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The lost art of handwriting...

momhappy

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Dancing Fire|1364346831|3414143 said:
not only handwriting,but how many kids can solve a math problem w/o using a electronic calculator?... ::)

My kids are in public school and not only do they have to learn (and master) cursive, but they have to solve math problems by showing their work. They are not allowed to use calculators. Most of the basic stuff is still taught in school, so I'm not sure why people assume otherwise. Yes, I have read that some schools don't offer cursive, but I'm pretty sure that many of them require basic math knowledge that involves solving problems without electronic devices. In fact, the Common Core (which I don't care for) has been adopted by most states and there are very specific methods when solving math problems (and when it comes test time, the student must show their work or they don't get credit for it).
And thanks for sharing the article AGBF:)
 

Dancing Fire

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momhappy|1401839781|3685967 said:
Dancing Fire|1364346831|3414143 said:
not only handwriting,but how many kids can solve a math problem w/o using a electronic calculator?... ::)

My kids are in public school and not only do they have to learn (and master) cursive, but they have to solve math problems by showing their work. They are not allowed to use calculators. Most of the basic stuff is still taught in school, so I'm not sure why people assume otherwise. Yes, I have read that some schools don't offer cursive, but I'm pretty sure that many of them require basic math knowledge that involves solving problems without electronic devices. In fact, the Common Core (which I don't care for) has been adopted by most states and there are very specific methods when solving math problems (and when it comes test time, the student must show their work or they don't get credit for it).
And thanks for sharing the article AGBF:)
And that's the way it should be!...not that I can do it nowadays. The invention of the electronic calculator have killed my brain... :oops:
 

Sky56

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I have beautiful penmanship and do calligraphy, but I go the way of the modern world; 95% of my written communication are emails and texts. Plain, easy and fast.
 

AGBF

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Sky56|1401841928|3685980 said:
I have beautiful penmanship and do calligraphy, but I go the way of the modern world; 95% of my written communication are emails and texts. Plain, easy and fast.

The thesis of the researchers quoted for the article in, "The New York Times", however, is that the learning itself has value. And you already did that. (I really need to excerpt a bit of that article!)

Deb :wavey:
 

Sky56

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Not to mention that it is fun, too. I love to do penmanship, make home-made thank you cards, etc. but I am surely a computer junkie too. =)
 
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AGBF

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AGBF|1401842844|3685991 said:
Sky56|1401841928|3685980 said:
I have beautiful penmanship and do calligraphy, but I go the way of the modern world; 95% of my written communication are emails and texts. Plain, easy and fast.

The thesis of the researchers quoted for the article in, "The New York Times", however, is that the learning itself has value. And you already did that. (I really need to excerpt a bit of that article!)

Here are some excerpts from the article I mentioned above and in my posting to Sky56. They are from the article, "The Lost Art of Handwriting" published on June 2, 2014 in the Science section of, "The New York Times".

"Does handwriting matter?

Not very much, according to many educators. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in most states, call for teaching legible writing, but only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard.

But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.

Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.

'When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,' said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. 'There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain.

'And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,' he continued. 'Learning is made easier.'
A 2012 study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, lent support to that view. Children who had not yet learned to read and write were presented with a letter or a shape on an index card and asked to reproduce it in one of three ways: trace the image on a page with a dotted outline, draw it on a blank white sheet, or type it on a computer. They were then placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again.


The researchers found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that are activated in adults when they read and write: the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex.


By contrast, children who typed or traced the letter or shape showed no such effect. The activation was significantly weaker.
Dr. James attributes the differences to the messiness inherent in free-form handwriting: Not only must we first plan and execute the action in a way that is not required when we have a traceable outline, but we are also likely to produce a result that is highly variable.
That variability may itself be a learning tool. “When a kid produces a messy letter,” Dr. James said, “that might help him learn it.”
Our brain must understand that each possible iteration of, say, an “a” is the same, no matter how we see it written. Being able to decipher the messiness of each “a” may be more helpful in establishing that eventual representation than seeing the same result repeatedly.
...​
The effect goes well beyond letter recognition. In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns — and each results in a distinct end product. When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas. And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory — and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.

