WRITING

The Curse of Cursive

Penmanship, like hieroglyphics and the IBM Selectric, has lost its purpose. Let's erase it for good.

By Jessica Bennett | NEWSWEEK
Published Feb 14, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Feb 23, 2009

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  • Posted By: Bill Uvrites @ 03/16/2009 1:06:58 PM

    I am an occupational therapist working with preschool to post-highschool students. My take on handwriting is this - Children in the U.S. are being short changed in the neglect of handwriting instruction. Handwriting is a valuable cultural endeavor for much more than aesthetic and historic reasons alone. Requiring kindergarteners and beginning first graders to write is silly; at least a third of them don't have the fine motor or attentional skills to do so with good form, and many of them develop very bad habits that are carried over throughout their life. These kids are often the ones with complaints like the author of this article. From late first and second grade on, however, print and cursive are crucial parts of any school's curriculum because of this: It provides a micro gymnasium for the body and mind that no other activity can. Even though writing a letter occurs in a very small space, it requires a complex integration of movement, pressure, and visual processing. Angular, straight, and circular movements are all sequenced in a specific order within a contained space to imitate fairly complex visual images and motoric movements. This activity provides an organizing foundation for the central nervous system that other skills can be integrated with. The visual spatial and coordinative skills that develop within a highly structured handwriting curriculum provide a neural structure for organizing other kinds of information and skills. The idea that handwriting is no longer necessary because of technology is incorrect for this reason. Another reason that middle class professionals often don't think about is this - the world is still full of millions upon millions of people who will never own a computer and/or will never learn to type fluently.
    Research shows that students perform higher in other subject areas when they participate in a fully developed handwriting curriculum. Unfortunately, since curriculums across the U.S. are so crammed with peripheral content and schools spend so much time doing and teaching things that families should be responsible for, many gradeschool teachers do not have time for formal handwriting curriculums.
    When I look at my parent's handwriting and then my grandparent's handwriting I can see the unfortunate cultural decline from a time when people took pride in their handwriting, and took the time to make it a beautiful thing. Maybe somehow this idea can be ushered back into modern society, but right now I don't see that happening. One more reason for cursive - It can be fun. It really is...many cursive writers like myself love the activity of writing.

    • Posted By: erfpsalm @ 03/25/2009 9:17:29 AM

      Thank you for making this post. I am a special education teacher, and I have students who have problems with written expression or dysgraphia. I will eventually teach them to use a portable word processor (some of them), but I have learned that before they are able to produce using a word processor, they must first have handwriting skills. If I do not teach them to write first, they struggle withthe processor. Handwriting develops that eye-to-hand coordination they need to be able to effectively use the processor. Not only that, but 8 to 10 year olds do not have the hand size or developmental skills to effectively use a keyboard....it is too challenging. If they learn handwriting, and especailly cursive, they learn the keyboard faster and use it more effectively.

      Now, I have not done a scientific study on this.......I just know what 10 years of working with students who struggle to write has taught me in how to teach them. We need to preserve handwriting for all the reasons listed above, and the experiences thousands of teachers could express.........and not just to make our job easier.

    • Posted By: erfpsalm @ 03/25/2009 9:17:04 AM

      Thank you for making this post. I am a special education teacher, and I have students who have problems with written expression or dysgraphia. I will eventually teach them to use a portable word processor (some of them), but I have learned that before they are able to produce using a word processor, they must first have handwriting skills. If I do not teach them to write first, they struggle withthe processor. Handwriting develops that eye-to-hand coordination they need to be able to effectively use the processor. Not only that, but 8 to 10 year olds do not have the hand size or developmental skills to effectively use a keyboard....it is too challenging. If they learn handwriting, and especailly cursive, they learn the keyboard faster and use it more effectively.

      Now, I have not done a scientific study on this.......I just know what 10 years of working with students who struggle to write has taught me in how to teach them. We need to preserve handwriting for all the reasons listed above, and the experiences thousands of teachers could express.........and not just to make our job easier.

