O’Brien 1
Deborah L. O’Brien
Sister Lucia Treanor, F.S.E.
WRT 150-51
31 March 2010
Should We Erase Cursive Writing From Our Future?
Like many students, I learned cursive writing in the third grade. Each day after recess, the other students and I would reach into our desks, remove our blue-lined paper and eraser-less pencils, and begin laboriously to practice the swirls, curlicues, and dips that made us feel like the big shot fourth graders who had already cracked the code of this secret communication used by our parents and other adults. Sister Mary Catherine would walk up and down the rows of desks carefully monitoring our progress. She would remind us to sit erect and hold our pencils correctly while we regularly glanced at the banner of perfectly formed letters that ran the length of the blackboard just beyond her tidy desk. Sister’s goal, of course, was to have each of us produce precisely spaced, perfectly formed, and pleasingly legible letters. Our goal was to earn the gold star that she would put on the top of our paper if we somehow got it all right.
Various forms of cursive writing—the style of writing in which all of the letters in a word are connected through one stroke—have been around for centuries. However, due to technological advancements in the last few decades (specifically the introduction of computers and cell phones), students today would rather e-mail, text, and instant message than handwrite personal notes, school papers, or to-do lists. Consequently, cursive writing, as well as penmanship in general, appears to be on the decline, and there is great debate as to whether or not cursive writing is a skill that is still worth teaching. Despite my emotional attachment to, and reverence for, cursive writing, I see an end to this type of script. Printing already exists, and it is an effective form of written communication. In addition, technological changes, and a dearth of training and time in a teacher’s busy day, have prompted the elimination of cursive writing.
The Value of Cursive Writing
Samuel L. Blumenfeld, author of Homeschooling: A Parents [sic] Guide to Teaching Children, attempts to give a compelling argument in favor of cursive writing. Blumenfeld points out that “educators now tell us that children no longer need to be taught handwriting because they now have typewriters, computers, word processors, and laptops to do the writing for them” (25). He points out, however, that handwriting is a skill that is needed throughout life, and that “you can’t carry a laptop or a word processor everywhere you go” (25). Blumenfeld is adamant that children should be taught “standard cursive writing from the very beginning” (25). He adds that many of the letters printed in the “ball and stick” (manuscript/block/printed) method look alike and because children learning to write are confused by those similarities, they make mistakes. With cursive writing, he argues:
…children do not confuse b’s and d’s because the movements of the hand—the muscular reflexes—make it impossible to confuse the two letters. And this knowledge is transferred to the reading process. Thus, by teaching children the distinctive differences between letters, learning to write cursive helps learning to read print. (28)
Blumenfeld contends that another advantage of cursive writing is that the repetitive motion helps students spell better because the hand movements compliment the spelling patterns and work together much like the muscle memory enjoyed by pianists and typists (28). Blumenfeld further maintains that good handwriting will enhance a student’s academic self-esteem. He claims that “it helps reading, it helps spelling, and because writing is made easy, accurate, and esthetically pleasant, it helps thinking” (30). Blumenfeld encourages parents who homeschool, as well as teachers in school systems, to continue the instruction of cursive writing.
We Still Know How to Print
Contrary to Blumenfeld’s arguments, there are many reasons why cursive is no longer essential today, and printed script can instead meet all business, social and academic needs. It is my contention that if students are taught to print, expected to practice routinely, and allowed to avoid the interruption of cursive training, they will improve their printing skills and ultimately avoid “letter confusion” that results in difficulties with reading. They will also benefit from the repetitive hand movements that will help their spelling, and they will learn to print more legibly, which will increase their academic self-esteem. Students (and adults) must obviously possess the ability to communicate in writing, and their penmanship needs to be legible, but this social intercourse can satisfactorily be accomplished through printing rather than by means of cursive writing. The choice to remove cursive from academic curricula is also supported by many experts who agree that it is a mistake to introduce cursive once students have already begun to master printing. When elementary students are taught cursive, Dr. Vi Supon, Professor at Bloomburg University, explains:
Letter configurations change dramatically. For example, the letter “S” in (manuscript) block print is one style; in cursive it is another style. Students have to learn a new set of alphabet letters (both upper and lower case),connect [sic] those letters to make words, write sentences, develop paragraphs and execute essays. (357)
With the elimination of cursive, confusion and frustration are avoided, and more time can be spent on perfecting printing and incorporating technology into the classrooms. As Blumenfeld himself admits, “Children will only make the effort to learn one primary way of writing which they will use for the rest of their lives. They don’t need to be taught three ways, two of which will be discarded” (30). Caitlin Carpenter’s Saturday Evening Post article echoes this sentiment:
Kate Gladstone is a “handwriting repair expert” in New York. She is not surprised to see cursive going the way of the dinosaur, with only 15 percent of adults using cursive after high school. She’s not disappointed. She disagrees with the idea that students should first learn to print and then to write in cursive. “You don’t teach some English by first teaching Chinese,” Ms. Gladstone says, “We need to decide what the best way to handwrite is and just teach that.” (35)
Educators need to make a choice, and manuscript writing is the method they should choose.
