down the pike….
I spent 12 years at the HS level, 5 as a teacher, 3 as a Dean, and 4 as a principal. I then came to my senses and got a gig as an Elementary Principal and I am in my 4th year there. So I will comment coming from that perspective.
1. 2nd and 3rd
2. 4th...some in 5th...not so much in 6th.
3. We have not but some have from the discussion on the list serve over the past few years.
Soap Box - As a HS teacher I hated to grade papers written in cursive.
Not only did I NOT require it...unless a student had pretty remarkable handwriting...I insisted it be printed or typed. I am not alone...in the two high schools I have been in this was a common approach by teachers.
In our school district I know of now teacher, beyond the 5th to 6th grade, who requires that their students write in cursive.
In the wake of NCLP/AYP, to be honest, I would love to drop cursive writing in place of more of the reading, math, social studies, and science. Here if my fear: Does learning to write in cursive give students an unseen and/or immeasurable edge academically because of something it may be doing positively to the child's mind that makes them a better student in other areas? This is a district where the elementary kids have done extremely well on state tests and I would hate to tinker with what's working. Now...if I could find some studies that show that without a doubt, cursive writing has absolutely zero academic benefits, then I would be very tempted to discuss cutting it from our curriculum.
I print everything (being a lefty I was never very good at handwriting) and for me it is a lost skill. Maybe that has influenced my thinking on the subject and maybe I am bias...but that's my take.
I have the same exact question. We start in 2nd grade. Students are taught upper and lower case cursive letters and how to join letters to form words. In third grade they write in cursive for 15 minutes, without the use of a designated program. In fourth grade they write all final copies in cursive (which I found is not done by all fourth grade teachers). Fourth grade teachers also write everything on the board in cursive. Fifth grade teachers require students to write everything in cursive. The teacher write everything on the board in cursive. Some 5th grade teachers are finding it difficult to accomplish this. If time is spent writing in cursive, what is lost? At sixth grade, they start using the word processor and cursive writing is not continued.
At what grade is cursive writing taught?Introduction to cursive in 3rd grade, direct instruction continues through 5th grade with specific program (Zaner-Bloser). Reinforcement on up the grades with the expectation that students are expected to write in cursive periodically.
2. At what grades are students expected to write in cursive?Beyond 3rd grade.
3. Has any district or school stopped hitting cursive writing as hard
in exchange for keyboarding? We teach keyboarding with direct instruction 5 days a week in 4th grade for 20 minutes a day during first semester. We then reteach the same keyboarding skills for the first quarter in 5th grade. After that, we do not complete direct instruction for keyboarding. We do have the CD Rom program available for all parents to purchase for practice at home.