    • Posted By: erfpsalm @ 03/25/2009 9:15:59 AM

      Thank you for making this post. I am a special education teacher, and I have students who have problems with written expression or dysgraphia. I will eventually teach them to use a portable word processor (some of them), but I have learned that before they are able to produce using a word processor, they must first have handwriting skills. If I do not teach them to write first, they struggle withthe processor. Handwriting develops that eye-to-hand coordination they need to be able to effectively use the processor. Not only that, but 8 to 10 year olds do not have the hand size or developmental skills to effectively use a keyboard....it is too challenging. If they learn handwriting, and especailly cursive, they learn the keyboard faster and use it more effectively.

      Now, I have not done a scientific study on this.......I just know what 10 years of working with students who struggle to write has taught me in how to teach them. We need to preserve handwriting for all the reasons listed above, and the experiences thousands of teachers could express.........and not just to make our job easier.

  • Posted By: Emily B. @ 02/14/2009 11:49:39 PM

    There's no good reason for schools to be so fascistic about when kids "must" learn cursive, but I think we would indeed lose something if handwriting were to disappear.

    You think I'm out of touch, Ms. Bennett? I've resisted the call of Facebook so far, but I'm LinkedIn, get my music from iTunes, I e-mail all day long, just built my website, and run multi-media performances with my brand new MacBook. And I write letters not just to my grandparents, but to friends my age (26), and get handwritten letters in return. I keep a paper journal because I found that it's actually better for getting my feelings in order than typing; I hope that some great-granddaughter of mine will read them and derive comfort from them. When I was home last Christmas, I found a love letter from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother from their courtship in the 1920's--even knowing modern cursive well, I could barely read it, as it was in a very formal style, but being able to meant the world to me.

    A study a year or two ago even found that students who wrote their SAT-II essays in cursive scored higher on average than those who printed them--who knows whether it's because they're just able to get their thoughts onto paper faster, or because handwriting is linked to some deeper thought process?

    And I can well believe that you've been turned off to it by being forced into it too early (as can happen with reading or math as well for kids who aren't ready at the prescribed mandatory time). It was the end of 2nd grade when my class started learning, and 3rd before we were expected to use it on a regular basis. But it's really not that hard, considering its value as a link to our past, our future, and ourselves. You can quit if you want, though; it'll be your loss.

    • Posted By: italiclady @ 03/07/2009 1:52:42 PM

      Re:

      "A study a year or two ago even found that students who wrote their SAT-II essays in cursive scored higher on average than those who printed them" --

      If you look at the original study (or contact the Educational Testing Service, which commissioned the study), you'll find that the higher scores for cursive amounted to a fraction of a point on this examination consisting of several thousand points: statistically insignificant, the researchers concluded.

  • Posted By: italiclady @ 02/17/2009 10:31:08 AM

    If you invoke "our traditions" -- the cursive you defend has only existed for about 300 years. The first (and hence most traditional) handwriting books, about 500 years ago, used Italic (which looks like an efficient print-writing with occasional joins). Therefore, your call for tradition must logically support Italic as more traditional.

    • Posted By: IAmCordelia @ 03/01/2009 11:58:11 PM

      Oh really now? Cursive has only existed for about 300 years? I had no idea that Shakespeare, who wrote in a style shockingly similar to modern cursive, lived only 300 years ago. I am also shocked to learn that we live in the 14th century, as cursive styles came into used around 1000 AD.

      Writing is, and always has been, an evolutionary process. It will continue to change as we, as a people, also change. This is no reason to cut it off completely and begin communicating solely through computers.