Despite the advent of laptops, iPhones, and other technological means of communication, the need to write by hand will always be a part of our lives. People will continue to write messages in birthday cards, scribble grocery lists, and jot down impromptu notes during unscheduled meetings. The ability to write will continue to be imperative, but the method we use will be printing rather than cursive, and it seems this has already come to pass. Most students, and many adults, choose to print rather than use cursive for the bulk of their writing. Jessica Bennett, senior writer for Newsweek, reports that “just 15 percent of SAT takers used cursive on the written test.” That information precipitated a study of my own. I asked 60 Grand Valley State University students whether they used printing or cursive writing to take notes in their classes. Every student said they print their notes. (A few of the students answered that they use technology—laptops, recorders, electronic tablets—to take their notes, but when pressed, they agreed that when they do not have their computers, they print their notes.) The most common reason given for printing notes rather than writing them in cursive was that their cursive is “sloppy,” but their printing is “neater and easier to read.” My assumption was that I, on the other hand, wrote my notes in cursive or used a hybrid of cursive and printing. However, when I reviewed all of my class notes, I discovered that they were printed rather than written in cursive. This was surprising to me. Unlike many of my fellow students, I actually like cursive writing, and I would have guessed that when the need to take notes quickly was required, I would have responded in cursive. Clearly, current students of all ages view printing as the efficient and legible script of choice—even those who spent years perfecting the art of cursive.
In a more scientific study, Harry Houston, author of multiple books and articles regarding writing, shares an experiment conducted in two first-grade classes at a Connecticut elementary school. For this trial, one school used manuscript writing and the other used cursive. The outcome indicates that manuscript writing provides an advantage when it comes to initiating writing. Houston further reveals, “The results show distinctly that during the first three months pupils can master manuscript more readily than they can learn cursive writing” (117). At odds with Blumenfeld’s statement above, Houston adds, “The reading-test results show that there is some advantage in exposing beginners to print exclusively as against using both cursive and print writing” (118). Houston also notes that the teachers involved in this experiment were enthusiastic about continuing to use manuscript writing, and in the five other schools where manuscript writing had been used, the teachers reported that it aided “reading, spelling, and the expression of ideas,” and that no “teacher has asked to return to cursive writing” (118). It’s obvious that many educators are in agreement with today’s students that print is the script of choice.
Many adults admit that they rarely have the opportunity to use cursive. They use computers all day at work, they email co-workers who are sitting in the next cubicle, and they text, rather than call, to keep tabs on their children. As Bennett puts it, “The only time I pen a handwritten letter is when I write to my grandmother. So when I hear people say that penmanship is dead, my response: it’s about time.” Tom Breen, author and Associated Press reporter, quotes Steve Graham, professor at Vanderbilt University, who quips, “It isn’t as if all those adults who learned cursive years ago are doing their writing with the fluent grace of John Hancock.” According to Kathleen Wright, the national product manager for handwriting at Zaner-Bloser, “It’s common for adults to write in a cursive-print hybrid” (qtd. in Breen). Apparently, the surveyed students at GVSU are not the only ones who have discarded cursive. Even adults who did not grow up using computers, but instead were taught the importance of cursive writing, are no longer using that style of script when they communicate. Therefore, although I agree with Kitty Burns Florey, author of Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting, that “there’s simply too much to be lost by allowing the written word to fade into irrelevance” (qtd. in Bennett), the written word can, and should be, legibly printed rather than carefully rendered in cursive.
Keyboards versus Cursive
For several years, educators have been involved in passionate discourse about introducing students directly to keyboarding once they have learned how to print, completely bypassing time-consuming and tedious cursive drills. Many curricula have already been adjusted to include an emphasis on keyboarding instruction rather than cursive writing. Breen opines, “Students accustomed to using computers to write at home have a hard time seeing the relevance of hours of practicing cursive handwriting.” Katie Van Sluys, professor at DePaul University and president of the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English, adds, “They’re writing, they’re composing with these tools at home, and to have school look so different from that set of experiences is not the best idea” (qtd. in Breen). As long as students can print and use a keyboard they will have the skills they need to communicate effectively through written words despite the absence of cursive.
Although not everyone has fully embraced the computer age, computers are the tools of choice for most students and professionals when writing for school or for work. And while we have not yet reached the point where there is a computer in every household, they are easily accessible at work, in school, and at the public library. As Dennis Baron, author of A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution, points out, “Children are taking control of the design of their school writing even as they learn to write, and handwriting, which often posed an insurmountable aesthetic stumbling block for some young writers, has been replaced in many curricula by keyboarding” (229). Cheryl Jeffers, a professor at Marshall University’s College of Education and Human Services, agrees, adding, “I am not sure students have a sense of any reason why they should vest their time and effort in writing a message out manually when it can be sent electronically in seconds” (qtd. in Breen). Writing on a computer is faster and neater than cursive writing, and it’s also easier to locate and correct mistakes. Therefore, students, as well as other writers, can focus on the content of their writing rather than the curve or slant of their script. Jack McGarvey, a middle school teacher in Connecticut, quoted by Tamara Plakins Thornton in Handwriting in America: A Cultural History, recommends, “the booting out of cursive and the booting up of computers” (177). It’s time to retire the Palmer Method cursive workbooks and instead plug in the laptops.
Lack of Time and Training
Keyboarding instruction has now taken the place of lessons in cursive because overstressed teachers say they no longer have the time or the training to effectively teach these protracted and tedious loops and swirls. Rosemary Sassoon, author of Handwriting of the Twentieth Century, empathizes, “Teachers themselves cannot and should not be blamed for what happened” (141). She goes on to quote Wallis Myers who explains, “With so many language needs to be met, there was little time to correct letter formation or spacing” (141). The increased amount of time spent preparing for standardized testing, the need to incorporate technology, and the additional demands placed on teachers today simply do not allow enough time in the school day to continue teaching the antiquated art of cursive. A 2007 study confirms that although penmanship used to be taught for an hour each day, students now receive less than 15 minutes of instruction only a few times per week (Bennett). Carpenter adds: