What Happened To Cursive Writing ?

[ghanashyam]

When I was in school there was this small thing in English course, CURSIVE WRITING, like this.

But to my knowledge no longer cursive writing is being taught in school in India, it has just vanished.

Do they teach it in your nation?

[rgaz83]

I am in America and it's swiftly becoming a thing of the past. Cursive is being pushed aside, in favor of teaching "more relevant skills". I think it's a shame, because I wish I had been taught cursive better. My handwriting is terrible, even though I still write plenty for a variety of reasons.

[LauraM]

I am in America and it's swiftly becoming a thing of the past. Cursive is being pushed aside, in favor of teaching "more relevant skills". I think it's a shame, because I wish I had been taught cursive better. My handwriting is terrible, even though I still write plenty for a variety of reasons.

Yes, unfortunately that is what's happening in the U.S. at least in the public schools.  Cursive writing is being eliminated. 

I did have a chance to learn it when I was in elementary school.  I think it's an important skill to have.  My handwriting isn't all that great, and I tend to print when someone else has to read it.  But having the skill of a "fast longhand" is very handy for jotting down notes. 

[sayitwell]

it is odd that they are taking it out of the curriculum.  what's next to go, spelling?  after all, computers have spell checkers so why bother to learn spelling, right?  i'm being sarcastic.  i also learned cursive in elementary school and i thought it was interesting.  i doesn't have much utility though.

[Miya]

It sucks that they don't teach cursive any more, but I can see why. I don't know anyone who actually uses cursive on a daily basis. Even signatures nowadays don't have to be in cursive. I remember back then signatures were in cursive and now they are just scribbles 

With the current technology boom, they might as well teach students how to type instead.

[sayitwell]

Can anyone come up with any examples of people using cursive writing?  The only one that I can think of is using cursive for our signatures.  It would be sad if the only cursive that these young kids knew was the letters to their own names.

[Katewon1]

I am in America and it's swiftly becoming a thing of the past. Cursive is being pushed aside, in favor of teaching "more relevant skills". I think it's a shame, because I wish I had been taught cursive better. My handwriting is terrible, even though I still write plenty for a variety of reasons.

I agree. My cursive writing is pretty bad too. I did learn in elementary school, but by middle school it was no longer required. I stopped writing in cursive because I was always pretty slow with it and I can write much faster in print. But as a consequence my cursive looks like a third grader's. And although I do somewhat agree that cursive writing is not as important as it once was, I still think it should be taught in schools. I think everyone should have the ability to read in cursive and kids won't be able to if they never learn it.

[polybus]

I learned cursive writing in school in Canada, but I believe it stopped shortly after I left.

A funny thing happens at my work these days. If one of the older guys has to write something down on paper, they will usually write in a beautiful cursive writing. Many of the other employees at my work do not speak English as a native language or are quite younger and have problems reading cursive writing, so I always have to "translate".

[Sness]

Can anyone come up with any examples of people using cursive writing?  The only one that I can think of is using cursive for our signatures.  It would be sad if the only cursive that these young kids knew was the letters to their own names.

Here in Chile, and I guess in most of the countries that speaks Spanish, kids are taught first cursive and then, what we call, imprenta (print/block letter). Calligraphy is a big part of the whole primary education and the children are encouraged to use cursive over print. So here most of the people use cursive or a mix of cursive and print. It's funny because I was taught that print was for English and math

[DiesIrae]

I'm not sure if it's being taught still in the Philippines. I can still write in cursive and my signature is in it but I don't really use it, especially when I mostly type these days. It's a fun thing to do if ever you want to seem old fashioned. I do know some movies still use it to show how people used to write.

[nkaujntses]

I live in California, USA and cursive is still being taught in the school district I live in. Starting from kindergarten, the students learn the D'Nealian style of handwriting. The D'Nealian print is easier for students to transition into cursive. They start the transition at the end of first grade and beginning of second grade.

Cursive is such beautiful writing. I am not sure why it's starting to phase out. I write in cursive most of the time. My print is not as pretty as my cursive writing.

[MyDigitalpoint]

I believe cursive writing is becoming story in most countries around the world, and even in those where it is still taught, children are encourage to use a "more clear" writing  option when they have to fill out a form or their exams.

I also learned cursive writing at school, and still use it from time to time, but young people get truly impressed with this type of writing and many of them don't even know how someone can write this way!

[ghanashyam]

it is odd that they are taking it out of the curriculum.  what's next to go, spelling?  after all, computers have spell checkers so why bother to learn spelling, right?  i'm being sarcastic.  i also learned cursive in elementary school and i thought it was interesting.  i doesn't have much utility though.

Yes, the spellings will also go. There are already texting words like R for ARE and U for YOU, TXS for Thanks. These days, most of the work in office is done on computer so the writing itself has reduced except in schools where the teachers themselves have poor skill of English grammar.

[Beverly]

This post reminds me of this article that I read lately http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/08/20388506-technology-may-script-an-end-to-the-art-of-cursive-writing?lite . Check it out. It's an interesting article and I think it hit the mark.