      • Posted By: italiclady @ 03/07/2009 1:49:39 PM

        Shakespeare's writing (what we have of it) does not "shockingly resemble" today's cursive at all -- it employed a quite different style known as Secretary (now extinct), which would flunk in any cursive class of the past 300 years (and which people who know today's cursive usually cannot decipher). For instance, the Secretary capital "S" resembles a squared-off spiral or "6" -- not acceptable for "S" in any cursive class I ever attended. To see for yourself how vastly that style differs from anything called "cursive" these past 300 years (and to see for yourself how vastly handwriting called "cursive" in the Middle Ages differed from anything called "cursive" today), go to Google and look for sites on paleography (also spelled "palaeography"), the study of handwriting's history.

  • Posted By: italiclady @ 02/16/2009 10:46:28 PM

    If the difficulty of an endeavor guarantees its excellence -- for so argues "distantsmoke", it seems -- then by that logic we should abandon the alphabet entirely and return to the difficulties of hieroglyphs. We should, by that same reasoning, forbid the figures 0 through 9, and require all mathematics to employ Roman numerals -- and, when anyone complains, retort: "Apparently some things are just too hard for you."

    • Posted By: IAmCordelia @ 03/02/2009 12:05:11 AM

      Why would we return to hieroglyphs? Why would we return to Roman Numerals? Both of these systems were in use with entirely different language systems and did not readily survive the transition to English. Cursive is an integral part of our language system. If we still spoke Latin or Ancient Egyptian, then I would be arguing for Roman Numerals or hieroglyphs.

      • Posted By: italiclady @ 03/07/2009 1:43:19 PM

        Europe (including England) used Roman numerals almost exclusively till the 15th century, and side by side with today's "Arabic" numeration for a century or so after that.

  • Posted By: animecrazedfool @ 03/03/2009 8:47:51 PM

    I enjoy writing in cursive, and I understand that the style is dying. I think my school district should drop the class and begin teaching typing in third grade instead. Most just want to keep a tradition alive though, I'll keep writing in cursive though, and im 17 years old. I really hate to see our writing language evolve the way people say it will, into text speak. It drives me insane.

  • Posted By: chuckbowers @ 02/18/2009 10:41:40 PM

    I finally figgered this young lady (Jessica Bennett, may she print in peace!) out. She hates writing because she CAN"T write! How do I know that? I know it because she grasps her pencil with four curled fingers, in keeping with the awkward custom of the young. NO ONE .can write legibly, much less prettily, if one uses the pen like a spike driven through the fist.

    Miss (?) Bennett, go ahead and quit using cursive; your fine hand wont be missed. But, please, leave this old scripting septuagenarian's Constitution and John Hancock alone!

    • Posted By: IAmCordelia @ 03/01/2009 11:33:00 PM

      I take exception to this. I happen to write with four fingers curled around my pen, I use my pen "like a spike driven through the fist." I also happen to have very beautiful and elegant cursive which I write with exclusively. As I have recently learned, those who are more right-brained hold their pens like this. When I hold my pen "correctly," My handwriting is an illegible mess.

      As for Jessica Bennett, I have little clue as to what her issue with cursive is. Perhaps she was attacked by a giant cursive "Q" in her youth.

  • Posted By: catlover68 @ 02/19/2009 4:15:36 PM

    Cursive handwriting is a gift! I have an Aunt who has made it an artform. My Grandmother has gorgeous cursive handwriting and so did my Mother - I love reading the recipes they wrote and did not type. I think we have all developed a laziness about us - the fast food, the cell phone talking everywhere, the texting - half words??? What is that all about? Or letters for words.............we need to have everything "yesterday" - cursive takes more time but it is a part of us, it's part of our childhood for sure and who wouldn't love to receive a beautiful handwritten note! Let's not throw out everything we grew up with.

    • Posted By: Janababe @ 02/19/2009 4:30:01 PM

      Catlover68, I so agree. I, too, cherish the recipes handwritten on index cards by my mother, and added to the blank pages of an old cookbook by my grandmother. Then there are the notes my great-grandfather sent to his daughters when he was away on business; the short piece he wrote to his sister while he was a prisoner of war in Ohio in 1865; the query for a "date" from him to the woman who would become his bride: "May I request the pleasure of Eliza's company on Sunday?"