It now appears that there may even be a difference between printing and cursive writing — a distinction of particular importance as the teaching of cursive disappears in curriculum after curriculum. In dysgraphia, a condition where the ability to write is impaired, usually after brain injury, the deficit can take on a curious form: In some people, cursive writing remains relatively unimpaired, while in others, printing does.

In alexia, or impaired reading ability, some individuals who are unable to process print can still read cursive, and vice versa ....

Dr. Berninger goes so far as to suggest that cursive writing may train self-control ability in a way that other modes of writing do not, and some researchers argue that it may even be a path to treating dyslexia....

Cursive or not, the benefits of writing by hand extend beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information. Not only do we learn letters better when we commit them to memory through writing, memory and learning ability in general may benefit."
(snip of rest of article)​

AGBF
 

Sky56

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Thanks, Deb!
 

Meezermom

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I only write in cursive, as I just find it more comfortable. What a shame that it's just one more "skill" that's going to disappear.
 

packrat

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They learn it in 3rd grade here. Required to do their spelling words in cursive. Fourth grade, it wasn't required for anything. I am also a mixer, a cursive printer. Sometimes I get kind of crazy in my writing and too flourishy and it's not pretty, then other times it looks nice. I need certain kinds of pens to write with for whatever reason or it looks horrible.

They don't seem to put much stock in starting at the left margin, or indenting for paragraphs. London now writes so that each line on the page indents a little farther.....and a little farther, until at the bottom of the page she's got like one or two words on the line, clear over on the right hand side.

They have to show their work, but they get a problem with four parts or a long multiplication/division and have a teeny 2"x2" square to do it in. And they have to show their work, plus write the entire problem out on the side too, w/just the answer. They don't use lined notebooks like we used to.
 

Stephny691

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Okay, am I misunderstanding cursive? It's just joined up hand-writing right? With capitals at the beginning of sentences and the rest of the words in lower-case?
I'm just double checking.

I'm 26ish, when I was in school we got taught joined-up handwriting, and my Dad despaired because of how ungodly messy my handwriting was (and most certainly is). He really tried to get me to have neat hand-writing and my Mum (who was a teacher) told him to leave me be, she said some people have good handwriting, some people have bad handwriting.
I think he associated handwriting with intelligence, and thought that because my handwriting is messy people would think I'm stupid. Mum said it was nonsense and I agree with her.
I think as long as people can read your writing (which they can just about do with mine) and your spelling and grammar are good then I don't see a problem. I have more of a problem with children not being able to read or spell properly than I do with handwriting.
 
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AGBF

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It's time to revive this thread! "The New York Times" has an article in today's paper on the revival of cursive writing. I gleaned from the article that schools had been allowing it to fall from their curricula for a few years, but that now some are making it mandatory again. Some of the reasons schools want to add it are reasons posters on Pricescope gave for wanting to preserve it when this thread was first active. (I just read through it to refresh my memory of the thread.) We have some pretty intelligent posters here. Diamondseeker had nailed the point that writing is cursive helps some children with learning disabilities, a point made in the recent "The New York Times" article. :))

Cursive Seemed to Go the Way of Quills and Parchment...https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/13/education/cursive-writing.html
 

violet3

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I really think they should teach it, but they don't. What a shame. I can remember getting graded on it in elementary school, and now kids can't even read cursive. I definitely don't allow my students to hand write things, because 1. It's college. and 2. I CANNOT READ IT at all sometimes.
 
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JPie

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I’m so glad it’s making a comeback! I save cursive for thank-you notes in general and love letters for my husband. It’s all emails at work these days.
 

Tacori E-ring

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I only write in cursive. I have very unique handwriting.
 
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strawrose

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I only write in cursive to sign important documents. Thankfully, it’s still pretty. :D

On another note, I have a hard time distinguishing between Russian writers when they give me a note. They only write in a certain type of cursive, so it was confusing for a while. “That’s not her handwriting. It’s mine! How can you not tell?” I figured it out, eventually. :lol:
 

AV_

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You are reminding me of my handwriting dying: the literature teacher would call me to read my own thesis for her to grade... I was so baffled that she still wanted to go through the text!

Using typescript saved me from illiteracy back then, not anymore.
 
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