When I was at school,we had a 'writing class' where we had to write cursive writing and our teacher was so strict. It had to be precise and looked nice or she'd have you rewrite it. Some schools in my country still teach cursive writing to kids who just learn how to write alphabets.

I always think cursive writing is a very sexy and beautiful writing.

[limon]

Yeah, I had to learn it, we had little workbooks for that express purpose.

I like it a lot, and appreciate it as a skill in the same way I appreciate calligraphy, but I wouldn't expect kids coming up to need it, anymore than it would have been expected of me to know how to use a fountain pen.

I'm still pretty decent at it if I want to be, but I'm not sure it is that useful a skill for most people. As long as they can write legibly it's fine surely.

[JulesX]

I am from Grenada, where cursive is indeed fast becoming a thing of the past.

I learned to write cursive in primary school, that was about 20 years ago. I took pleasure in writing letters to my family and friends, showing them my "beautiful hand writing". However, when I started to teach, I was informed by my students that they did not know what that was. At first, I thought they were simply trying to give me a hard time, but the reality was even worse. Not only were they not acquainted with cursive, but most of them had terrible penmanship skills. I brought this issue to the principal, who stated that "we have to work with what they gave us".

I believe that the mastery of simple skills, such as cursive writing, gave student a sense of achievement and motivated them to try to master other more difficult tasks.

Due to the recent  introduction of computers in most schools, I doubt I will ever see any emphasis placed on Cursive writing again. 

[aditk8149]

The cursive handwriting is not vanished totally, it is just that people are not willing to take it due to the efforts involved in developing it.

People are currently learning to write by the usual method which does not involve cursive.

The people who learnt this writing back in the days, are able to direct the current generation, but not totally!

This makes people be very reluctant to write cursive English!

[jodiann12]

Cursive writing is still being taught at the elementary/primary school level in my country. I also occasionally see some persons using cursive writing when producing hand written documents; but since many persons are now using word processing programs, there's no need to use cursive writing so much nowadays.

[jodiann12]

This post reminds me of this article that I read lately http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/08/20388506-technology-may-script-an-end-to-the-art-of-cursive-writing?lite . Check it out. It's an interesting article and I think it hit the mark.

When I was at school,we had a 'writing class' where we had to write cursive writing and our teacher was so strict. It had to be precise and looked nice or she'd have you rewrite it. Some schools in my country still teach cursive writing to kids who just learn how to write alphabets.

I always think cursive writing is a very sexy and beautiful writing.

Thank you Beverley for the link to that NBC article. I found it very interesting and informative. I found out about Jan Olsen, the founder of Handwriting Without Tears, that she is teaching students cursive writing using the vertical stroke instead of the slant stroke which was adapted in the 20th, 19th, and earlier centuries. I still think cursive writing is needed when wanting to master the art of calligraphy. Technology is also integrating the use of cursive writing through the use of tools such as the stylus. Evernote now has an app that you can use on your iPad along with a stylus; so, technology is not banishing cursive writing forever.

[polaroidsredwine]

I have a friend who's about a decade younger than me and still in school and she doesn't know cursive since they did not have it in her curriculum back in elementary school.  Kind of tragic.

I think cursive can still be relevant.  When taught properly, you learn to write with your whole arm and not just your wrist (at least in the Spencerian method), which promotes more fluid and clear writing.  So many people these days have such bad handwriting, it should be a crime.

On the bright side, I see booming business for people to do calligraphy and nice handwriting on things like wedding invitations.

[Dame6089]

It is strange to me that I was taught cursive so much as a child, only to never use it as an adult. I remember having to write a paragraph on the SATs in cursive. It was the hardest part of the test because I hadn't used it in so long.

[pandandesign]

It depends on what school you are heading and the kind of teachers you have. Some teachers do teach students to write cursive because it is part of the requirement. I am required to write cursive in one of my classes, which is writing prescription for vision patients. I think cursive writing is still around, but not as much as used to back in the days.

[calticitron]

Most Catholic schools in my country taught cursive writing when I was still in elementary. I have no idea if they stopped teaching this nowadays, but if they did, I think it is because of the influence typography has on everyone. You don't really see anyone using cursive writing all over the web and print, unless it's used for decorative purposes. Hopefully, schools are still teaching cursive writing to children. It doesn't hurt to have good handwriting skills for when you don't have access to a computer. 

[Dame6089]

It doesn't surprise me that kids aren't learning cursive anymore. I was born in the 90s and cursive was pounded into our heads during elementary school. Wants we reached middle school, we rarely ever used it. There really isn't any need to waste any more time on something that kids aren't going to use very often.

[Baburra]

I don't know because I've been out of school for a long time now and have no idea what they're teaching kids these days, but I think it would be a terrible loss if they stopped teaching this to kids. I personally think it would be best to keep kids as prepared as possible for situations wherein they don't have keyboards or the internet.