      And how could you not love the letter my great-aunt wrote to her parents detailing the train trip with my grandmother to New Orleans, where they stayed at the newly opened Hotel Montelone while she and my grandfather were wed in Mettarie?

      Jessica, do you save your emails for your children and grandchildren? I thought not.

      • Posted By: sellner @ 02/23/2009 3:44:35 PM

        I would suggest that perhaps her emails allow her to have much more frequent communications with her children and grandchildren. Although we don't "save" those on paper or even electronically, I would take a close relationship with my family over a saved letter any day! If cursive is an art form, then teach it in art class.

        • Posted By: IAmCordelia @ 03/01/2009 11:12:30 PM

          The close relationship one can have with someone online is a fleeting and unsatisfying one. There will come a day when, through a variety of circumstances, you will no longer be able to contact a person online. When all their messages are in your recycle bin, what will you have to look back on and treasure?

        • Posted By: Emily B. @ 02/23/2009 6:18:51 PM

          I mostly stay in touch with close friends by e-mail and phone, and just got dragged into facebook this week. But I still treasure their handwritten notes and letters as tangible reminders of the time they took to think of me at particular times.

  • Posted By: italiclady @ 03/01/2009 7:58:21 PM

    Actually, Noscoradnil/Linda Carson, about 3% of USA schools/districts do teach cursive as early as the first day of first grade. One school district (East Greenbush, NY -- within 50 miles of my home -- did so for fifty years until 2003 (not teaching or allowing print-writing until fourth grade) and gave up the practice only when students began transferring into and out of the district.
    As SCRIPT AND SCRIBBLE documents, until the 1920s or so *all* American schools followed a practice of cursive first (and printing never).

    Re: "."Nobody likes the letter "Q" that's why we teach it in an easier way now."
    Some handwriting programs have indeed gone to teaching a cursive "Q" that looks like a "Q" -- however, most of the USA's 200+ cursive handwriting programs cling fervently to the "2"-shaped model. (And most of the ones that did anything about the "Q" neglected applying similar logic to the rest of the cursive capitals.)_In at least one program, in some schools the change-over made things, well, interesting when students got the new textbooks while the previous "2"-shaped "Q" still inhabited the wall-charts and the minds of the teachers (teachers seldom open the teachers' manuals of handwriting programs) -- even five years after one school district had bought the new edition with the more legible "Q", teachers still took off points from the hjandwriting-assignment grades of any students actually using it (because the teachers "knew" that a "Q" had to resemble a "2", their students' "Q's" didn't any more, and the teachers hadn't even noticed that the manual had changed ... )

  • Posted By: Nosrocadnil @ 03/01/2009 12:53:10 AM

    Jessica Bennett needs a psychologist to solve her feelings of inadequacy about cursive writing. Normally cursive is not taught the "first week of school in the first grade!!" (or even the first month or year!) Certainly the letter "Q" would not have been taught that eaarly. Third grade usually is when cursive is taught (or possibly the last half of second grade.) Children need time to develop their manuscript style and become comforatble with writing in general. It seems Ms. Bennett was just venting her personal frustration at the letter "Q."Nobody likes the letter "Q" that's why we teach it in an easier way now.
    I agree withKitty Burns Florey.
    There are many not "out of touch" people who are concerned with the newest teaching techniques which ascribe to the "Dumbing Down" of American Education. These educators are too lazy to teach the basic fundamentals of education. They seem to be always looking for the shortest and easiest way - not the most effective way to teach.
    Ms. Bennett points out that in 2006 just 15% of the SAT takers used cursive on the written test. What she failed to mention was the 15% earned higher scores.
    She points out that penmanship was once taught for an hour each day and now warrants less tha 15 minutes per day. I have just realeased a book requiring only 10 minutes of instruction a day for 56 days. Students will become proficient in READING and WRITING cursive. I have done this for 36 years and it works!
    Of course there will always be students who struggle with cursive writing. However even those who struggle physically will be able to READ cursive after having been taught another way to write besides manuscript or as Ms. Bennett prefers "block lettering."
    Regarding the history argument, "if we can't read script we will lose our link to the past." That is true. Ms. Bennett's comment "no ordinary person is hitting up the original text of the Declaration anyway" is another weak or lazy argument. Patrick O'Neill, assistant principal of academics at St. Francis High School in Sacramento, said cursive is a necessary skill. "If our students can't read cursive there will be parts ofthe world they will not be able to access. Students must be able to access all forms of communication available today." Ms. Bennett's view into world educational expectations is very limited.
    Regarding Jon Hancock's signature, at least he HAD one. Many high school students today are practicing a peculiar "scribble" and calling it a signature. Have we gone so far backwards as to be signing our own name with an "X"? Will our millennial generation be cursive illiterate?

  • Posted By: Nosrocadnil @ 02/28/2009 8:04:37 PM

    I just wrote a long comment to Jessica Bennett's article on The Curse of Cursive and I didn't know where to sign my name. so here it is..........Linda Corson 4:00 PM February 28,1009 , email corsonl@bendbroadband.com
    My comment started out with:
    "Jessica Bennett needs a psychologist to solve her feelings of inadequacy......."

  • Posted By: Nosrocadnil @ 02/28/2009 7:30:36 PM

    I am the one who just sent you 2 other disscussion comments about Jessica Bennett''s article on "The Curse of Cursive" I forgot my user name . it is Nosrocadinl
    Hope this doesn't confuse everybody! Linda Corson

  • Posted By: Nosrocadnil @ 02/28/2009 7:28:22 PM

    I just wrote a long comment to Jessica Bennett's article on The Curse of Cursive and I didn't know where to sign my name. so here it is..........Linda Corson 4:00 PM February 28,1009 , email corsonl@bendbroadband.com
    My comment started out with:
    "Jessica Bennett needs a psychologist to solve her feelings of inadequacy......."

  • Posted By: Chicolini @ 02/27/2009 12:11:51 PM

    I believe many are missing an important element of cursive: speed. If I couldn't write in cursive, I don't think I would have been able to complete the many essays on the bar exam.

  • Posted By: tillotson @ 02/26/2009 12:22:51 PM

    Looks as if the vocational mindset is expanding still. Life and education are all about utility you say? Depends on how you define value. I have a box of letters I received while in the army, and I can't imagine how I might get the same snapshot of people and memories via Facebook or Twitter or any other social networking application, all of which will morph and change and maybe even die within the span of years (at best). The transcendentalists wrote at length about being annoyed by the inadequate flow of thought from their minds to the tips of their pens, thinking that writing could not express thought properly. I'm guessing they would think even less of the act of "writing" via email and social networking sites.

  • Posted By: tillotson @ 02/26/2009 12:22:21 PM

    Looks as if the vocational mindset is expanding still. Life and education are all about utility you say? Depends on how you define value. I have a box of letters I received while in the army, and I can't imagine how I might get the same snapshot of people and memories via Facebook or Twitter or any other social networking application, all of which will morph and change and maybe even die within the span of years (at best). The transcendentalists wrote at length about being annoyed by the inadequate flow of thought from their minds to the tips of their pens, thinking that writing could not express thought properly. I'm guessing they would think even less of the act of "writing" via email and social networking sites.

  • Posted By: pnlombardi @ 02/22/2009 6:17:05 AM

    read with great distain your Feb 23rd article by Jessica Bennett The Curse of Cursive. The only "curse" in her closed minded, immature journalistic approach is her pathetic topic.
    Perhaps Ms. Bennett has never re-read hand-written letters from deceased loved ones to understand the importance of penmanship.
    Penmanship is much more than a conglomeration of "loops and swirls" as she suggests, it is an individualized way of physically expressing one's self in the written sense.
    In a time when our country and world is fraught with struggle, I have found myself referring to numerous letters that my deceased father wrote to me over the years. His letters offer words of encouragement that only his penmanship can convey as his written words become his voice.
    I am a 43 year-old man who has prided myself on the fact that I take the time to sit down and hand write letters to friends and family for a variety of reasons. Doing so demonstrates to them that our relationship is meaningful enough for me to do so.
    Despite what she thinks, penmanship is alive and well in my home and many others.

    • Posted By: sellner @ 02/23/2009 3:41:06 PM

      I take the time to email and electronically converse with my loved ones. We can communicate much more often and at much less expense allowing us to be much more connected. My teens and I use texting as that is allowed in school as they can answer between classes. I agree that cursive is pretty and I also agree with the author that we have much more relevant skills to teach our children. We used to teach knitting and sewing to all girls and that has been phased out. I liken that to the phase out of teaching cursive. Just because I communicate electronically with my family does not mean I care less about them. Do you use electronic communication with your loved ones?

  • Posted By: aprilandowen @ 02/20/2009 10:56:44 PM

    I am so surprised by the comments about this article.
    As a student, I never understood the need for learning cursive. I rarely saw a handwritten note written in cursive. All the adults I knew printed. Why were hours devoted to learning how to make the perfect cursive capital Q? Couldn't we be learning something more relevant?
    Now as a teacher of special needs adults, I still have the same questions about the need for learning cursive and more. Will my students ever need to write cursive? No. Will it better their self esteem? I doubt it. When would they show off this skill? On job applications that ask them to print?

    • Posted By: sgoewey @ 02/22/2009 2:26:43 PM

      MY son has autism...one of the few things he does ABOVE grade level is cursive writing. And his teacher builds on that to improve his behavior, having him write in a book about what he did, why it was wrong, what he will do now instead. This strategy has been so successful...and now we do it at home. His timeouts (8 minutes) are spent writing in his composition book. He used to be unable to even SIT for 8 minutes. Now he sits AND writes. YES it betters his self esteem...because she is building on this strength of his...drawing from the right-side of his brain, helping him behave appropriately.

  • Posted By: pnlombardi @ 02/22/2009 6:15:49 AM

    Hey Jessica, If I could write you in cursive via the computer I would say Fa-Q.

  • Posted By: nickspenroom @ 02/20/2009 1:06:27 PM

    Poor little Jessica can't make a Q...scarred for life.....Teaching Cursive is a way for students to develope motor skills,
    assist in logical thought patterns and provides a small challenge that just may prepare the student for lifes bigger challenges. Plus there are countless situations in our lives where handwritting is necessary...Want to eliminate the Artists brush next in favor of an HP ink Cartridge???

    • Posted By: italiclady @ 02/21/2009 1:22:30 AM

      "Nickspenroom" -- you write:
      "Teaching Cursive is a way for students to ... assist in logical thought patterns."

      Please logically support your assertion that cursive makes people think more logically.

  • Posted By: pfliegma @ 02/20/2009 1:26:53 PM

    How interesting that Newsweek published an opinion that was the exact opposite of Ms. Bennett's in the November 2007 issue. The article was titled ???The Writing on the Wall??? by Raina Kelley. Where Ms. Bennett's article makes no attempt to understand or explore the actual learning process, Ms. Kelley's article contained the below quote in addition to other well thought-out comments regarding the education system.

    "If we stop teaching penmanship, it will not only hasten the dreaded day when brides acknowledge wedding gifts by e-mail; the bigger danger is, they'll be composed even more poorly than they already are."

    To expand on the ideas, or lack thereof, in Ms. Bennett???s article, one should only attend school until the third grade because after that the core classes are composed such things as reading, ???riting, and ???rithmetic ??? things that may be easily replaced by text-to-speech and speech-to-text software and calculators (a convenience on every cell phone). The first three years of schooling will then be composed of learning how to use the above mentioned items which, as everyone knows, should be easy for the toddler-set as they already show an interest in the remote.

    Students of the future are to be pitied. (Hey, that could be a tweet!)

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